Digital Commons

Wellesley College Digital Scholarship and Archive Policy
 

1.0 Policy Statement

The Wellesley College Digital Scholarship and Archive (DSA) Policy establishes guidelines for the use of the DSA, including submission of materials, access, and compliance with copyright standards.

2.0 Overview

The Wellesley College Digital Scholarship and Archive (DSA) is an institutional repository administered by Library and Technology Services (LTS) using the Digital Commons hosted, web-based platform. The goal of this service is to provide a place to collect, manage, preserve, and facilitate access to the College's scholarly output, unique research holdings, special collections, and archival records.  

3.0 Purpose

The guidelines outlined in this policy are intended to ensure that items submitted to the DSA comply with copyright, and that the digital content stored there remains both viable and accessible.

4.0 Scope

All members of the Wellesley College community, including faculty, staff and students, who wish to contribute content to the DSA must comply with this policy.

5.0 Policy 

5.1 Administration

The DSA is administered by LTS staff.  Responsibility for building and maintaining individual collections within the DSA may be distributed among other Wellesley College faculty and staff as appropriate. In such cases LTS will provide training and support for these activities.

5.2 Contributors

The DSA is designed to capture the intellectual output of Wellesley College and, as such, all members of the College community may contribute to it, including faculty, staff, and students with faculty sponsorship. These contributors may also request creation of new Communities within the DSA. Communities are groups with common interests, such as Departments, Institutes, Centers, etc.

5.3 Content Types

All content representing the intellectual output or unique holdings of the College will be eligible for inclusion in the DSA. 

5.4 File Formats

A broad array of file formats is accepted by the DSA, including text, data, images, audio, and video files. In some cases objects may be excluded due to file type or size.  LTS recommends that, whenever possible, content be submitted in file formats that can be read by a screen reader (such as Microsoft Word, text files, and some PDF files; alt and longdesc attributes for images and graphical elements; and captioning for videos to name a few).  For additional information contributors should contact LTS or Wellesley College Accessibility and Disability Resources.

5.5 Versioning

Authors are entitled to submit multiple versions of works.  Because submission to the DSA is intended to provide access in perpetuity, earlier versions may be retained. (See Withdrawal and Retention, below.)

5.6 Access

The intent of an institutional repository is to provide open access to scholarship and ideas.  As such, with very limited exception, materials submitted into the DSA will be made available to anyone with an internet connection and will be available to view, download, and print.

5.7 Copyright

The author/owner must be willing to grant the DSA a non-exclusive distribution license to preserve and distribute the work via the DSA. The owner/author is responsible for establishing that the items submitted have been copyright cleared and that the author/owner has the right to submit the item(s)to the DSA.

5.8 Authors’ Rights

The DSA retains the right to store and distribute content; inclusion does not affect the rights of the original copyright holder.

6.0 Withdrawal and Retention

Submission of materials into the DSA is intended to provide long-term access and preservation of the content. Materials will be made available in perpetuity and will be migrated to future file formats as necessary.  

Failure to comply with this policy, as in the case of copyright infringement, violations of privacy, or violation of other Wellesley College policy, could result in the withdrawal of items from the DSA.

7.0 Policies Cross-Referenced
 

8.0 Effective Date

Approved by ACLTP 10/25/11