Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) - UNI ScholarWorks


General FAQs

Technical Issues FAQs

General FAQs

What is UNI ScholarWorks?

UNI ScholarWorks is a digital archive designed to capture, preserve and make available research, creative works and the administrative output of the University of Northern Iowa. It provides permanent centralized storage and access to the depth and breadth of the University’s intellectual assets.

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Why should UNI support and participate in UNI ScholarWorks?

Permanent preservation—the commitment to long-term centralized preservation, security and stewardship eliminates losses endemic to the many departmental and personal electronic storage options.

Open access—each new generation of researchers expect free open access. Materials stored in UNI ScholarWorks, which are searchable in Google, offer enhanced visibility over print publication, attracting new audiences and opportunities for collaboration.

Permanent preservation—the commitment to long-term centralized preservation, security and stewardship eliminates losses endemic to the many departmental and personal electronic storage options.

Potential cost savings—UNI ScholarWorks reduces the cost and time associated with publication in traditional journals, while simultaneously not precluding that option.

Promotes the value and status of UNI—a concentration of important output in UNI ScholarWorks will heighten public awareness of UNI. This increased presence will demonstrate educational, social, and economic values that can translate into tangible benefits, including funding, recruitment and broad recognition of subject expertise.

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How do authors benefit from depositing works in UNI ScholarWorks?

Where you publish makes a difference – studies have shown that open access articles have more views/downloads than non-open access articles. Open access articles tend to be more frequently used and cited, therefore research has higher impact.

Enhanced author profiles - regular submission and archiving of works to UNI ScholarWorks provides an author with a central archive and a record of publications for a CV.

Broad visibility - academic work available online offers wider dissemination and enriched career prospects for the author. Postings to UNI ScholarWorks are not generally regarded as prior publication, making copyright arrangements with employers and publishers easier to manage.

Media accommodation – audio and video materials, not compatible with print publishing, can be readily accommodated in UNI ScholarWorks.

Rights - with UNI ScholarWorks, you are not transferring your rights to the Library or the University. As author, you are free to publish in other venues.

Moves UNI toward the new model for scholarly communication – UNI ScholarWorks is the beginning of a long term investment in changing the structure of scholarly communication, augmenting the existing academic publishing system and easing peer assessment and institutional review processes.

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I want to submit my graduate thesis or dissertation to the UNI ScholarWorks repository. How do I do that?

All theses and dissertations are processed through the UNI Graduate College. When you submit a thesis or dissertation for approval with the Graduate College, you'll be prompted to release it into the UNI ScholarWorks repository. ScholarWorks offers several different access options for making your work available. Once your work has been published in ScholarWorks, it will be available to a worldwide audience. Viewers will be able to search for and download your research from anywhere in the world. You will also be able to track how many people have downloaded your research and where they have downloaded it! No matter your field of study, ScholarWorks is an excellent place to preserve your work and collaborate with scholars from around the globe.

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What submissions are appropriate?

Final versions of your output are welcome and may include many types of materials, such as:

  • Pre-prints and post prints of articles [author manuscript version of the article]
  • Published journal articles [with permission confirmed]
  • Working papers & reports
  • Conference papers & presentations
  • Electronic theses & dissertations
  • Books, series, and journals
  • Images
  • Sound & video recordings

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What files types are accepted?

UNI ScholarWorks accepts most file formats.

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Who do I contact for more information?

Contact Ellen Neuhaus, Digital Scholarship Librarian, Rod Library, University of Northern Iowa

(319) 273-3739

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How does copyright and licensing apply to my submissions to ScholarWorks?

As creator, you retain non-exclusive rights to your work. By agreeing to store your material in UNI ScholarWorks, you are not transferring your rights to the Library or the University and remain free to publish in other venues. If rights associated with your work also apply to co-authors, sponsors, publishers or others, the UNI ScholarWorks team will endeavor to assist you in meeting legal and contractual obligations before uploading to UNI ScholarWorks.

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How do I ensure compatibility between my publisher's rights and ScholarWorks?

Note: The copyright information provided here is intended only as guidance, not as a substitute for legal counsel.

To post your work to UNI ScholarWorks, you can express the rights you wish to retain when communicating with your potential print publisher. Examples of ways to establish pre-publication permission are summarized below. For works previously published, the UNI ScholarWorks team will contact publishers for permission on your behalf.

  1. Keep copyrights and transfer limited rights to the publisher: Amend contract with an addendum or cross out the original exclusive transfer language in the publication contract provided by the publisher and replace it with text such as:

    The author grants to the Publisher exclusive first publication rights in the Work, and further grants a non-exclusive license for other uses of the Work for the duration of its copyright in all languages, throughout the world, in all media. The Publisher shall include a notice in the Work saying "© [Author's Name]". Readers of this article may copy it without the copyright owner's permission, if the author and publisher are acknowledged in the copy and copy is used for educational, not-for-profit purposes.

  2. Substitute your own publishing agreement for the publisher’s contract. Create one that specifies you as the copyright owner, granting publication rights to the publisher. This provides you with the additional opportunity to grant other rights to the public, such as the freedom to use the work for non-commercial purposes, provided attribution is given, which fosters further use and impact of your work.

