Frequently Asked Questions about Teaching Your Research – Dissertation in Dialogue

Choosing a Topic

Participation Requirements

Payment

Choosing a Topic

An OER on a topic only makes sense if there are people interested in it – and for whom starting with an OER is more suitable than starting with scholarly literature. There should be a reason why people who are not deeply engaged yet in the discussion would want to engage with your topic. Examples:

• The topic is important for broader questions that also interest beginning students in your discipline or advanced students/researchers from other disciplines.
• It is relevant to our understanding of ourselves.
• It helps us better understand our natural or social environment.
• It is relevant for everyday or professional activities.
• There is simply a large audience interested in the field (regardless of the reason).

1. Explain why the question is interesting or important, and how it connects to broader issues.
2. Present the debate between the two positions.
3. Share your contribution and assess whether and how it changes the picture.

In most cases: yes. Whether there is a problem depends on how similar the OER content is to the already published or planned publications.
Teaching materials often differ significantly in presentation from research publications, so copyright conflicts in such cases are relatively rare.

Participation Requirements

Yes.

Yes absolutely, as long as your research has some affiliation with German higher education / research institutions. Depending on the number of applications we may give preference – at equal quality – to applicants with a connection to higher education institutions in Baden-Württemberg, as we are a state-level institution.

Yes, very much so. Our focus on the humanities, social sciences, and behavioral sciences has two reasons:

1. The format is especially well suited for these disciplines, as arguments made in doctoral research here are often of interest and understandable to audiences outside the specific subfield. Additionally, there are relatively few existing OER in these fields because the difference between teaching and research publications is often small.
2. Unfortunately, we do not have the staff capacity in all disciplines to assess applications and prepare interview questions.

Payment

We cannot give a definitive answer. In many cases you might need to, but it usually shouldn’t cause problems. Please check with your university and supervisors to be sure.

From our side: yes. However, your payment might be offset against your unemployment benefits for November – your local employment agency (Arbeitsagentur) can advise you on this. Depending on the monthly amount of your benefits, participating may still be worthwhile.
If you are receiving unemployment benefits, we recommend contacting your employment agency (Arbeitsagentur) as early as possible to inform them that you intend to participate. (If you are still waiting for confirmation and are unsure whether you can participate, please let us know in your expression of interest.)
From our perspective, publishing an OER strengthens your job prospects: it adds another publication to your CV and demonstrates the ability to explain complex topics to a broader audience — a valuable skill both inside and outside academia. We hope employment agencies take this into account when making their decisions.

We cannot give a definitive answer. This depends on your tax situation and health insurance – for example, whether you have another secondary employment. From our experience with past projects payments are often but not always, exempt from deductions (keywords: "freiberufliche Nebentätigkeit" and "Übungsleiterpauschale").