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University of Bradford >> Library >> Help Sheets & Documentation >> FAQs
Question 1: Why should I deposit in Bradford Scholars?
Question 2: How do I deposit to Bradford Scholars?
Question 3: Who can make a deposit to Bradford Scholars?
Question 4: What can and should be deposited?
Question 5: If I haven't kept a copy of my paper, can I add a citation of my work without the file?
Question 6: Which file formats are supported?
Question 7: My paper is about to be published in a commercial journal. Can I submit it to Bradford Scholars before it gets published?
Question 8: Which version of my paper should I deposit?
Question 9: What are pre-prints, post-prints and final formatted versions?
Question 10: I need to deposit an updated version of my paper. Can I do this?
Question 11: Is it possible to remove a paper from Bradford Scholars?
Question 12: Who can I contact if I need help?
Question 1: Am I breaking copyright if my work is deposited in Bradford
Scholars?
Question 2: How can I check if my publisher allows self-archiving?
Question 3: What should academics do if their publisher doesn't allow
authors to retain copyright or self-archive?
Question 4: Which publishers allow authors to self-archive?
Question 5: Can I do anything to retain copyright in my published work?
Question 6: I haven't kept a copy of my paper, can it be scanned or
downloaded from the publication?
Question 1: Who can see my work on Bradford Scholars?
Question 2: How can people locate my work?
Question 3: Is there a link between my departmental/personal web page and Bradford Scholars?
Question 4: Can records be downloaded from Bradford Scholars?
Question 5: What are the "handle" URLs?
Question 1: Will Bradford Scholars retain my work indefinitely?
Question 2: How secure is the service?
Question 3: Is my work more likely to get plagiarised if it's openly accessible?
Question 1: Won't the learned societies and small publishers suffer from open access archives?
Bradford Scholars is not a publishing mechanism nor is it a substitute for e.g. peer-reviewed journals. It is in place to showcase and manage the University's scholarly content. Most journals are still only accessible via costly subscriptions. A repository opens access to all users and removes barriers from scholarly communication.
By depositing in an open access repository you can:
It is really straightforward to submit your works in Bradford Scholars compared to posting documents to your personal or departmental website - you only need to click a few buttons and fill in a few blanks. This can be done from any computer and you can even ask the departmental administrator or your research assistants to do it for you. You don't need to worry about backups, maintenance, the departmental web pages changing or file formats becoming obsolete. The repository staff will take care of maintenance.
Bibliographic of studies from the Open Citation Project
Depositing your work is straightforward.
Please note that your content will not go "live" until repository staff have viewed, amended where necessary (e.g. augmented metadata and corrected typing errors) and uploaded the work to Bradford Scholars.
The repository staff are also able to deposit your work on your behalf if you do not have the opportunity to do it yourself. Please contact repository staff at lib-webadmin@bradford.ac.uk. The basic details of your work are needed:
Remember to attach a copy of your work.
Please be aware that if you send us a copy of the formatted version of your work as produced by the publisher, we may not be permitted to use this. Preferably send us your final peer-reviewed and accepted work before the publisher adds their formatting. If you are unsure which files to send to the repository, get in touch with repository staff via email at lib-webadmin@bradford.ac.uk.
Deposits are accepted from University of Bradford members of staff or authorised delegates. Certain materials will also be accepted from MPhil and PhD students. See the section for What can and should be deposited.
Bradford Scholars showcases the University of Bradford scholarly output. Thus, items must have at least one author or creator from the University of Bradford. Exceptions include conference proceedings from events organised at the University where the papers might not be authored by local members of staff. The range of material types accepted reflects the range of research and publication activities taking place at the institution.
Scholarly works of enduring value will be accepted to Bradford Scholars. We trust depositors to have a sense of what this encompasses, and understand that any deposits will be visible to the wider scholarly community. There is certain amount of "process" to go through while depositing, so it is likely you will only deposit items that are of good quality and worth flagging up to the world.
Deposited items must not breach copyright. See the section on Copyright and self-archiving to learn more about your rights as an author. It is worth noting that although authors are required to sign away copyright to published works, the right to self-archive is often retained. The publishers also tend to grant authors the right to self-archive on application.
Bradford Scholars aims to showcase research conducted at the University of Bradford by offering access to the full text of research materials. However, if a member of staff cannot for copyright or other reasons (e.g. publisher embargo period) deposit the actual paper, the repository is willing to accept citations only. The same deposit form may be used even when a file is not uploaded. If a contributor is not certain about the copyright restrictions on their work(s), Bradford Scholars staff will assist in determining the copyright status of a paper sent to the repository.
A growing number of file formats are supported on Bradford Scholars which uses the DSpace software. The following list gives examples of the supported formats.
This list is not exhaustive so if you cannot see your file format on the list, contact Bradford Scholars staff at lib-webadmin@bradford.ac.uk to see if you can still deposit.
Yes you can submit your peer-reviewed final draft, provided that the publisher permits it. Check your publisher's policy on this at the ROMeO website. Bradford Scholars staff can also help to check publisher policies if your publisher does not appear on the ROMeO database. Contact us via email at lib-webadmin@bradford.ac.uk. Once your paper is published, an updated version of your work can be posted on Bradford Scholars. Simply let the repository staff know about the change of status for your work and send us the new file(s).
Ideally we would like to post the final published version of an author's work on Bradford Scholars. However, only a few publishers permit the use of their own formatted versions in open access repositories. In most cases, publishers allow authors to post their own final peer-reviewed draft on a web page or institutional repository. To find out more about different versions of your work see Question 8: What are pre-prints, post-prints and final formatted versions?.
