Institutional Repository Policies

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

Scope

Contributors to Repository

• 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 work.
• Deposited content should be in a completed state, rather than in-progress or in need of regular updates.
• 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
• datasets up to 1-2 GB (data sets must be complete and ready for use, and must include a readme file. No classified/restricted/confidential data can be accepted.)
• conference presentations
• conference posters
• campus-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 users should consider submitting their files 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
• Video: MOV, Motion JPEG 2000
• Database/Spreadsheet: CSV, XML

Withdrawal

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be removed in exceptional circumstances, in which case only the record will remain with the following message: “Item withdrawn by the University of Chicago.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

Copyright

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. 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

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.