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About DigitalCommons@Cal Poly
Creating a Digital Destination for Your Scholarly Work
Kennedy Library is starting a institutional repository service to provide online access to scholarship and research produced at Cal Poly.
Pilot Phase
Currently, DigitalCommons@CalPoly is working with selected Cal Poly pilot groups, developing the necessary groundwork to collect, preserve, and provide access to scholarly and intellectual work created by faculty. The pilot phase will conclude at the end of the 2007-2008 Academic Year and identification of early adopters is anticipated to begin Summer 2008 with planned phased implementation in Fall 2008. Future growth will include student scholarship, such as senior projects and master's theses. Visit the pilot site at http://www.digitalcommons.calpoly.edu.
Who Can Contribute to DigitalCommons@CalPoly?
Individuals representing any Cal Poly college, department, lab, center, institute, or other campus unit will be able to contribute content when the repository is fully operational. Contributing colleges, departments, and other campus entities will work with the Digital Repository Librarian to determine contribution standards and workflow for their areas.
Why Should I Contribute My Work?
The DigitalCommons@CalPoly makes faculty scholarship available in one central place online, enabling greater access to colleagues, students and new audiences. Because every item is assigned a unique, persistent URL, users can cite faculty work freely without worry or inconvenience of broken links. Studies have shown that articles are cited earlier and more often if they are made available in an open-access repository like the DigitalCommons@CalPoly. And integrated features including RSS feeds and "Tell a colleague" email notifications allow users to easily share work with others.
What Materials Can Be Contributed?
The work should be scholarly in nature and the author should have a connection to Cal Poly. Individual authors retain their copyright, but are asked to complete a non-exclusive licensing agreement for materials deposited. If authors have signed over their copyright to publishers, the library can provide assistance in contacting publishers on the author's behalf. Requests for commercial use of materials found in the DigitalCommons@CalPoly will be referred back to copyright holders. Because deposits are intended to be permanent contributions to the repository, works that are in progress or ephemeral in nature are not recommended for contribution.
Examples of Eligible Materials
- Journal articles (including preprints and postprints), essays
- Conference proceedings, papers and/or presentations
- White papers, technical reports, campus publications
- Research reports from grant-funded projects requiring open-access sharing
Formats of Eligible Materials
Although most digital formats can be uploaded to DigitalCommons@CalPoly, to assure long-term operability and improved search engine results, files in PDF format are encouraged. If a PDF is not available or your work exists only in print format, the library will assist you.
How Will Materials Be Used?
The DigitalCommons@CalPoly is an open-access institutional repository, where all content is provided free of charge to any user. The software used for the repository is designed to be crawled by Google and other Internet search engines regularly, which provides greater visibility and access to faculty work.
Help from the Library
The Library will gather copies of articles produced by faculty, scan documents and create PDFs, contact publishers for non-exclusive rights, prepare metadata to enhance search and retrieval, and upload and create entries.
For more information
To learn more about the DigitalCommons@CalPoly, download the DigitalCommons@CalPoly brochure or contact Marisa Ramirez, Digital Repository Librarian at mramir14@calpoly.edu.
