How to publish with FH Münster

When to use: 

• if you aim to publish an article, whitepaper, report, or similar outputs that have been developed as FH Münster project
• FH Münster = a research, teaching, business or other project developed in your role at FH Münster; simple check: does it have to be in the FH Münster Corporate Design? If yes, this guideline likely applies to your project; e.g., whitepapers, articles, project reports published as FH Münster (example: New Work Whitepaper)
• it does not apply to projects with an own branding; especially E+ projects

The main purpose of this guideline is to outline how to publish with FH Münster as publisher. The whole process is also outlined here. 

The following steps add to the guidelines of the FH Münster publisher and outline internal learnings on how to proceed.

Step-by-Step Guideline

Status-quo: You have finalised the manuscript or presentation you want to publish.

1. Align the design of the publication.

As your project and the output, that you would like to publish, have been developed as part of your role at FH Münster, the output has to be published in the Corporate Design of FH Münster. 

1.1. Check the Corporate Design Manual.

This is the Corporate Design Manual of FH Münster (Please check whether an updated version exists!). You do not have to know the Design Manual by heart, but please check it out to ensure your output fits the layout. 

1.2. Decide who can / should create the design.

The design manual is quite complex and has to be fulfilled. 

There are four options:

• You can hire a design agency to do the design for you. There is a list of agencies that FH Münster works with and who know the design well (List of design agencies). Be aware that the costs might be high (e.g., a whitepaper with 28 pages and a lot of graphics = around 3,000€). Do you have the budget for this?
• Check out existing templates from earlier publications that we are allowed to use. (e.g., New Work Whitepaper)
• Create the design yourself or ask a design Hiwi to help you. If the design is not too complex, this might be an option. But be aware of the little details of the design manual.
• Check whether the marketing department of FH Münster might be responsible for this. In some rare cases, it could be possible that you can ask the marketing department to do the design for you. So far, this only applied to publications that the marketing department also initiated (e.g., article in Fhocus). But it might be worth it to check with the S2B team whether this could apply.

2. Double-check the design and legal requirements.

Double-check design

It makes sense to inform the marketing department about the upcoming publication and to send a first draft design to them to check whether it is in line with the design manual. 
→ Contact Diana Jansing from the department University Communication and Marketing. 

Double-check legal requirements

As FH Münster is a public university and receives public funding, we are not allowed to communicate links to companies or other external organisations if it could appear as "marketing / sales for the company". For example, we are not allowed to link the website of companies on our homepage or even in LinkedIn postings. Be aware that these kind of links can create serious penalties for FH Münster!

Thus, if your output has been created in collaboration with another organisation and both are mentioned in the publication, please contact the legal department to double-check whether you align with the regulations. 

Moreover, it is important to check who has the copyright for the publication.

→ Contact Klaudia Buddemeier from the Justiziariat.

For example: Check out the New Work Whitepaper which has been created in collaboration with Noventum. The main question was "how is the collaboration set up?". Is it a collaboration with equal contribution from both parties? Or have you, as FH Münster, led the project and the other partner is only a participant or similar?

→ Important: All publications have to appear as FH Münster is the lead organisation and initiator as university, while other organisations are collaborators or are associated with the project. 

→ First guiding rules: the set-up of the collaboration has to be made clear in the publication; company logos and names can be used; website links to the companies are not allowed; the FH Münster logo is always on top and always leading; all other logos and links are "in addition" and rather on the bottom.

→ For details, check with the legal department.

3. Organise the publication with FH Münster as publisher

While you can also contact the FH Münster publisher earlier, this is now the point where you really need them. This page contains the main information about FH Münster publisher.

→ Contact Klaus Buddemeier or someone else from the library department.

What you need to do:

• Inform them about the status of the publication (designed in the FH Münster design manual; checked by legal department)
• Tell them whether you would like to have an ISBN for the publication (costs: around 100€)
• Create an imprint (=impressum) using their templates.
• Add the publication to opus using the ISBN.
• Decide whether you also want a DOI - for rather scientific publications you want a DOI. 
• Decide which license you would like to use for this publication - for scientific publications, you typically use "Creative Commons Attribution license (CC BY 4.0)".

This is the information that you will need:

• Authors:
• Title of publication:
• Subtitle of publication (optional):
• Publisher: FH Münster University of Applied Sciences, Münster
• Year of Publication:
• ISBN (provided by FH Münster library):
• Type of publication (e.g., book, presentation, conference paper, peer-reviewed article, etc.):
• License (typically Creative Commons Attribution license (CC BY 4.0):

4. Finalise the publication.

4.1. Add the ISBN / DOI to your publication document.

Make sure that the ISBN / DOI / or other is mentioned in the imprint of the publication.

4.2. Get the final document to be uploaded to opus.

Send the final document to the FH Münster library contact to be added to the opus system.

4.3. Disseminate the publication

Congratulations! Your publication is finally published.  

You can now:

• Print it and disseminate. 
• Add to your researcher profile (e.g. research gate).
• Distribute as LinkedIn posting.
• etc.