Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

In order to submit your thesis, your thesis needs to be completed and have received a passing grade. Your work needs to follow good scientific conduct (see e.g. the Max Planck Society's rules of good scientific practice) and to not violate any copyright. Furthermore, your thesis needs to follow BISE Student’s GTC guidelines. Regarding formatting, your thesis does not have to follow any specific guidelines and you can submit your thesis in any language.

As a department of the Business & Information System Engineering journal (BISE), one of the leading European journals in the field, theses with topics in the area of the BISE journal are especially welcome. BISE covers traditionally a wide range of topics, which include but are not limited to:

• Business Process Management
• Decision Analytics and Data Science
• Digital Business Management and Digital Leadership
• Economics of Information Systems
• Enterprise Modeling and Business Ecosystems
• Human Computer Interaction and Social Computing
• Information Systems Engineering and Technology

The topic of your thesis should somehow touch on one of these or related areas. If you are unsure about whether or not your thesis topic is fitting for the BISE Student platform, please contact us.

For a submission, you need to provide a few information about yourself and your thesis. First, you need to provide your contact information and information about your study program and institution, where you wrote your thesis. Besides, you need nominate at least one person who endorses your thesis. This can either be your supervisor or examiner (for more information about an endorsement, see related question). And lastly, you need to also upload your thesis as a PDF, including an abstract and keywords. There is also the possibility of uploading or referencing supplementary data (e.g., research data in a repository via GitHub). In the following, there is an overview of the information that are required for the publication of a thesis, where this information is stored, who can see the information and its mutability:

Information	Storage Location	Visibility	Mutability*
Author data: First name, last name, middle name, email address, study program, study field, study interests, institution name, institution country, institution city, institution url, bloxberg account address	IPFS, search index	Public	Updatable, retractable
Endorser data: First name, last name, middle name, academic title, email address, institution name, institution country, institution city, institution url, department name, department url, profile url, ORCiD, department position, thesis role, endorsing comment, bloxberg account	IPFS, search index	Public	Updatable, retractable
Thesis meta data: Title, abstract, topics, methods, type, language, grade date, doi, git repository url, git commit hash	IPFS, search index	Public	Updatable, retractable
Thesis document: PDF Document	IPFS, search index	Public	Updatable, retractable
Submission process information: Submission date, publication date, author's bloxberg account address, IPFS storage locations (thesis document, author data, thesis meta data)	Bloxberg	Public	Immutable
Endorsement process information: Endorsing_date, thesis role, endorsing comment, used bloxberg account address, IPFS storage locations (endorser data)	Bloxberg	Public	Immutable
Update process information: Used bloxberg account address, update date, update comment, IPFS storage locations of the updated data (e.g., thesis document or author data)	Bloxberg	Public	Immutable
Retract process information: Used bloxberg account address, retraction comment	Bloxberg	Public	Immutable

Updateable: After the publication of a thesis, this data can be modified.
Retractable: When an author retracts their thesis, this data will automatically be permanently deleted.
Immutable: This data is stored on the blockchain and, thus, this data cannot be changed or deleted, even with the retraction of a thesis.

Yes, it is possible to upload supplementary data via external data repositories. Currently, only GitHub is supported. Externally provided data should follow the copyright and code of conduct requirements (see related question). We are working on more solutions to integrate data from other sources.

The process consists of five steps:

• Step 1: Fill in the submission form and upload your thesis as a PDF document.
• Step 2: Sign the submission smart contract using your bloxberg account (see related question).
• Step 3: Wait for the endorsement of your submission by at least one of the examiners or supervisors of your thesis.
• Step 4: The BISE Student editorial board checks, whether the submission process is complete.
• Step 5: Your thesis is officially published on BISE Student.

For more information on the the submission process: Submission Process, About BISE Student

Peer review is a procedure in the scientific community for evaluating scientific work. In this established but very laborious and time-consuming process, independent reviewers from the same field are consulted to assess the quality of a paper. There is no peer review process for BISE Student. Instead, a reputation-based endorsement system simplifies the publication process and provides quality control for the submitted thesis. Additional to your thesis, the identifying information of at least one endorser (i.e., supervisor or examiner of your thesis) is published. After publication, your thesis can gather additional endorsements by readers that are convinced by the quality of your thesis. To endorse readers need a bloxberg account (see related question).

