Table of Contents:
Mandate
Western University's Open Repository is an open access digital repository that collects, archives, preserves and freely disseminates electronic copies of scholarly material related to research, teaching, and events at the University of Western Ontario. It aims to facilitate knowledge sharing and broaden the international recognition of Western’s academic excellence by providing open access to Western’s scholarly contributions. By providing an open access environment for researchers to archive and share their research, the Open Repository enables compliance with the Tri-Agency Open Access Policy on Publications.
Defined Terms
Administrator: refers to the Research and Scholarly Communication Librarian within Western Libraries who is responsible for Western University Open Repository operations.
Affiliated University Colleges: refers to King’s University College and Huron University College.
Contributor: refers to the member of the Western community who makes the submission to the Open Repository.
Embargo: refers to a temporary restriction on access imposed by a publisher or journal as part of their copyright or open access policy.
Mediated Deposit: a service whereby Western Libraries staff submit materials on behalf of a contributor or group of contributors.
Metadata: refers to the information used to describe a publication in the Open Repository submission form (e.g.Title, Author, Keywords, Abstract).
Non-exclusive right: refers to the right granted to Western Libraries to archive, preserve, reproduce, and freely disseminate scholarship, all with proper attribution and for non-commercial purposes only.
Eligible Contributors
Individual faculty members, librarians, archivists, and staff affiliated with Western University and the Affiliated University Colleges. This includes retired faculty, librarians, archivists, and staff.
Individuals contributing on behalf of people affiliated with any faculty, department, program, school, institute, research centre, campus unit, or other group affiliated with Western University.
Graduate students with faculty support and approval to post scholarly work.
Undergraduate students with faculty support and approval to post scholarly work.
Content Guidelines
All works must be authored or produced by an eligible contributor.
Submissions must be scholarly, research, or teaching materials (e.g., journal articles, books/ book chapters, manuscripts, conference presentations, records of events and symposia, theses and dissertations, course materials, learning objects).
The work should be final and complete (e.g., papers that are ready for publication or have been published, books or book chapters that are complete on their own).
Submissions should be ready for public dissemination in an open access environment immediately upon submission or after an embargo period.
For each submission, one or more file(s) must be uploaded. Links to external websites or standalone pages can be included in addition to the file(s) but cannot be the only source of content, since Western University’s Open Repository cannot guarantee long-term access to external pages.
The files should be made accessible in compliance with the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA), where practicable (examples of not practicable situations may include materials formatted by the publisher, or files you have no authority or control over).
Format Types
Western University’s Open Repository supports a wide range of file types, including but not limited to:
MS Word and RTF files (automatically converted to .pdf upon upload)
Image files: TIFF, JPEG, BMP, PNG, and GIF
Audio and video with a MIME type of video or audio are supported with native streaming, including:
Video: 3GP, ASX, AVI, F4V, FLV, MKV, MOV, MP4, MPG/MPEG, WMV
Audio: AAC, AC3, AIF/AIFF, FLAC, M4A, MP3, WAV, WMA
Submission Guidelines:
Contributors can deposit materials into the Open Repository independently or through Western Libraries’ Mediated Deposit Service. See the Western University Open Repository Submission Guidelines for more information.
6.a. Responsibilities of a Contributor
Ensure that materials submitted comply with the Open Repository Content Guidelines.
Ensure that materials are submitted in a manner consistent with Canadian Copyright law: that is, the author must have copyright or must obtain copyright holder's permission to submit content (e.g., for previously published articles or books for which copyright was transferred to publisher).
Provide sufficient metadata for the submitted content to describe what it is and ensure discoverability (e.g., title, authors, abstract, keywords).
Embargo (temporarily restrict access) to an item if necessary to comply with publisher’s requirements.
Agree to Western University’s Open Repository end user agreement which grants Western Libraries a non-exclusive right to publish your work via the repository.
6.b. Rights of a Contributor
Decide which content and format to submit within the Open Repository Content Guidelines and Format Types.
Select and assign a Creative Commons license for materials consistent with the item’s copyright status.
Request that a record or item be modified or removed from public view.
6.c. Responsibilities of Western Libraries
Make decisions about Community and Collection definitions.
Request customizations to submission form/s and/or metadata to reflect the content in the Open Repository.
