Frequently asked questions
Below are answers to some frequently asked questions (FAQ) about institutional repositories, open access, copyright and this Project.
On this page,
- Questions about institutional repositories
- Questions about intellectual property and copyright
- Questions about mandates and policies
- Questions about storage, management, dissemination and preservation of scholarly work
- Question about The University of Manchester Institutional Repository Project
Questions about institutional repositories
- What is an institutional repository?
- Who is using an institutional repository?
- Why should I use a repository?
Questions about open access
Questions about intellectual property and copyright
- Who owns the copyright of my work?
- Will I break copyright if I store my work in the repository?
- What should I do if my publisher doesn't allow me to deposit my work in a repository?
- What is the University of Manchester's policy of intellectual property and copyright?
Questions about mandates and policies
- Which research councils have an open access mandate/policy?
- What do research council open access mandates mean?
- What is the University of Manchester's open access policy?
Questions about storage, management, dissemination and preservation of scholarly work
- What can I store in a repository?
- We have a Faculty publications database, do I have to submit my works to this as well as the repository?
- Who can access the content stored in the repository?
Questions about The University of Manchester's Institutional Repository Project
- Who is involved in setting up the university's repository?
- Who is involved in maintaining the repository?
- How can I get to use the repository?
- When will I be able to use the repository?
What is an institutional repository?
In simple terms an institutional repository is a place to store digital copies of scholarly work and make these materials freely and easily accessible.
For an academic researcher it is a place to store, manage and disseminate their work via the World Wide Web. The work can include publications in peer-reviewed journals, books and book-sections, technical reports, working papers, monographs, conference presentations, audio and visual materials or any other research content that has some scholarly value.
A librarian might consider a repository as somewhere to catalogue, preserve and archive digital materials for posterity. This includes enabling easy access to these materials via a simple persistent web address.
A research manager might view a repository as a barometer of an organisations research productivity and health. They might use the repository to inform on strategic planning.
An IT professional might consider a repository as a type of digital asset management (DAM) system. They might see the system as hardware, software and processes for the ingestion, annotation, cataloging, storage and retrieval of digital materials.
An organisation might see its repository as a record of its intellectual assets. The organisation would use the repository to help meet research council requirements, improve its reputation and demonstrate to its employees that their work is valued.
Who is using an institutional repository?
The world-wide development and use of institutional repositories has grown significantly in the last five years. At the time of writing, there were around 1,000 institutional repositories world-wide, of which over 100 are located in the UK. Eighteen of the twenty Russell Group universities have established institutional repositories.
For some examples of institutional repositories see our Related web sites and literature page.
Why should I use a repository?
Whether you are a research academic, research fellow, postdoctoral research associate, PhD student, librarian, research business manager, senior member of academic staff, head or director of a faculty, school, research institute or research centre, there are many potential benefits of using a repository.
For a full list of benefits see our Project business case and benefits page.
What does open access mean?
Open-access (OA) literature is digital, online, free of charge, and free of most copyright and licensing restrictions. For a more complete description of what open access means see Peter Suber's Open Access Overview.
There are many myths about open access. Amongst these open access is compatible with copyright, peer review and revenue generation. For a more in depth consideration of these myths visit the Open Access Now page on (Mis)Leading Open Access Myths.
What is self-archiving?
Self-archiving is the mechanism by which the originator of a piece of scholarly works submits their content to an institutional repository. Normally this is a very simple task and might involved an academic member of staff submitting a journal article, a postdoctoral researcher submitting a working paper or technical report or a PhD student submitting their thesis.
Individuals may submit the metadata that describes the piece of work as well as, where copyright permits, the full text of the work.
Self-archiving is important because realistically the only individuals who know exactly what they have produced are the original authors.
What is assisted-archiving?
Assisted-archiving is where an individual on behalf of the originator(s) of a piece submits the work or provides some other support function. This might be complete a partial submission, convert work into a particular file format, or check on publishers copyright statements.
Self-archiving is important because researchers are often too busy to submit materials themselves and hence need support to ensure their work is disseminated as widely as possible and receives the impact it deserves.
Who owns the copyright of my work?
You and your co-authors do, unless you have signed-it over to a publisher or someone else.
You should also be aware the University of Manchester has a policy on intellectual property and as an employee or student you need to abide by this,
Will I break copyright if I store my work in the repository?
No.
