In order to deposit a work in ePublications@SCU, you must hold the copyright to that work, or have permission from the copyright owner to do so. The copyright of any material deposited in ePublications@SCU is retained by the depositor/creator unless otherwise explicitly stated.

Which version of my research can be added to the repository?

Which version of a work, if any, can be deposited, varies depending on the publisher. Authors commonly assign copyright to publishers when they negotiate their contract with the commercial publisher that is publishing their journal article or conference paper. The right to submit your work to an institutional repository may be outlined in your copyright transfer agreement. Repository staff will check publisher policies and if required contact publishers to seek permission to make the full text of a work available to the public.

Working within the guidelines established by publishers, the version of the work that will be included in the repository will be sought in the following order of priority:

• Publisher's PDF version
• Post-print - accepted manuscript, post peer-review
• Pre-print - submitted manuscript, pre peer-review

If it is not possible to upload one of the above versions it may be possible to link to the published version on the publisher's website. Most publishers permit the post-print to be added to the author's institutional repository. It is important that we check the conditions attached to each publication and upload the version that is permitted by the publisher. Information about the conditions attached to publication in individual journals or with specific publishers can be found on the SHERPA/RoMEO and OAKList websites. Most publishers do not permit any version of the full text of books or book chapters to be deposited in the repository, unless the author has retained copyright of the work. Some publishers also have deposit conditions such as a requirement to acknowledge the publisher, include specific wording and/or link to the final version on their website. It is SCU's policy to comply with all publisher deposit conditions (including embargo periods) and to include any required acknowledgements in each work's repository record.

Submission and Copyright checking process

1. Authors who wish to submit material to the ePublications@SCU repository are encouraged to send a list of their citations to epubs@scu.edu.au along with an electronic copy of the post-print version of each of their works.
2. Once this citation list has been checked for copyright permissions by repository staff, a Deposit Agreement Form will be sent to you asking you to sign off on your permission for the items to be uploaded to the repository. The Deposit Agreement Form outlines what SCU will and won't do with your content, and only needs to be completed once by each staff member.
3. On receipt of the completed form, the citations and papers will be added to ePublications@SCU by repository staff.
4. Repository staff will advise authors if it is possible to upload a different version of the work and may also contact publishers on behalf of authors seeking permission to deposit a full text version of a work in the SCU institutional repository.
5. If it is not possible to upload or link to a full text version of a work, a metadata only record will be created in the repository which will include all citation information (and abstract if available).

Authors are encouraged to try to modify future contracts to include explicit permission to archive a copy of their research in SCU's institutional repository, ePublications@SCU. Many publishers are happy to negotiate with authors and to make the necessary changes to contracts so that authors retain rights over their work.

For further information about copyright please contact us.

Copyright Takedown Notice

If you believe that a copyright work is available on the ePublications@SCU institutional repository in such a way that constitutes a copyright infringement, or a breach of an agreed licence or contract, please notify us.

Updated: 24 October 2011