Collections: Scholars Square

Copyright

For a list of publishers' policies regarding authors' rights to publish pre-prints and post-prints in a repository such as Scholars Square, search the Sherpa Romeo Database or the OakList Database. If you do not already have permission to deposit your work in a digital repository, you may need to write directly to the publisher to request this permission. To make this process easier, Scholars Square has provided a template to use when contacting publishers. You can modify the template as needed, or just fill in the blanks with the appropriate information. Download the Template for Authors in (.rtf) format. Some publishers can also be contacted about permissions via an online web form on their site.

Contributors are strongly encouraged to assign Creative Commons licenses to submissions in order to increase access while retaining certain rights. Descriptions of licenses, as well as instructions on attaching these to files, can be accessed at Creative Commons.

For practical advice when submitting journal articles, please visit SPARC's Resources for Authors website and click on Introduction to Copyright Resources.

For still more information on digital preservation, public domain, and copyright, please visit the Digital Preservation site at the Library of Congress, Peter Hirtle's Copyright Term and the Public Domain, and the U.S. Copyright Office.

Getting Started & Submitting Items

To submit items to Scholars Square, please consult the 2-page (.doc) Scholars Square Submission Instructions Document. At this point in time, College Library staff will catalog and upload your final submission into Scholars Square. To assist the library, we ask that you read and adhere to the Submission Instructions Document linked above.

Glossary of Terms

Administrator - Provides logistical, marketing, and policy oversight for the entire Scholars Square repository. The Administrator customizes the Scholars Square Community home page, manages all aspects of Sub-Community and Collection set-up, trains Sub-Community Coordinators, and configures metadata defaults.

Bitstream - Individual files grouped together in a Bundle and associated with an Item (e.g. license text, .jpegs, .tiffs, pdfs, xml, etc.)

Bundle - A grouping of files associated with an Item.

Collection - Specific group of Submissions within a Sub-Community.

Community - Top level unit within the NITLE DSpace Pilot Service. Each of the 21 participating institutions have been established as a Community within the pilot service.

Coordinator - Contact person selected by a Sub-Community to act as a liaison with the Scholars Square Administrator.

DSpace - The DSpace digital repository system collects, preserves, indexes, and distributes digital research material.

Handle - A persistent URL that points to an item.

Item - A record that describes the file being archived using Dublin Core metadata.

NITLE - The National Institute for Technology and Liberal Education (NITLE).

Sub-Community - An academic or administrative unit within the F&M Community that houses individual Collections.

Submission - An individual piece of scholarship that is added to a specific Collection.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who do I contact to establish a Sub-Community or Collection within Scholars Square?
Answer: To establish a Scholars Square Sub-Community, please contact Christopher Raab, Archives and Special Collections Librarian: 717-291-4225 or christopher.raab@fandm.edu. To establish a Collection within a Sub-Community, please contact the appropriate Sub-Community Coordinator.

I recently had an article accepted for publication in a scholarly journal. Can I include an electronic pre-print of my article in Scholars Square?
Answer: More and more commercial publishers are recognizing authors' rights to post pre-prints of their work online. This is true even of some of the largest commercial publishers. If you would like to know where your publisher stands on this issue, search the Sherpa Romeo Database.

I recently published an article in a scholarly journal, and signed copyright over to the publishing company. Can I still include an electronic post-print of my article in Scholars Square?
Answer: More and more commercial publishers are allowing authors to make post-prints available online. This is true even of some of the largest commercial publishers. If you would like to know where your publisher stands on this issue, search the Sherpa Romeo Database.

What is a Creative Commons license?
Answer: If you have original works that you have created, including photos you have taken, you can overcome traditional copyright restrictions by selecting a 'license' that tells other scholars what they are (or are not) allowed to do with these works. US Copyright restricts the use of materials by others unless the user explicitly asks for permission. Creative Commons is a nonprofit organization that has defined alternative licenses whereby the creator retains copyright, but attaches a "use" license to the content. Users still have to give the creator credit for the content whenever/however they use it, or face legal recourse. The creator can select different "use" options when assigning a Creative Commons license. Learn more at Creative Commons.

Is there a preferred file type for submission to Scholars Square?
Answer: Yes, PDF (.pdf) is the preferred file type, although Scholars Square supports many popular text and audio file types including Microsoft Word (.doc), Microsoft PowerPoint (.ppt), and Microsoft Excel (.xls). For a complete listing, please see page five of the Scholars Square Policies Document.

What sort of persistent identifiers does Scholars Square use?
Answer: Scholars Square uses the Handle System from CNRI to assign and resolve persistent identifiers for each digital item. Handles are UN-compliant identifiers. The Handle resolver is an open-source system used in conjunction with DSpace. The developers chose to use handles instead of persistent URLs to support citations to items in DSpace over very long time spans - longer than the HTTP protocol will last.

How much storage space (memory) is available in Scholars Square?
Answer: The initial Scholars Square repository includes 50GB (Gigabytes) of space, with the option to purchase additional memory in 100GB increments.

How much storage space is a single collection allowed?
Answer: There is no formal limit to the size of items submitted to and stored in Scholars Square. However, before submitting an item exceeding 25MB (Megabytes) in size, the Sub-Community Coordinator should contact the Scholars Square Administrator.

How do researchers access files stored in Scholars Square?
Answer: Access to materials in Scholars Square occurs through a front end interface in the repository itself. Materials are also searchable through standard web search engines such as Google or Yahoo. In addition, indexing is mapped to international standards so materials in Scholars Square can be harvested by OAI (Open Archives Initiative) compliant harvesters such as OAIster.