Approve submissions and/or edit metadata when these steps are part of the submission workflow.
Embargo (temporarily restrict access to) an item if necessary to comply with publisher requirements. Content will become publicly available after a defined embargo period.
Make decisions about requests to withdraw or modify content.
Provide guidance and instruction on Western University’s Open Repository submission processes and workflows.
Provide download and usage statistics as required or requested.
Notify Scholars Portal staff and campus partners of any organizational changes affecting submissions.
Understand and follow University policies relevant to the Open Repository and educate contributors about these policies.
Collaborate with Scholars Portal to remove any emerging accessibility barriers as they are identified, and ensure that Western University's Open Repository adheres to the principles outlined in the Scholars Portal Accessibility Commitment.
6.d. Rights of Western Libraries
Decide upon a policy regarding content to be submitted.
Decide who may submit content within the Community.
Grant and withdraw users’ authorizations to submit.
Approve submissions and/or edit metadata when these steps are part of the submission workflow.
Ensure that materials submitted comply with the Open Repository Content Guidelines.
Ensure that materials are submitted in a manner consistent with Canadian Copyright law: that is, the author must have copyright or must obtain copyright holder's permission to submit content (e.g., for previously published articles or books for which copyright was transferred to publisher).
Provide sufficient metadata for the submitted content to describe what it is and ensure discoverability (e.g., title, authors, abstract, keywords).
Select and assign a Creative Commons license for materials consistent with the item’s copyright status.
Embargo (temporarily restrict access) to an item if necessary to comply with publisher’s requirements.
Customize interface as permitted and required by DSpace to enhance functionality; extensive customization may be performed by Scholars Portal support staff.
Decide which content and format to submit within the Open Repository Content Guidelines and Format Types.
Request that a record or item be modified or removed from public view.
Copyright
All works must be submitted in a manner consistent with Canadian Copyright law: i.e., the author must have copyright, permission from a rights holder, or must avail themselves of one of the permitted uses of copyrighted content in the Copyright Act of Canada.
By depositing your work in Western University's Open Repository, you grant Western Libraries a non-exclusive right to publish your work via the repository in perpetuity. This is different from transferring copyright. Rather, you as the author and copyright holder permit the University to distribute their work while retaining the right to reuse their content as desired.
Limits on Public Access to Materials
Generally, all content will be made available to the public in accordance with the license terms selected by the Contributor.
A Contributor may request that their content be withheld from public access for a period of time (also known as a publication delay or embargo).
Graduate students who wish to place a publication delay or embargo on their thesis or dissertation must request this through the School of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies by writing to thesis@uwo.ca
All other requests for a publication delay or embargo must be made at the time of submission or in writing to rsclib@uwo.ca
Western Libraries staff may also place an embargo on content in order to comply with publisher requirements.
Withdrawal and Modification
Requests for withdrawal are evaluated on a case-by-case basis and must include a justification for the request.
Requests to modify content are generally handled as follows:
Modifying item description: Western Libraries staff will correct errors in item metadata on request.
Modifying content: Since any content that has been posted to Western University’s Open Repository may have been cited in its original form, modifications are normally permitted in the form of updated versions posted alongside the original document(s).
Requests for withdrawal or modification of theses and dissertations should be directed to the School of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies (SGPS) by emailing thesis@uwo.ca; all other requests should be directed to rsclib@uwo.ca
Preservation
Western Libraries preserves materials in Western University’s Open Repository for the long term by means of regular backups, maintenance, monitoring, virus scans, and software upgrades.
In the event of a repository system migration, the Library will make every effort to transfer contents to another appropriate platform.
Disclaimers
Materials will be neither critically examined nor peer-reviewed as part of the process of submission and deposit into Western Unversity’s Open Repository.
Western University’s Open Repository and its administrators are not responsible for the maintenance and/or performance of external web links within documents and records in the How drepository.
Western University’s Open Respository and its administrators are not responsible for the content of the items contained within the repository.
Use of Metadata
Western University’s Open Repository metadata can be harvested by third parties for purposes related to the discovery of contents. However, harvesting the full text documents is not permitted except when explicitly granted by the School of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies (for dissertations and theses) or Western Libraries (for all remaining content).