Quality checks are provided by your supervisor or examiner, who endorse(s) your thesis. The editorial board checks, whether the submission process is complete. After publication, your thesis can gather additional endorsements by readers that are convinced by the quality of your thesis. To endorse readers need a bloxberg account (see related question). This reputation-based endorsement system provides a quality control for the submitted thesis.

The endorsement system is part of the reputation-based quality control (see related question). To publish your thesis your thesis needs an endorsement from your supervisor or examiner, which you will have to nominate. Your endorser’s name is published together with your thesis. The endorsement system will support the authenticity as well as the quality of your thesis. After your thesis is published, readers can also endorse your thesis, thus showing the quality of your work. To endorse readers need a bloxberg account (see related question) .

Prior to publication, your thesis can be endorsed either by the supervisor or by the examiner of your thesis. You need the endorsement of at least one of these two bodies in order to publish your thesis. After publication, every reader with a bloxberg account (see related question) can endorse your thesis.

Publishing your thesis on BISE Student is free of charge. BISE Student runs on the bloxberg blockchain, which is a public research blockchain run by a consortium of universities and research institutions. In order to publish your thesis you will need bloxberg's native token, the Berg (see related question). You can top up your bloxberg account with Bergs free of charge (see related question).

BISE Student follows the principle of open access (see related question) which is why everyone can download and read your thesis. If you are an author and want to publish your thesis you can choose the license under which you want to publish (see related question).

To complete the publication process the author needs to follow steps 1 to 3 in the submission process (see related question). Afterwards, the editorial team performs a completion check of the submission process, ensuring that all required information has been entered. This editorial process takes around 2 to 3 days. Afterwards, your thesis will be published instantaneously.

During the submission process, you have to opportunity to choose between different pre-defined Creative Commons licenses. If theses licenses do not suite your needs, you have the option to provide licensing information of your own choosing.

The following pre-defined Creative Commons licenses are offered by the BISE Student:

• CC BY: This license allows reusers to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the material in any medium or format, so long as attribution is given to the creator. The license allows for commercial use.
• CC BY-SA: This license allows reusers to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the material in any medium or format, so long as attribution is given to the creator. The license allows for commercial use. If you remix, adapt, or build upon the material, you must license the modified material under identical terms.
• CC BY-NC: This license allows reusers to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the material in any medium or format for noncommercial purposes only, and only so long as attribution is given to the creator.
• CC BY-NC-SA: This license allows reusers to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the material in any medium or format for noncommercial purposes only, and only so long as attribution is given to the creator. If you remix, adapt, or build upon the material, you must license the modified material under identical terms.
• CC BY-ND: This license allows reusers to copy and distribute the material in any medium or format in unadapted form only, and only so long as attribution is given to the creator. The license allows for commercial use.
• CC BY-NC-ND: This license allows reusers to copy and distribute the material in any medium or format in unadapted form only, for noncommercial purposes only, and only so long as attribution is given to the creator.

Along with the thesis, BISE Student publishes additional meta data (e.g., thesis title, your name, your email address and study program). You can find a complete list of published and stored data, as well as the storage location in this related answer.

The author of a thesis can retract the publication after publishing it. If a thesis is retracted, the thesis itself as well as meta data are deleted from the IPFS storage (see related question). The data on the blockchain cannot be deleted, however it gets marked as retracted, and the publication can no longer be viewed on the BISE Student platform.

Your thesis and corresponding meta data will be stored on IPFS. Data regarding the publication process will be stored on the bloxberg blockchain. IPFS, the InterPlanetary File System is a protocol and peer-to-peer network for storing and sharing data in a distributed file system. To learn more about IPFS, you can find more information on the IPFS website. If you want more information about the bloxberg blockchain, see this related question. For further information about the data storage, see this related question.

Open access refers to free and open access to scientific publications for all interested parties worldwide. Open access means that research results can be reused as flexibly and freely as possible. If you want to learn more about open access, you can find more information on the open access network website.

It is possible to change your thesis and all data stored on the IPFS, e.g., your contact information (see this related question for more information about storage location). However, to guarantee the authenticity of your thesis, subsequent changes to the PDF of the thesis will need a new endorsement from your supervisor / examiner.