The terminology around research work can be confusing. Publishers often speak of pre-prints and post-prints. Traditionally a pre-print denotes a draft of a work prior to peer-review. Post-print is then the peer-reviewed version of the same work after all changes and corrections have been made. This is also the final version that gets sent to the publisher for publication.
You may also find the following definitions helpful:
There is a lot of information available via the Versions Toolkit developed by the Versions Project. The toolkit summarises itself into five main tips as follows:
Bradford Scholars is meant for completed and, in many cases, published materials, not works in progress. However, we do realise that "revisions" do happen and the repository staff can make updated versions of submitted work available in the repository.
Unfortunately, only repository staff are able to log in and alter existing entries in Bradford Scholars. Send repository staff your addendum, corregida and additional materials with notes what you want done with them. Repository staff are able to add a new version to any existing deposit, along with indicators of which is the original paper and which the revised version.
All deposited items are retained in perpetuity. In some cases it will be necessary to withdraw material. Acceptable reasons for withdrawal include:
Only repository staff may remove or withdraw items from Bradford Scholars. Contact repository staff via email at lib-webadmin@bradford.ac.uk if you wish to nominate items for removal or withdrawal.
When an item is either withdrawn or removed, a "tombstone" remains in place. This means that if someone types in the persistent identifier or "handle" of a withdrawn/removed item, they would get a message giving the reason why an item is no longer available and the email address of repository staff.
For feedback, comments and all help on using Bradford Scholars, contact repository staff at lib-webadmin@bradford.ac.uk.
What you can do with your published works depends on the kind of agreement you signed with your publisher. These agreements vary from one publisher to another and may be copyright agreements or exclusive/non-exclusive publishing licenses. A number of publishers do permit their authors to post copies of their work on institutional repositories without having to ask for specific permission. Occasionally it is even possible to use the publisher's formatted version (often a PDF document) to do this. Mostly, however, authors are allowed to post copies of their own final drafts. If you want to know more about versions see Question 7: Which version of my paper should I deposit?
The SHERPA Project's ROMeO database will assist all authors in checking whether their publishers permit self-archiving.
Information regarding the copyright status of published works may be attained in a number of ways:
Indeed, some publishers do not look kindly on open archiving. In some cases there is not much that can be done beyond informing the publisher in question about the Open Access Movement, and the fact that a number of publishers permit self-archiving. It might even be worth pointing them to the ROMeO database to show what other publishers are permitting. It is up to individual authors whether to back down from working with publishers that do not permit self-archiving and publish with their preferred publisher. Naturally, a high priority must be given to getting published. This may be crucial especially for new authors at the beginning of their careers. More established authors may wish to take a firmer stand and decline to publish on terms they find unacceptable.
However, many publishers will discuss copyright agreements with authors, and may give self-archiving permission if approached directly. Repository staff can contact publishers for you to request permission to deposit specific works in Bradford Scholars.
Information regarding the copyright status of published works may be attained in a number of ways:
The issue of retaining some re-use rights comes up at the point of signing a publisher's copyright agreement prior to getting your work published. The rights you retain will depend on the wording of this agreement. If you are not content with the clauses in the agreement pertaining to your author rights, you may bring this up with the publisher and negotiate more favourable terms.
Plenty of advice for authors is available in the SURF Copyright Toolbox where you can also find sample licenses and suggested alternative wordings for copyright agreements.
You will need to check if the publisher allows the use of e.g. their published PDF version of your work. Repository staff are able to assist in determining whether scanning from print journals or downloading from publisher's web site is permitted. In some cases, publishers need to be contacted directly to seek permission. If you need assistance with copyright checks and/or scanning your work from print versions of journals get in touch with repository staff via email at lib-webadmin@bradford.ac.uk.
Bradford Scholars is an open access online repository in the spirit of the Open Access Movement. Access is free to anybody via the Internet.
Material in Bradford Scholars may be found in a number of ways:
All depositing authors may place links on their personal pages whether privately hosted or on departmental web sites to their full text research publications or other items in Bradford Scholars. This can be done by using the "handle" URL. If you already offer full text research papers on your own web pages consider the following benefits of depositing in Bradford Scholars:
Yes. You can download from Bradford Scholars into EndNote. Contact the repository staff at lib-webadmin@bradford.ac.uk to find out more.
Each item deposited in Bradford Scholars is given a unique and unchangeable URL, such as http://hdl.handle.net/1010/234, known as a "handle". To make sure the URLs do not break even thought the files themselves may have to be physically moved from one storage area to another, all of the URLs point to Handle.net. This is a service provided by the Corporation for National Research Initiatives (CNRI). The Handle.net service redirects users to the current location of the file.
Content submitted to Bradford Scholars will be retained in perpetuity during the life time of the repository. Only in special cases would individual items be removed from the repository. See the section on Is it possible to remove an item from Bradford Scholars? for removal reasons.
Plagiarism is a major concern to people posting material on the open web. However, your work once in an institutional repository is no more likely to be plagiarised than it is in a commercial online journal. All content loaded to Bradford Scholars is given a date stamp which will assist, if necessary, in establishing prior intellectual ownership. In addition current technological developments allow publishers as well as institutions map new articles against the whole of the web to see if any of the offered content is plagiarised from existing works.
The normal University of Bradford security measures for online services are in place. Bradford Scholars is backed up each night.