Publication of Theses

Some publishers – such as AV Akademikerverlag (formerly VDM Verlag), SVH Verlag, Scholar's Press or Lehrbuchverlag (all part of the OmniScriptum Publishing Group) as well as GRIN or Shaker Verlag – systematically contact graduates of master's, diploma and doctoral programmes and offer to publish their theses free of charge. Such requests should be treated with caution as the theses are printed unedited and without peer review process, while being distributed at high prices via print-on-demand.

Students, who are pursuing an academic career, are not advised to publish with such publishers, as they do not have an academic reputation due to their lack of quality criteria and are rarely purchased by university libraries or other academic institutions. Depending on the clauses of the publishing contract, the authors transfer their rights to use their work to the publisher and are excluded from using their work subsequently.