Please email the Selkirk College Library if your question isn’t answered here. If you would like to speak to someone about SCOLR, please contact Bronwyn Krause, the SCOLR Support Technician at 250-365-1449, Ken Laing, Instructional Services Librarian at 250-365-1382, or Gregg Currie, the Head Librarian at 250-365-1263.

• What is Arca?
• Which BC post-secondary institutions are participating in Arca?
• What can I find in Arca?
• Is all the content in Arca visible to the public?
• I don’t have electronic versions of old working papers that I’d like to include in the repository. Is it ok to scan the printed page to a PDF file?
• How do I revise a submission?
• How can I submit a multi-part file, such as multiple chapters for a book?
• Can I post related files (sound clips, data sets, etc.) alongside the published article?
• Can I post a reprint from a journal?
• A working paper in our repository site has been published in a slightly revised form in a journal. What should I do?
• Who owns copyright?
• How are re-use rights of materials in SCOLR determined?
• Do I sign over my copyright when I deposit my works in SCOLR?
• What if I am not the sole author?
• What if my work contains third party material?
• What is a SPARC Canadian Author’s Addendum to Publication Agreement?
• How do I know if my funding agency requires or encourages depositing into an IR?
• Will I be violating my copyright agreements with my publisher if I contribute previously published material to SCOLR?
• What version of an article can I deposit in SCOLR?
• What are the different versions of a manuscript?
• What do I do if I can’t find my publisher in Romeo? and/or if I believe I need to ask for permission from my publisher?
• How do I find where to send my request for permission letter?
• What should I name my file?
• Where can I find current information and guidelines on Copyright?

What is Arca?

Arca is a collaborative initiative to support the development and implementation of digital repositories at BC post-secondary institutions. Arca provides access to post-secondary institutional digital assets and research output via a cross-repository search layer. Participating institutions share a single repository, with individual customized website interfaces providing portals to their own content. Arca houses a broad variety of institutional knowledge, including scholarly material and digital assets such as administrative documents, newsletters, images, multimedia, and audiovisual materials.

Arca is built on Islandora, a Canadian-developed open source platform currently in use at over 100 public and private institutions worldwide. This shared platform provides post-secondary institutions with open access repositories for research, theses, and any other digital assets they wish to make available to the wider community.

Which BC post-secondary institutions are participating in Arca?

A list of Arca participating sites is available on the BC ELN website.

For information about participating in Arca, contact the Arca Administrative Centre.

What can I find in Arca?

Each participating institution is responsible for determining what kinds of content will go into their repository. It may include scholarly material and digital assets such as administrative documents, newsletters, images, multimedia, and audiovisual materials. To find out more, contact your institution’s library.

You can search each individual institution’s content by visiting each individual site, or you can search across content at all participating sites on the main Arca page.

Is all the content in Arca visible to the public?

Although Arca is mainly intended to be an open access repository, each individual institution can determine whether their content will be publicly visible, embargoed or password-protected.

I don’t have electronic versions of old working papers that I’d like to include in the repository. Is it ok to scan the printed page to a PDF file?

Yes, scanning printed pages is a great way to create PDF files for inclusion in the repository. There are two ways to scan a page: using OCR (Optical Character Recognition) or scanning the page as an image. Making OCR scans requires careful proofreading and looks the original formatting of the documents. Image scans cannot be searched. The best solution takes advantage of both these methods. Many software applications allow for the OCR capture of image scans. When documents are scanned this way, users see the image scan but search the full-text of the document. This is the preferred method for scanning documents for the repository.

How do I revise a submission?

To revise a submission that has been posted to the repository, contact the Selkirk College Library with the new version.

How can I submit a multi-part file, such as multiple chapters for a book?

If the file size exceeds 2.0 GB or there are more than five parts please contact the Selkirk College Library to make alternate arrangements for submission.

Can I post related files (sound clips, data sets, etc.) alongside the published article?

Most file types can be posted alongside a published article except for data sets. Please contact the Selkirk College Library for further information.

Can I post a reprint from a journal?

It depends on what the journal allows, which is usually specified in their agreement with the author. If it would not violate copyright to post the reprint in the repository, the submission is welcome. Permissions for many publishers can be found at SHERPA RoMEO. If a journal does not allow deposition, a citation can still be added to the repository.

A working paper in our repository site has been published in a slightly revised form in a journal. What should I do?

Many journals do not have restrictions on working papers that preceded an article, especially if substantial revisions were made. You should check your author agreement with the journal to confirm that there is no problem with leaving the working paper on the site. The repository would constitute non-commercial use. Assuming the working paper does remain posted in the repository, it is a good idea to include the citation as well. Please contact the Selkirk College Library to request this addition.

