Institutional Repository Policies

This page overviews policies guiding Knowledge@UChicago, the University of Chicago's institutional repository.

Scope

Contributors to Repository

Contributors must be affiliated with the University of Chicago and have valid CNetID credentials to deposit work in the repository. Contributors may include:

  • University of Chicago faculty, postdoctoral researchers, and staff with academic appointments
  • University of Chicago graduate students
  • University of Chicago undergraduate students depositing:
    • work that has been accepted elsewhere through a peer review process (such as a conference poster or paper)
    • BA theses
    • research or creative projects guided by a UChicago faculty member
  • Alumni submitting scholarly work completed at the University of Chicago

Scope of Deposited Content

  • Deposited content can be scholarly, creative and research-related resources.
  • Deposited content should be in a completed state, rather than in-progress and regularly updated.
  • Contributors may deposit content created prior to joining the University of Chicago.
  • Contributors must be willing and able to grant the University the non-exclusive rights to both preserve and make their work available through Knowledge@UChicago.
  • Deposited content must be in a digital format.
  • If the deposited content is part of a series, other works in that series should also be deposited when possible so that we can offer a full and complete collection.

Supported Content Types

The following content types are among those that will be accepted:

  • publications (including preprints)
  • dissertations
  • masters and undergraduate theses
  • working papers and technical reports
  • white papers
  • datasets up to 1GB (data sets must be complete and ready to for use, and must include a readme file. At this time, no classified/restricted/confidential data can be accepted.)
  • conference presentations
  • conference posters
  • campus-based publications
  • course-based publications
  • audio and video recordings

This is a non-exhaustive list. Contributors are welcome to deposit content that can be characterized as "scholarly, creative, research-related, or teaching resources" and to contact us with any questions about materials.

Access to Deposited Content

All deposited content will be made available to the public, except when forbidden by contracts, rights, or when embargoed for a limited time.

File formats

The Knowledge@UChicago team will work to recognize and support as many file formats as possible.


All formats can be deposited, but people should consider depositing their items in formats that are open, sustainable, and well-used in their fields. The following formats are preferred for preservation reasons:

Textual: PDF/A, TXT, HTML, XML, CSV

Images: TIFF, JPEG 2000

Audio: WAVE, AIFF

Video: MOV, Motion JPEG 2000

Database/Spreadsheet: CSV, XML

Withdrawal

All deposits are considered permanent. Content may be removed in case of violation of deposit agreement or other exceptional circumstances, in which case only the record will remain with the following message: “Item withdrawn by authority of the University of Chicago. If you have any questions, please contact knowledge@lib.uchicago.edu.”

Copyright

Depositing content

The contributor must either hold the copyright, or the right to deposit, for all contributed content. If the deposited content is unpublished, the Library recommends using a Creative Commons license, either CC-BY or CC-BY-NC. For data we recommend a Creative Commons Zero license.

By depositing their work, the contributor agrees to give the University only the non-exclusive right to disseminate and preserve the content. Preservation may require reproducing the content in different formats to ensure future accessibility.

Privacy

When using the repository

Whenever a user visits the Library's website, certain information is gathered and stored automatically. This information does not generally identify the user personally. Information that is automatically collected and stored when visiting the repository site includes:

  • the Internet domain and IP address from which the repository was accessed
  • the type of browser and operating system
  • date and time
  • pages visited.

This automatically collected information is only used internally for technical troubleshooting, to monitor compliance with the University of Chicago Policy on Information Technology Use and Access, to improve the usability of our website, and to record aggregate statistics.

Personal information submitted by users

The system collects personal information submitted during the deposit process and when subscribing to the repository’s alerting service

Submitted information will be used only for the purpose for which you submitted it, with the exception that the Library may make reasonable statistical reports that do not identify particular individuals. The Library does not share this information with private organizations or allow it to be used for commercial purposes. The Library does contract with Application Service Providers (ASPs) to provide some services, but the Library requires application service providers to respect the confidentiality of the information placed on hosted servers. While we may disclose information about use of the Library in aggregate (such as server use statistics), we will not disclose to unaffiliated parties any information that could be used to identify individuals or their use of Library resources, except as required by University policies or as mandated by law.
Please see the Library’s Privacy Policy for more information.

Preservation

The Library is committed to providing preservation of repository content. In order to better preserve this content, the Library will, in coordination with TIND, the repository vendor,:

  • assign a persistent identifier that will always point to the object and/or its metadata
  • provide secure storage and backup
  • perform routine fixity checks using proven checksum methods
  • create provenance records and other preservation metadata to support accessibility and management over time

Questions?

If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact us.