The University Of Utah Home Page USpace.utah.edu Home Page

Answers to Faculty Questions

Ready responses to faculty questions and concerns about the IR1

Questions about using the IR vs. other archive or, department web page

I already put my stuff in arXiv (or another repository). Why should I put it in the IR?

  • The IR will give your paper a persistent URL (reference URL) that will not break if a server gets moved/changed. It will allow people to get to your material without worrying about getting an error if something on the back end has changed.
  • Also, you don't need to worry that the server will be maintained. Sometimes, at the departmental level, the "care and feeding" of a project or server is dependent on a set of interested individuals, and if they leave or get new interests, the project may languish. The whole business of libraries is to develop and maintain collections, independent of personalities - having made a commitment to something, we'll keep it going.
  • We don't know the capabilities of your eprint server, but our IR provides "access control" - if you don't happen to want the whole world to see something, we can control access to it, that is, the people you want to see your paper will be asked to log in to see it.

See also "Published materials and copyright questions" section below

Why is posting to the IR better than posting to a department web site?

There are both pros and cons. Here are some pros:

  • It's far easier to interact with the IR than with the campus web servers.
  • Long-term accessibility: things in the IR get a "reference URL" that will not break- you can cite it, and the plan is that years down the line, that address will still work.
  • Long-term readability: one of the underlying commitments with the IR is not just that we'll maintain works deposited there for the foreseeable future, but for certain formats (such as PDF) we are committed to converting or translating or whatever we have to do to keep the material readable.
  • We pledge to maintain the server: backups, regular maintenance, all that, and libraries are all about "long term" maintenance of things.

And some cons:

  • Only coordinators can change things (the version of the file, for example) once it is deposited in the IR. It's quite ok - we're happy to do it - but you have to ask someone to do it, you can't do it yourself.
  • The IR doesn't have the same "look and feel" as your department pages. But you could deposit your paper in the IR, and then make a link to it from your department page!

Questions about how people will find the IR and the things in it (Google questions)

Can you "Google" something in the IR?

  • Yes, most IR items are indexed by Google.

How else will people find the IR?

  • We expect it will be mostly via Google, but there are links to our IR in various places on the University of Utah web site and the U Libraries' sites. Departments can add links to the IR from their web pages to help people get there. You can send people the "reference URLs" to your work in the IR, too.

Searching: what is searchable?

  • The IR web site is browsable by college, department, author, and title. All fields are searched using the basic search box. Once in the database, you can use the advanced search, which searches the content of the information fields that are filled in when something is deposited in the IR (authors, title, keywords, abstract, etc.). The full text of the deposited item is searchable by the IR software. Learn more about how to search the IR.

Questions about published materials and copyright issues

I've already published it, why should I put it in the IR?

  • It's easier to put your work in the IR than to post documents to your personal or departmental web site - you email us and we do it for you.
  • When colleagues request copies of your scholarly materials, just give them the URL- no more attaching documents to emails.
  • You don't have to worry about backups, maintenance, etc. - the U Libraries do that for you.

What do I do about copyright?

  • You retain copyright. You retain all intellectual rights to your material, however. You can opt to put a Creative Commons License on your work, which will help specify how you want your material to be used and provide an explicit mechanism for others to know that. Just let us know what you prefer. Please also see the next question, about material that has been published elsewhere.

Can I put a journal article or published conference paper into the IR? If the materials in the IR are for educational use, do we even have to get permission from the publisher to put them there?

  • There are now certain publishers, such as Elsevier and Springer, which are allowing authors to deposit the pre-publication version of their article into an IR. The "Sherpa" project provides a searchable database of publisher policies regarding IRs, see: http://www.sherpa.ac.uk/romeo.php. Final edited versions may also be allowed to be deposited in the IR if they are the author's copy (without publisher formatting); sometimes an embargo is imposed but not always. We can help figure this all out.
  • For conferences, it is best to contact the publisher of the conference proceedings directly.

If I sign my copyright away to a publisher can I still post my article?

  • It depends. Some publishers will allow you to post various versions. We can help you figure this out; as mentioned above, the "Sherpa" project web site can be helpful for determining this. If you retained your copyright transfer agreement of a recent publication, it may also specify.

