Publication of the PhD Thesis
I've defended my PhD thesis on 2020-11-26. After that I needed to publish my thesis in order to receive my PhD diploma. This is more complicated than it sounds.
Decades ago, when one did not have servers with PDF files, one had to publish the thesis with a lot of hard copies. And this unfortunately is still the default mode at the University of Bonn. So there are a bunch of hoops that one has to take in order to have the thesis published.
I took a couple days before I started this process. On 2020-12-01 I sent the PDF file via e-mail to the university library. They have a special address where I should sent it to. As the PDF file was so large, I have just uploaded it to my website and gave them the link.
In parallel I needed to register my thesis on some other platform of the library. There they did not accept the PDF, just the meta data. And the form had a “Submit” and a “Reset” button there. I mean, how many times does one actually want to reset a form? I thought that this “Reset” button died out decades ago. After registering my thesis there, I had to download a receipt, sign it and send it via e-mail to the university library.
On the website of the library they told me that I needed to make sure that my advisor is okay with me publish my thesis electronically. They did not mention any particular form. So I just asked my advisor and it was okay.