Who owns copyright?

In general, the author or creator of a work owns the copyright. Exceptions to this rule are:

1. If you produced the materials as part of your employment, unless you have an agreement to the contrary; below is the wording from the Canadian Copyright Act section 13(3):

   “(3) Where the author of a work was in the employment of some other person under a contract of service or apprenticeship and the work was made in the course of his employment by that person, the person by whom the author was employed shall, in the absence of any agreement to the contrary, be the first owner of the copyright, but where the work in an article or other contribution to a newspaper, magazine or similar periodical, there shall, in the absence of any agreement to the contrary, be deemed to be reserved to the author a right to restrain the publication of the work, otherwise than as part of a newspaper, magazine or similar periodical.”

   At Selkirk College, faculty, staff and students will generally own the copyright to works they create through teaching and research.
2. If you produced the work as a commission for another party.
3. If you voluntarily assigned your copyright to a third party such as a publisher.

 

How are re-use rights of materials in SCOLR determined?

1. Through Canadian copyright legislation
2. Under a Creative Commons license if present
3. Under Copyright holder restrictions or stipulations

Do I sign over my copyright when I deposit my works in SCOLR?

No, the copyright status of your work remains the same. You merely grant SCOLR a license that allows you work to be made available in SCOLR and to preserve your work by migrating it into newer formats as technology changes.

What if I am not the sole author?

It is not a condition of SCOLR that you need to obtain permission from your co-author(s).

What if my work contains third party material?

Some use of third party material is permissible under the Fair Dealing provision of the Copyright Act. If your use is not covered under Fair Dealing, you will need to seek permission from the creator/rights holder if you want to include any third party material such as extracts from books, journals, or other publications, or illustrations such as images, maps, photographs, tables, etc. Note: the rights holder may be the author of a work, a publisher, an illustrator etc.

What is a SPARC Canadian Author’s Addendum to Publication Agreement?

The Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC) has prepared a legal addition to a publisher’s copyright transfer agreement that allows you to modify the copyrights you sign over to a non-open access journal. See the SPARC Website for further information. Feel free to contact Gregg Currie if you are in the process of publishing your work and would like guidance around issues of copyright.

How do I know if my funding agency requires or encourages depositing into an IR?

JULIET provides summaries of funding agencies’ grant conditions on self-archiving of research publications and data.

Will I be violating my copyright agreements with my publisher if I contribute previously published material to SCOLR?

This will depend on the publication agreement you signed with your publisher. Please check your copy of your Copyright Transfer Agreement. You can also check the SHERPA RoMEO website for publishers’ copyright and self-archiving policies to find permissions normally given to the author as part of each publisher’s copyright transfer agreement. Many publishers allow some version of a previously published article to be deposited in an open access repository as long as you follow their conditions. You can also check your own publisher’s website. When in doubt it is best to contact the publisher directly for permission to contribute your article to SCOLR.

What version of an article can I deposit in SCOLR?

This depends on your publisher. Publishers often permit authors to self-archive the final pre-publication version of their works, but this is not a universal practice. You can also check the SHERPA RoMEO website for publishers’ copyright and self-archiving policies. Of course, if you own copyright of your work, you can post whatever version you prefer though it is important to remember that some publishers do consider depositing to a digital repository to be “prior publication.”

What are the different versions of a manuscript?

Most publishers allow some version of the author’s manuscript to be submitted to an institutional repository, with some of the more generous publishers allowing the published version to be deposited. There are different versions of an author’s manuscript.

1. Preprint: The original version of a manuscript that is submitted to a journal for publication by an author. It has not been peer-reviewed.
2. Postprint: The version of a manuscript that has been peer-reviewed and changes made in accordance with reviewers feedback. Final draft submitted to the publisher by the author. Also known as the Author Manuscript.
3. Published version: The published version is what appears in the physical journal and on the publisher’s website. It will be professionally typeset and may have been copy edited.

What do I do if I can’t find my publisher in Romeo? and/or if I believe I need to ask for permission from my publisher?

If you have published in journals that do not have clear guidelines on author rights you can contact the publisher/editor directly. Click here for a template to send a letter/email to a publisher.

How do I find where to send my request for permission letter?

Check the website of the publisher. They will often have a link at the bottom of the website entitled “Terms of Use” or “Contact Us” or “Authors and Permissions” which will give an address to send requests. Often, it is easier to get permission from the publisher when the author contacts the editor they worked with during the publication process.

What should I name my file?

Before submitting your material to SCOLR, please review File Naming Conventions.

Where can I find current information and guidelines on Copyright?

The Copyright Section of the library webpage has links to useful information.