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How do I determine my publisher's policies?

To find the policies of the journal you are working with, go to the RoMEO maintained by SHERPA [Securing a Hybrid Environment for Research Preservation and Access]. This organization is devoted to working to secure open access to journal publications.

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How do I time the permissions process?

Getting non-exclusive permission prior to publication is always best, but it is still possible to get permission after publication. Contact your publisher or call us.

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Resources

University of Northern Iowa local resources:

Broader resources:

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Examples of other institutional repositories are:

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Technical Issues FAQs

I don't have electronic versions of old working papers that I'd like to include in the repository. Is it okay to scan the printed page to a PDF file?

Yes--scanning printed pages is a great way to create PDF files for inclusion in the repository. There are two ways to scan a page: using OCR (Optical Character Recognition) or scanning the page as an image. Making OCR scans requires careful proofreading and loses the original formatting of the documents. Image scans cannot be searched. The best solution takes advantage of both of these methods. Many software applications allow for the OCR capture of image scans. When documents are scanned this way, users see the image scan but search the full-text of the document. This is the preferred method for scanning documents for the repository.

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When I copy and paste abstracts into the Submit form, some formatted text reverts to plain text. What's going on?

When copying abstracts from a word processing file or a PDF file, and pasting the text into the submission form, you are taking text from an environment that supports fonts and text style changes. Because the abstract is intended to be presented on the web, text styles must be specified using HTML codes.

If submitting an abstract in HTML format, please be sure to select the corresponding option on the submission form.

The following HTML tags are recognized by the system and may be used to format an abstract (use lowercase tags):

How to include HTML tags

HTML tags
<p> - paragraph
<p>This is the first paragraph.</p>
<p>This is the second paragraph.</p>

This is the first paragraph.

This is the second paragraph.

<br /> - line break
<p>This is a line of text with a linebreak here. <br /> This is text after</p>

This is a line of text with a linebreak here.
This is text after
<strong> - strong/bold
<strong>bold text</strong>

bold text

<em> - italics/emphasis
<em>italicized text</em>

italicized text

<sub> - subscript
Text with <sub>subscript</sub>

Text with subscript
<sup> - superscript
Text with <sup>superscript</sup>

Text with superscript

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How do I include accents and special characters in the abstracts and titles?

The repository software supports the worldwide character set (Unicode, utf-8). Accents, symbols, and other special characters may be copied and pasted into the abstract or title field from a word processing file or typed in directly. Windows users may also use the Character Map to insert these characters. Macintosh users may use the Character Palette (available via Edit > Special Characters in the Finder).

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How do I revise a submission?

To revise a submission that has been posted to the repository, contact the repository administrator with the new version.

If the submission has been submitted, but not yet posted, you may revise it via your My Account page:

  1. Locate the article on your My Account page, and click the title.
  2. Click Revise Submission from the list of options in the left sidebar.
  3. Enter your changes in the Revise Submission form, and click Submit at the bottom of the page to submit your changes. (You only need to modify the portion of the form that corresponds to the changes you wish to make.)

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How can I submit a multi-part file, such as multiple chapters for a book?

Combine all the sections together as one Microsoft Word file or PDF file and submit that.

To make one PDF file from multiple files, open the first PDF file, then choose Document>Insert Pages from Acrobat's menus to insert the second file (indicate it should go after the last page of the first file), and repeat for all documents. The result will be one compound PDF file which may then be submitted.

If you feel that the one large PDF file might be too large for some people to download, we suggest that you submit the consolidated file as the full text of the article, and then upload the separate chapters or sections of the document as Associated Files. These files will appear on the web page alongside the complete document. For more information about uploading associated files, see below.

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Can I post related files (sound clips, data sets, etc.) alongside the published article?

Yes. The bepress system refers to these supplementary items as Associated Files. You will be prompted to submit Associated Files when you upload your submissions. The name of the files you upload will appear on the web site along with your short description of it. Viewers must have the necessary software to open your files; that is not provided by the bepress system.

Please be sure that there are no permissions issues related to use of the associated material. Sometimes, especially with images, you must write a letter seeking permission to use the material before it can be posted.

Also note that where possible, items such as images, charts and tables that are referenced in the document (or otherwise an integral part of the document) should be included directly in the article itself and not posted just as associated files.

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Can I post a reprint from a journal?

It depends on what the journal allows, which is usually specified in their agreement with the author. If it would not violate copyright to post the reprint on your repository site, you're welcome to do so. Permissions for many publishers can be found at SHERPA RoMEO.

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A working paper in our repository site has been published in a slightly revised form in a journal. What should I do?

Many journals do not have any restrictions on working papers that preceded an article, especially if substantial revisions were made. You should check your author agreement with the journal to confirm that there is no problem with leaving the working paper on the site. The repository would constitute noncommercial use.

Assuming the working paper does remain on posted in the repository, it is a good idea to include the citation to the published article on the cover page of the repository working paper. Please contact the repository administrator to request this change.

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