digitalcommons.wku.edu A pilot project funded by the Dean of Libraries & the Provost’s Initiatives for Excellence Western Kentucky University Presented by Connie Foster, Project Director Professor and Head, Dept. of Library Technical Services May 2007; revised August 20, ;

Access TopSCHOLAR™ at:

What Is TopSCHOLAR™? the digital research repository of WKU, dedicated to scholarly research, creative activity and other full-text learning resources that merit enduring and archival value and access a centralized database that supports the intellectual life of the University and provides easy searching and retrieval.

Any WKU faculty Staff Student with faculty-sponsored research Faculty, departments, centers, and administrative units are encouraged to populate TopSCHOLAR™ and to select, submit, and publish works of enduring value that merit permanent access, contribute to the intellectual capital of WKU, and provide primary research resources for students and faculty worldwide. Who Can Contribute?

What Is the Content? articles, working papers, conference proceedings, chapters in books, essays, creative writing, historical documents, learning modules, data sets. technical reports, capstone papers and graduate and honors theses, multimedia materials, art, presentations … and much more.

Committees for Implementation TopSCHOLAR™ Advisory Committee Gordon Ford College of Business-Yining Chen College of Education and Behavioral Sciences–Lance Hahn College of Health and Human Services–Jay Gabbard Ogden College of Science & Engineering-Rob Wyatt Potter College of Arts & Letters–Drew McMichael Bowling Green Community College–Paul Bush FaCET–Sally Kuhlenschmidt Honors Program–Craig Cobane Office of Graduate Studies and Research-Richard Bowker Academic Affairs–Mike Dale Information Technology–John Bowers University Libraries representative to serve as Chair–Connie Foster

TopSCHOLAR™ Management Committee Department of Library Public Services Rosemary Meszaros, Jue Wang Department of Library Special Collections Jonathan Jeffrey, Lynn Niedermeier Department of Library Technical Services Rose Davis, Jack Montgomery Office of the Dean of Libraries Haiwang Yuan, Cindy Troutman Chair, Connie Foster, Head, Library Technical Services

Glossary of Frequently Used Terms Communities = Departments, Centers, Units Deposits = content uploaded by author or proxied Associated Files = images, graphs, charts that support the main document but are uploaded separately Series = the “container” for the content, where it resides Object = the document or work being deposited

Hierarchies, One Example Community (discipline like Engineering) –Sub-community (Civil engineering) Series (Faculty Publications) Series (Ohio Valley Regional Competition Student Winners)

System Features Automatic conversion of Word and RTF to PDFs System-generated cover pages for a consistent look (can be turned off per series) Searchable by title, abstract, keywords, full-text, authors Randomly generated paper of the day Number of downloads, number of documents deposited Harvested by search engines like Google Scholar, Yahoo! OAI metadata harvesters, etc.

Additional Features and Benefits Monthly statistics to authors on number of downloads (if more than one) “Notify me” allows you to specify subjects about which you want notification when a new deposit mentions the keyword or phrase. Basically, a research alert. Personal researcher pages E-journals, paper series, newsletters, etc.

Selected Works (coming this fall as new component)

Publication Process Metadata File(s) Web Form Editorial System Public Repository Author / Administrator Series Administrator Users Submission is a simple web form – no custom application to download Authors, administrative staff, or library staff can upload material Submission is a simple web form – no custom application to download Authors, administrative staff, or library staff can upload material Administrator gets an announcing receipt of new submissions Document is reviewed / revised in the administrative interface Peer review can be integrated Administrator gets an announcing receipt of new submissions Document is reviewed / revised in the administrative interface Peer review can be integrated Documents are published immediately on the site with administrator’s approval

How Do I Submit Content to TopSCHOLAR™ Prepare 2 separate files (more if needed for associated files) as attachments: STEP ONE File 1: 1. Author(s) and/or editor(s) names and (s) and affiliations [faculty advisors where appropriate for student submissions] 2. Title (exactly as you want it to appear) and 2-5 keywords that are not included in the title or abstract for better indexing 3. An Abstract separate from the main document (even if one is already included in the manuscript). The format of the abstract needs to be reduced to plain text with no fonts or special characters.*(See additional details at asterisk for special characters and coding) 4. Any special Comments (acknowledgements, permissions with citations/links to published article, anything that needs to be stated on the web site).