You can change the meta-data (e.g., contact information) as often and whenever it is necessary. You can also make changes to the PDF document of the thesis. However, endorsements are tied to a specific document version. Any changes to the thesis document therefore automatically leaves the new document versions without any endorsement. Hence, after a document update, endorsers need to renew their endorsements (see also this related question).

The bloxberg infrastructure is a secure global blockchain established by a consortium of leading research organizations to provide scientists with decentralized services worldwide. The bloxberg consortium aims to foster collaboration among the international scientific community, empowering researchers with robust, autonomous services that transcend institutional boundaries. For example, with consented transactions on the bloxberg infrastructure, research claims need not be limited to one institution alone but can be confirmed by the whole trusted network. (Source: https://bloxberg.org). You can find more information about the bloxberg blockchain in the bloxberg whitepaper.

The bloxberg blockchain is used to store information linked to the process of submitting and publishing a thesis. The actual data of the thesis is stored off-chain on IPFS (see related question). Only the links to the hash values to the stored data are stored on-chain. For more information about data storage, see the table this related question.

The bloxberg blockchain is used to store information linked to the process of submitting and publishing a thesis. The actual data of the thesis is stored off-chain on IPFS (see related question). Only the links to the hash values to the stored data are stored on-chain. For more information about data storage, see related question.

Bloxberg is a blockchain based on Ethereum. An Ethereum account is an entity with an ether (ETH) balance that can send transactions on Ethereum. Accounts can be user-controlled or deployed as smart contracts. Instead of ether, bloxberg uses Bergs as its native tokens.

Learn here how to create your own bloxberg account.

A bloxberg account is necessary to interact with the bloxberg blockchain, on which the submission process is stored. This is why in order to submit or endorse a thesis, you will need a bloxberg account.

Learn here how to create your own bloxberg account.

Everyone who wants to interact with the bloxberg blockchain requires an bloxberg account. Such interactions include the submission of a thesis or the endorsement of a thesis. This means, to publish a thesis on BISE Student, the author of the thesis, the examiner and/or the supervisor all need a bloxberg account.

Learn here how to create your own bloxberg account.

To create a bloxberg account you will have to follow the following four-step process:

Step 1: Download the Metamask Browser Plugin
Metamask is a so-called crypto wallet and tool to interact with blockchain apps by using a browser or mobile device. Metamask is needed to interact with the bloxberg blockchain. You can download Metamask for your browser here: https://metamask.io/download/. After downloading Metamask your browser (e.g., chrome, or edge) will install and initialize the extension.

Step 2: Create a Wallet
After installing Metamask, a new icon should appear next to your address field in your browser window.

Next, click on this button and then on Get started. If you are new to Metamask, click Create a new Wallet. If you already have a wallet, choose Import Wallet. Follow the steps provided by Metamask to finish creating an account. Be sure to securely store your password and the seed phrase Metamask assigns to you. You will need the password in order to log into your Metamask account and the seed phrase to recover your account in case you forgot your password.
In the end, your account will be ready, and the Metamask interface will look like this:

Step 3: Create a Bloxberg Account
To connect your Metamask account with the bloxberg blockchain, open the Metamask interface by clicking on the Metamask icon in your browser. Then open the drop-down menu by clicking on the Ethereum Mainnet button on top. Click Add Network to add the bloxberg network.

Your browser will open a new tab. Please complete the fields as shown in the picture below.

Field	Value
Network Name	Bloxberg
New RPC-URL	https://core.bloxberg.org
Chain ID	8995
Currency Symbol	Bergs

Then click on save. If you open your Metamask interface by clicking the Metamask icon in your browser, the bloxberg network will be added to you Metamask account.

Step 4: Charge your Account with Bergs
To interact with the bloxberg blockchain, you need bloxberg’s native currency, Bergs (see related question). To get Bergs, open the bloxberg faucet, copy your public address by clicking on your account on the Metamask interface (see screenshot)

and paste the address into the faucet website, check, that you are not a robot and request 0.02 Bergs. Your Metamask interface will show your newly added Bergs. At this point you are ready to use BISE Student. Learn here how to use Metamask to interact with bloxberg (e.g., when submitting or endorsing a thesis).

