Frequently Asked Questions

What types of material can be archived in the Repository?
How is the Repository organised?
Who administers the community and collection?
Can I restrict access to material?
Describing your work
How do I submit my work to the Repository?
Will the Repository software (DSpace) provide any metadata?
Will my work have links to the library catalogue, and will the library add any additional metadata to my work?
What kinds of files can be submitted, and what size?
I don't have time to submit my work, can Sydney eScholarship do this for me?
What existing material can I submit?
Can I withdraw material from the Repository?
Copyright and intellectual property rights
Who can I contact about setting up a community and collection?

Sydney eScholarship Repository invites scholarly works to be archived that have these elements -

The work must be produced or sponsored by a University of Sydney faculty, department, school or research centre.
The work must be scholarly or research oriented.
The work must be the finished version.
The author should be willing and able to grant Sydney eScholarship the right to preserve and distribute the work via the institutional repository
If the work is part of a series, it is encouraged that other works in that series also be submitted.

Examples of these works include

Articles
Technical reports
Working papers
Conference papers
Theses
Audio/Video
Datasets
Images

The Repository organises content around communities and collections. A community could be at faculty level, from which sub-communities can be setup and within these sit the collections of work. Collections are managed by assigned administrators.

Each collection will have one (or more) administrators whose role it is to:

Maintain the community's guidelines
Manage people within the community who will submit content
Approve addition items to a collection
Make limited customisation to community pages in conjunction with Library contacts
Make decisions about community and collection definitions and community membership
Arrange for submission and description of content
Understand and observe policies relevant to Sydney eScholarship, including those pertaining to rights and license, and educate community submitters regarding these policies
Notify of organizational changes affecting submissions

Yes. Once your work is submitted to the Repository it is ready for distribution and worldwide access, however there may be cases where the submitter does not want to allow immediate access (or perhaps never offer access) in which case access to the work can be restricted. This restriction can be placed at different levels, for instance your colleagues in the faculty or research centre may be granted access, but the world wide audience is not. The public will still have access to the metadata, but not to the work itself. Please discuss any embargo options you have with the collection administrators and the staff at Sydney eScholarship. ses@library.usyd.edu.au

Unless otherwise stated, you should treat the work like any other copyrighted material, and may make "fair use" of it as allowed under law. [See Copyright section]

There are a couple of steps to archiving your work in the Repository. Initially you need to identify if there is an existing community or collection that you would like to submit to, or if you will require a new community and collection. You can do this by visiting the Repository . After this you should contact your Faculty Liaison Librarian or Sydney eScholarship and arrange a meeting to discuss your community requirements and the material you wish to submit. During this meeting any concerns regarding file formats, copyright issues, nature of the material etc can be worked out, and people can be nominated as submitters and administrators so that logins can be arranged.

Note: You may also wish to contact our Digital Project Analyst who will be able to adivise you on any issues relating to digitisation and digital archiving.

Following this your community and collection will be established on the website and you will be shown how to submit material. Submitting is done through the use of a template in which details of the work are input, and the relevant file then attached to the record.

The descriptive information about your work (metadata) enables it to be searched via the WWW. Some of the metadata in Repository records include -

Author
Title
Date of publication
Keywords
Series/Report no. information
Abstract or description of the work

The Repository offers an easy to use template in which these details are input. Once the metadata is complete, files can be uploaded and (following approval by the administrator) a persistent link (handle) is assigned to your work. Metadata is important as access to your work through search engines such as Google and Google Scholar will rely on the descriptive information you assign to it.

Yes. The Repository will assign these fields to the record:

File format
File size
Submission date
Persistent URL

This information can be used to manage the content over time. If you would like to further customise your collection interface to add more information please contact us at ses@library.usyd.edu.au

Yes, in some cases.
University of Sydney theses for instance have a catalogue record. Similarly conference papers can have a record in the catalogue, and provide a link to the material (which sits in the Repository). The better the work is described the greater the chance that it will be found. If you find you want or need assistance with supplying metadata please contact your Faculty Liaison Librarian or staff at the Repository who will be happy to help.

The Repository will handle very large files, and there are formats that are preferred such as TIFF, PDF and XML. These are preferred as there is a greater chance that they can be used over time. One of the main reasons for archiving material is to preserve material over the long term, and allow access to it. Certain proprietary formats, for instance, can be rendered useless at an update of software, and cannot be reworked to ensure preservation or access. The Repository will accept all kinds of files but some may not be able to be preserved. There are three main levels of file support -

Supported: We fully support the format and preserve it using either format migration or emulation techniques. (eg. TIFF, XML, PDF)
Known: We can recognise the format, but cannot guarantee full support. (eg. Word)
Unsupported: We cannot recognize a format; these will be listed as "application/octet-stream", aka Unknown.

Repository staff will be pleased to assist you with any problems regarding file formats and preservation issues.

Yes, in some cases Sydney eScholarship can arrange for the metadata to be completed and files loaded into the Repository. This is charged at cost recovery and is subject to staff availability. Please discuss this option with Repository staff ses@library.usyd.edu.au or your Faculty Liaison Librarian

You are encouraged to archive both recent and older material to the Repository. If it is work recently published chances are you will have a digital copy of the material available to submit. This copy must be either a pre-print or post print copy of the work, the actual published version cannot be submitted. If you have older material needing digitisation please speak to Repository staff who can offer some advice about how this might be achieved. Your ongoing collaboration with Faculty Liaison Librarians and Sydney eScholarship staff to identify University material that can be preserved in the Repository will be greatly appreciated.

Yes. If material is withdrawn a "marker" is supplied so if the material is requested (because it has been cited) the original metadata will be available with a withdrawal statement in place of the link to the work. Withdrawn material will no longer be searchable.

The copyright of any material deposited in the repository is retained by the depositor/creator. It is your work and it remains your work: the repository exists to preserve and make available that material, but it does not assume ownership rights.

Some questions to consider:

May I deposit copies of published articles?
Yes, but your copyright transfer form must allow you to do so, or the publisher must grant permission:
For works that you have already published:
Check the copyright transfer form that you signed when the article was accepted. If you transferred "exclusive" or "all" rights to the publisher you may need to request the publisher's permission before posting it in the Sydney eScholarship
Where can I find out if I have permissions to deposit?
Check the SHERPA/RoMEO listing for your publisher. RoMEO outlines the copyright and repository policies for over 90 publishers and 7,000 scholarly journals. Note that there may be special instructions or restrictions that limits your posting to the refereed manuscript or require a specific kind of citation. If you are unsure contact your publisher
What can I do to ensure I will be allowed to self archive in the future?
Many publishers will allow you to archive either in pre or post print format, however some do not. One thing you could try is to add an Author's Addendum as recommended by the SPARC, the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition

To discuss your requirements please contact your Faculty Liaison Librarian http://www.library.usyd.edu.au/contacts/subjectcontacts.html
or call Sydney eScholarship Repository
Phone: (02) 93517407
Email: ses@library.usyd.edu.au