What version of an article can I post? It is more natural to post an article at the time of submission. When it is published, I've moved on to other work

  • See above - if the publisher allows it, the last pre-publication version - the text you send to the publisher - should be the "ok" version. What you can't do is take the "published" version - with all the formatting (columns and such) - from, say, the electronic version of a journal, and put that version in the IR.

Questions about access, versions, and removals

Can I control who sees my work in the IR?

  • Indirectly, yes: you cannot do it yourself, but you can just ask your library IR coordinator to set up restricted access.
  • Please note that in general, we would prefer that most of the material going into the IR be available to the world.

What if I revise a paper I've put in the IR? Can I add the new version, or replace the old with the new?

  • This might be a good place to note that the IR is meant for finished material, not works in progress. At the same time, we know "revisions happen," and we are happy to make sure the most up-to-date version of your work is available in the IR.
  • If you revise a paper you've deposited, or want to add an addendum, send the new material to your library IR coordinator, with a note indicating what you want done. We can add a new version to your existing deposit, along with labels indicating which is the original paper, and which is the latest version (or addendum). It's easy for us to do this, and we are happy to - so don't hesitate to ask.

What if I really want to remove something I put in the IR?

  • This is something you can't do yourself, but your library IR coordinator will be happy to do it for you. There are 2 levels of making something no longer available in the IR:
    • Withdrawal: the item will not be visible, and search engines will be blocked from detecting it, but the item will actually continue to exist in the IR. A coordinator would be able to reinstate it.
    • Removal: the item will be deleted from the IR, and cannot be reinstated without re-submitting it.

Who are these "library IR coordinators "?

  • Many of the librarians on campus can help explain how the IR works. In addition, each library has a designated IR coordinator, who has administrative access rights to the IR. They can set up access controls, change or remove deposits, and fix typos in records.

Questions about what can go into the IR and who can put things in

Who can make deposits to the IR?

  • The libraries will make the deposits for you. Just let us know.

What can be posted? Who decides? Is it peer reviewed?

  • Scholarly or artistic work of enduring value. Departments can set up guidelines, in conjunction with their library IR coordinator, if they desire. We are planning on the common sense of the faculty and librarians to mediate any questionable items or items that may be more appropriate in a different University archive.

Can I only put .pdf's and text files into the IR?

  • You can put any kind of digital material in the IR, including images and multimedia formats.

What file formats do the submissions have to be in and how can you be sure they are updateable?

  • Almost all types of formats can be submitted - anything, really: if you can upload it, you can put it in the IR. Certain formats are "supported," i.e., we are pledging to keep them readable. These include formats such as PDF, Postscript, plain text, HTML, GIF, JPEG, and AIFF (for sound).

Can I put web pages in the IR?

  • At the moment, the IR does not handle deposits of web pages very gracefully. While we experience web pages that have pictures, graphics, multimedia, etc., as unified presentations, they are really made up of totally separate files: text files, graphics files, etc. The work-around we suggest is to deposit the original web page, along with a PDF. This will allow users to see an exact representation of the page (color and everything), while we also archive the original formats. The full version of Adobe can convert web pages to PDF; there are also shareware programs (such as HTMLDOC) available on the web that do a pretty good job.

Other questions and answers

Is there a permanent way to cite work in the IR in my CV?

  • Yes - that is what the "referenceURL" system is all about. Once deposited, just copy the "referenceURL" that appears in the record. That is your permanent link to your item in the IR.

Will our IR be part of a larger consortium of IRs?

  • Yes, the University of Utah is part of the Utah Academic Library Consortium (UALC), and we are just starting on a venture to create a statewide repository thanks to UALC and LSTA grants.

Why do we need an IR when we have journals?

  • The IR is mainly aimed at those materials that may not, for whatever reason, make it into a journal. Things like conference presentations, preprints, working papers, white papers, theses and dissertations. There are many, many great pieces of scholarship and artistic endeavor produced on our campus that don't end up as journal articles. Why not try to capture them and share them with the world? We also need the IR to help promote scholarly communication, education, and democracy, as the rising cost of journals makes access to their content prohibitive for many.

1 Adapted with permission from Suzanne Bell. University of Rochester Libraries. (2005, February 8). Institutional Repository (IR) Crib Sheet. Retrieved January 21, 2006 from: http://docushare.lib.rochester.edu/docushare/dsweb/GetRendition/Document-17647/html.