If you have signed-over the copyright of your work to your publisher and that copyright statement indicates that you are not allowed to deposit those materials in an institutional repository (or in another electronic source, such as a personal web site) then you shouldn't submit those materials to the repository.
However, its worth noting that many publishers now allow authors to submit full text versions of published works to institutional repositories. Also copyright statements do not prevent you from submitting the metadata and a link to the publishers web site.
You can use the SHERPA/RoMEo service to check permissions that are normally given as part of each publisher's copyright transfer agreement.
What should I do if my publisher doesn't allow me to deposit my work in a repository?
Other repository projects have formed working practices to accommodate this scenario. For the University of Manchester, this is a subject the Repository Project will consider in due course.
We are keen to hear about your experiences so we can learn and give appropriate advice and support to you and others. Please let us know about such instances (Contact us).
In the meantime, we suggest you look at Steven Harnad's paper "For Whom the Gate Tolls?" which covers some avenues you can use to get around restrictive copyright legally.
What is the University of Manchester's policy of intellectual property and copyright?
The University of Manchester's intellectual property and copyright policy is available to download from Staffnet.
Summarising, ownership of intellectual property created by a University employee automatically belongs to the University (see section 3.4). However, the University waives its rights with regards to ownership of copyright in scholarly work (see section 3.7) except where,
- if an employee creates intellectual property outside of the course of his/her employment with more than incidental use of University resources,
- intellectual property created in the pursuance of sponsored research or other agreement with an outside body will belong to the University and then ownership will be determined according to the terms of such agreement
- in the relation to any item created by an employee whose job description specifically includes the creation of printed or electronic materials,
- where publication of the scholarly work brings the University into disrepute
It is important to note that the University's policy is that all employee's are responsible for ensuring their arrangements with outside bodies do not conflict with their obligations to the University, including the University’s rights of IP ownership. In particular, this applies to any arrangements which an individual makes with a third party publisher in relation to the publication of a piece of scholarly work (see section 3.3).
Which research councils have an open access mandate/policy?
As of December 2007, six of the seven major UK research councils have published open access mandates/policies. These are AHRC, BBSRC, ESRC, MRC, NERC and STFC.
For latest information on these mandates visit the Research Councils UK statement on Access to Research Outputs.
Other research funding bodies have similarly mandated, including the Arthritis Research Foundation, British Heart Foundation, Cancer Research UK, Department of Health, Joint Information Systems Committee and Wellcome Trust.
What do research council open access mandates mean?
Answer will appear here soon ...!
What is the University of Manchester's open access policy?
The University of Manchester has yet to form an open access policy. This will be discussed as part of this Project. If you would like to contribute to this discussion then please contact us.
What can I store in a repository?
The focus of this project is to enable repository services that support storage of,
- Academic publications: articles (published articles in journals, magazines and newspapers; peer-reviewed, copyright approved post-print articles; pre-print materials related to published peer-reviewed articles), books, book sections (including conference proceedings and abstracts)
- Theses and dissertations: Doctoral theses, Masters theses and dissertations
- Grey literature: patents (published only), technical reports, software, project reports, internet publication, documentation and manuals, working and discussion papers, non peer-reviewed conference and workshop materials (posters and speech/lecture materials)
- Audio visual items: images, shows/exhibitions, performances, compositions, artefacts, talks
We recognise that the above list is not comprehensive. Priorities and practicalities will mean the Project is unlikely to accommodate all possible forms of scholarly work during its lifetime. It is expected that the repository could incorporate other forms of scholarly work, as necessary, with additional post-project development.
Where the publisher’s copyright or other issues prevent storage of a full-text version of the article in the repository, the metadata can include a web address to an online version that is available from the publisher’s or some other website.
We have a Faculty publications database, do I have to submit my works to this as well as the repository?
No.
We aim to retain all functions (and content) of existing Faculty publications databases, and ideally enhance these services. We expect to surface repository functions within existing online services (e.g. Faculty intranets) where they are well established and used. Furthermore, content stored in the repository will be available to others to view and harvest as is deemed necessary (and appropriate).
In practice, this means a piece of work deposited in the repository is the definitive and permanent version. Submission of the same material more than once, for example to meet different administrative requirements, is not necessary.
Who can access the content stored in the repository?
Answer will appear here soon ...!
Who is involved in setting up the University's repository?
Answer will appear here soon ...!
Who is involved in maintaining the repository?
Answer will appear here soon ...!
How can I get to use the repository?
Answer will appear here soon ...!
When will I be able to use the repository?
Answer will appear here soon ...!