General Information

What is DigitalCommons@COD?

DigitalCommons@COD is an open-access digital repository maintained by the COD Library that is used to collect, preserve, and showcase scholarly, educational, and creative works created by the COD community. DigitalCommons@COD facilitates global discovery of and access to COD's intellectual and creative output while providing a stable, long-term home for this digital scholarship. All COD faculty, staff, and faculty-sponsored students are encouraged to publish works in DigitalCommons@COD

Why contribute to DigitalCommons@COD?

DigitalCommons@COD makes COD scholarship easily available in a central, online location enabling greater access to colleagues, students and new audiences. Works in the repository are optimized for discovery in popular and academic search engines making it easier for students and researchers throughout the world to discover and cite COD scholarship. And because DigitalCommons@COD supports persistent access, works in DigitalCommons@COD have a stable, highly-accessible and easy-to-find online home.

By collecting COD's digital works in a central, permanent location, DigitalCommons@COD also serves as an effective showcase to the local community and to the world of COD's broad range of scholarly and creative output.

Specific benefits include:

  • Increased visibility: content is openly accessible and highly discoverable by popular and scholarly Internet search tools
  • Permanence: works have stable web addresses so they are always easy to find and cite
  • Archiving: long-term digital archiving relieves COD units of technological maintenance
  • E-Publishing: DigitalCommons@COD facilitates creation of electronic journals, newsletters and books
  • Grant requirements: some grants have data-sharing requirements, such as those funded by NIH. Submitting your works to DigitalCommons@COD can help meet that criterion.

Who can join DigitalCommons@COD?

Communities

DigitalCommons@COD is organized according to "communities". Any division, department, center, institute, lab or other unit or group at COD can participate as a community in DigitalCommons@COD. Each community assigns a coordinator who can work with the Library to support their DigitalCommons@COD community.

Communities added to DigitalCommons@COD work with the Library in determining:

  • What sorts of items are appropriate to a particular community collection
  • What electronic formats are acceptable in a particular community collection
  • Who may add items
  • Who may view items in the collection.

Individuals

Individuals wishing to submit content must be affiliated or sponsored by a community registered with DigitialCommons@COD The communities then determine which individuals may submit content to the repository. If a contributor to the repository leaves the College of DuPage, his or her content will remain in the repository unless she or he requests its withdrawal.

Acceptable content

Each participating unit will determine content appropriate for inclusion in its part of the repository, within the following guidelines:

  • The work must be produced, submitted, or sponsored by CODfaculty, researchers, students, or staff.
  • Content does not have to be authored by a COD affiliate to be included in the repository. For example, a community may use the repository to post papers written by faculty from other institutions that were presented at a conference sponsored by the community. The repository will also accept items co-authored by a COD affiliate with non-COD authors. A Community Sponsor or article co-author is responsible for securing permissions agreements from non-COD authors before content is posted in the repository.
  • The work merits enduring archival value, as defined by the community.
  • The work must be in digital form. If parts of the item require different file formats, ideally all of the digital pieces will be provided as a set. (For example, a PDF document with its associated data file(s)).
  • The author/owner must be willing and able to grant COD the right to preserve and distribute the work via the DigitalCommons@COD repository.
  • The DigitalCommons@COD repository accepts a wide range of digital materials. Possible kinds of content include, but are not limited to, the following:
    • Articles and preprints
    • Technical reports
    • Working papers
    • Honors papers
    • Conference papers and presentations
    • Out of print books in digital format
    • Newsletters
    • Datasets
    • Images
    • Audio files
    • Video files
    • Software

Unit Representatives

To join DigitalCommons@COD, College of DuPage units must choose a representative to coordinate DigitalCommons activities with the Library. The unit representative will work with a Library representative to administer and promote DigitalCommons@COD within the sponsor community.

Removing or updating works

DigitalCommons@COD is designed to provide long-term, persistent access to deposited items. However, a situation may arise requiring the removal of an item. When this becomes necessary, contact the DigitalCommons@COD staff and together we will determine the best course of action.

Peer-reviewed series

DigitalCommons@COD can support peer-reviewed series and journals in the repository. Units interested in starting a peer-reviewed series or journal should contact libweb@cod.edu. The Library is prepared to help you decide whether this is the right forum for your scholarship.

Who do I contact for assistance?

Contact Ken Orenic () at the COD Library

Technical Policies

Uploading to DigitalCommons@COD

The Library will work with communities in DigitalCommons@COD to either upload files for you or provide training so individuals can upload their own documents. The community can really choose to take on as much or as little technical work as they feel is appropriate.

What file formats are acceptable?

Although most digital formats can be uploaded to DigitalCommons@COD, to assure long-term operability and improved search engine results, files in PDF format are encouraged when applicable. If a PDF is not available or your work exists only in print format, the Library will assist you.

Please note that while the Library will make our best efforts to maintain the content, structure and functionality of work you deposit, not all formats can receive the same level of preservation commitment particularly with proprietary or uncommon file formats.

Can I post related files alongside the published article?

Yes. The system refers to these supplementary items (such as sound clips, data sets, etc.) as "Associated Files". Links to associated files are listed along with the main article.

Please 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 note that where possible, items such as images, charts and tables that are referenced in the document (or otherwise an integral part of the document) should be included directly in the article itself and not posted just as associated files.

Copyright Policies

What rights do I grant COD when I deposit my work?

Submitting materials to Digital Commons@COD does not alter copyright. Authors are asked to complete a Non-Exclusive Licensing Agreement for deposited materials. This agreement simply gives the Library the non-exclusive right to distribute author works using DigitalCommons@COD The author is still free to reuse the content elsewhere.

By signing the license, contributors affirm that they have the right to grant the rights contained in the license and that the submission does not infringe upon anyone else's copyright. If the author has previously assigned copyright to a publisher, the publisher's permission to contribute the work to DigitalCommons must be obtained. The Library will assist authors with checking on copyright restrictions and/or securing copyright permissions.

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 from DigitalCommons. Again, the publisher may grant an exception if the author requests it. And again, the Library will help the author to check the terms of his or her agreement with the publisher.