When using one of the many functions of BISE Student that store or read data from the bloxberg blockchain, you require a bloxberg account within your Metamask wallet installed as a browser plugin. If you followed all the steps explained here, your Metamask wallet will automatically open every time BISE Student needs to interact with bloxberg. The first time Metamask will ask you to connect your account to BISE Student.

Click on continue. Your account will then connect with BISE Student.

Next click on connect.

Confirm the transaction fees in Bergs to interact with the bloxberg blockchain. If you do not have enough Bergs left on your account, you can recharge your Bergs for free.

Next, the transaction is submitted to the bloxberg blockchain. BISE Student will wait for the confirmation of this transaction. This might take a couple of seconds. Once the transaction is confirmed by the network, your Metamask interface will show your new balance.

Yes and no. Storing data on the bloxberg blockchain does not cost you any money. All transactions in the bloxberg blockchain are free of charge. However, to interact with the bloxberg blockchain, its native token, Bergs (see related question) are needed. You can charge your account with Bergs using the bloxberg faucet. For more information on how to charge your account with Bergs, see this related answer (Step 4).

Bergs are the non-traded currency of the bloxberg blockchain. Each bloxberg account can get 0.02 Bergs per day for free. For more information on how to charge your account, see this related answer (Step 4). Bergs are utilized in order to interact with the bloxberg blockchain applications, or to deploy smart contracts.

You can charge your bloxberg account with Bergs using the bloxberg faucet. Lear how to use the bloxberg faucet in this related answer (Step 4).

With advanced search, you can use boolean operators to narrow or broaden your search terms. Further search specifications are possible using filters, such as publication date and publication type.

The Search Terms field may contain multiple search terms and/or phrases separated by line breaks.

Phrases: To search for a specific phrase, enclose the terms in double quotation marks (e.g., "cloud computing"). Boolean operators within phrases that are enclosed by quotations marks are treated as regular search terms.

Wildcards: Wildcard symbols can be used to create searches where there are unknown characters, multiple spellings or various endings. For instance, col?or matches color and colour. Wildcards symbols may be placed at the beginning, end, or within search terms. Wildcards can also be used in phrases as long as they are surrounded by the quotation marks (e.g. "cloud computing"* is not allowed).

Symbol	Effect
Asterisk (*)	Replace zero or more characters
Question mark (?)	Replace one character
Number sign (#)	Replace zero or one character

Search Fields: The Search Fields define in which part of a document the entered search terms are to be found. You can either search all available search fields by selecting All fields or specify one field to be searched. By limiting a search to a specific field, you can produce more targeted results.

Field	Description
Title	Title of an individual document (e.g., journal article, conference paper, book).
Abstract	Brief summary or statement of the contents of a journal article, conference paper, or book.
Keywords	A short list of terms which describe the topics or subjects of the document.

Search Operators: Search Operators express the relationship between two or more search terms. You can use the operators AND, OR, and NOT. The relationship between terms within a search term group is defined by the Search Fields setting next to the input field.

Operator	Description
AND	Combines search terms so that each search result contains all of the terms. For example, enterprise AND computing finds articles that contain both enterprise and computing.
OR	Combines search terms so that each search result contains at least one of the terms. For example, enterprise OR computing finds articles that contain either enterprise or computing.
NOT	Excludes terms so that each search result does not contain any of the terms that follow it. For example, television not cable finds results that contain television but not cable.

You can enter search requests using advanced search. You can create complex query structures containing multiple search terms. Use the buttons on the right to add (+) a new search term or delete (bin) a search term. Search terms can be connected using boolean operators (see related question).

You can filter your search results using advanced search. The (optional) Search Filters allow you to limit your search to a small set of theses. Search filters allow to specify your search regarding publication date, language of publication, thesis and license type.

• Filter by publication date
  Either select the start year, which will find all theses from this start year to present or fill in a self-chosen specific time range, in which you want to find theses. This will filter the theses on the specified time range.
• Filter by language
  The language filter allows to limit your search to one or more languages, that you can specify in the selection filter.
• Filter by thesis type
  The thesis type filter filters for the different theses types. You can select one or more types.
• Filter by license
  By filtering for the publication license you can focus on the theses with one or more specific publication license(s).