Continued … File 2: 1. The document in MSWord or.rtf (Digital Commons generates a title page and the PDF). If never published before, generally use Times Roman, 12 point. A PowerPoint (.pps) can be uploaded but it will not be generated as a PDF; it will remain as a PowerPoint. Please submit the version of your paper as accepted for publication –NOT THE PUBLISHER’S PDF. 2. Associated (or supplemental) files, such as video, audio, figures, tables, graphs, charts. These are uploaded individually and appear separate from the main document. Please also 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 see Copyright and Permissions section). 3. Signed author copyright form granting permission to upload and any appropriate publisher permissions.

Copyright Form Copyright Permission for TopSCHOLAR TM Western Kentucky University I hereby warrant that I am the sole copyright owner of the original work identified below: Title of Work:______________________________________________________ Description of Material: ______________________________________________ I also represent that I have obtained permission from third party copyright owners of any material incorporated in part or in whole in the above described material, and I have, as such identified and acknowledged such third-party owned materials clearly. I hereby grant Western Kentucky University the permission to copy, display, perform, distribute for preservation or archiving in any form necessary, this work in TopSCHOLAR TM digital repository for worldwide unrestricted access in perpetuity. I hereby affirm that this submission to TopSCHOLAR TM is in compliance with Western Kentucky University policies and the U.S. copyright laws and that the material does not contain any libelous matter, nor does it violate third- party privacy. I also understand that the University retains the right to remove or deny the right to deposit materials in TopSCHOLAR TM digital repository. Copyright Owner’s Name:___________________________________________ Affiliation: _______________________________________________________ Signature: ________________________________________________________ Date: ____________ address: ______________________ Form April 5, 2007 Submit the signed permission form in one of the following ways: (1) attachment with the content files; (2) fax to (Connie Foster), or (3) campus mail: Connie Foster, Cravens 301-A, Library Technical Services.

Completing the Process STEP TWO When you have everything ready: your files as attachments and any explanatory message to or If you’d like to call first to discuss content and ask questions, please contact Connie Foster ; Rose Davis , Jue Wang , Haiwang Yuan

Copyright and Permissions When submitting material, each person agrees to the following: All authors must hold ownership rights to the material, and/or must obtain permission from third party owners, and must sign and submit a copyright permission form to with the content to be If third-party permission is granted, please give exact wording to be used, name of publisher, date published, journal, issue, pagination, DOI (when known), etc. If you are uncertain about contributing previously published material, check the SherpaRoMEO site (Rights Metadata for Open Archiving) for useful information about many publishers’ policies ( If your publisher is not there, contact them directly or Authors can often negotiate the right to deposit a current article in an institutional repository. Just try. Other sites that might prove useful for license agreements or negotiations include: (Creative Commons License agreements) andhttp://creativecommons.org/license/ (LibLicense, Licensing Digital Information, a Yale University site).

One Last Word on Copyright For thorough discussion of author’s rights and potential to retain copyright with publishers see An example of a copyright statement in the Comments area of your deposit: Copyright 2006, Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. This version posted with permission as author's final version. Published in Library Collections, Acquisitions, and Technical Services, v.29, iss. 4, Dec. 2005: doi: /j.lcats

Removal or Withdrawal of Content TopSCHOLAR™ is designed as a permanent scholarly record. Once a paper is deposited, a citation to the paper will always remain. The works should be accurate and ready for public dissemination and have proper permissions if previously published; however, in exceptional situations authors may request that the administrator withdraw or remove a particular paper or version of the paper. If an item is withdrawn, a placeholder will be put on TopSCHOLAR™ to indicate permanent and deliberate withdrawal and search engines will be blocked from detecting it, but the item will continue to exist in the database for archival value. If a working paper is later published in a journal (either in the same or revised form), the publisher may require that the paper be removed; however, the publisher may also be willing to grant posting with an appropriate link to the final commercially published version. The author can often negotiate this arrangement. (See also Copyright and Permissions) If an item is removed, it will be deleted from the database and cannot be reinstated without re-submitting it. Withdrawals and removals are highly discouraged. A “Withdrawn” or “Removed” tombstone is left in its place for someone who enters the item’s URL and cannot find the document.

Additional Resources Allows searching across bepress repositories Provides more information about Selected Works, Open Access, Self-Archiving, and Scholarly Communication issues To learn more about Berkeley Electronic Press and institutional repositories like Digital Commons, go to this site. Bepress assumed marketing and sales of Digital Commons from Proquest/CSA in early July 2007.

Accessibility Permanency Discovery

“ The process, the outcomes, and especially the passion of discovery enhance the meaning of the effort and of the institution itself.” Charles E. Glassick et al., Scholarship Assessed (San Francisco : Jossey-Bass, 1997), p.9. Make connections, provide opportunities, create new and centralized paths of discovery and permanency for your efforts.

You provide the content. TopSCHOLAR™ is the container.