FAQs
What is the UT Digital Repository?
Do I need special software to submit or to search and download works?
Who can search, browse, and download from the UT Digital Repository?
Who can submit works to the UT Digital Repository?
Can faculty, researchers, or students who are not affiliated with UT submit works to the UT Digital Repository?
Why should I submit works to the UT Digital Repository?
How is the UT Digital Repository different from posting research on my own web site?
Can I still link to my work from my own web site?
How does the UT Digital Repository differ from WebSpace?
What is the relationship between the UT Digital Repository and the Texas Digital Library?
What are UT Digital Repository communities and collections?
I'm trying to access the UT Digital Repository and am getting system errors or no response. Who should I report this to?
Why does an embedded video not play, or not play until it is fully loaded?
How do I gain authorization to submit to the UT Digital Repository?
How do I submit my work to the UT Digital Repository?
What descriptive information do I assign to my work during submission?
Does the UT Digital Repository automatically assign any descriptive information or tags?
How does my department or research unit set up its own collection?
Can my department archive conference proceedings in the UT Digital Repository?
What kinds of materials/content can I put into the UT Digital Repository?
Can I upload video and audio files into the UT Digital Repository?
What file formats can I submit to the UT Digital Repository?
How does the UT Digital Repository decide the recommended file formats for submission?
Is there a limit on file size?
Is there a limit on the number of files I may submit?
Can I use the UT Digital Repository to publish an electronic journal?
Copyright and Intellectual Property Questions
What rights do I grant The University of Texas at Austin when I submit my work in the UT Digital Repository?
What rights do I retain to my work when submitting to the UT Digital Repository?
If I no longer hold the copyright to an article or other publication, can I still submit it to the UT Digital Repository?
Can I place material someplace else if I've already submitted it to the UT Digital Repository?
I just found some interesting work by someone else in the UT Digital Repository and am about to download it—what can I do with that work once I have it?
Can I restrict access to work I submit to the UT Digital Repository? If so, to whom, and for how long?
Can I make changes to an item once I've submitted it to the UT Digital Repository?
Can items be withdrawn from the UT Digital Repository?
What privacy policies are in place for the UT Digital Repository?
Electronic Theses and Dissertations Questions
I've found my Thesis/Dissertation in the Repository and I don't think it should be there. What do I do?
I've found my Thesis/Dissertation in the Repository, and I'd like to amend it. Can I submit additional material or replace it altogether with a new version?
The University of Texas Digital Repository holds digital works and provides related services that together constitute a campus institutional repository. The Repository archives and provides persistent and reliable access to the digital works of faculty, staff, and students and aims to provide the greatest possible dissemination and recognition to these works as possible. Digital works include research and scholarship, as well as works that reflect the intellectual and service environment of the campus.
No, you access the Repository at http://repositories.lib.utexas.edu with any current Web browser.
The Repository is designed to provide your work the widest possible exposure, so it is open to the world for searching. You may, however, choose to submit your work but prevent it from being seen in full for a limited time. Please see question #32: “ Can I restrict access to the work I submit to the UT Digital Repository? ” for more information on restricting access to your work.
UT faculty, staff, and students (including student groups) may submit work to the Repository. Student work must be sponsored by a UT faculty member, and the name of the sponsoring faculty will appear in the descriptive information associated with the work. All faculty are automatically authorized to submit to the UT Faculty/Researcher Works collection when they login with their EID and password. Faculty wanting to submit works to other UTDR collections should contact the Repository Curator at utdr-general@utlists.utexas.edu. Staff and students must request authorization from the Repository Curator before submitting work to the Repository. To request authorization, please contact Colleen Lyon, Repository Curator, at utdr-collections@utlists.utexas.edu
- Can faculty, researchers, or students who are not affiliated with UT submit works to the UT Digital Repository?
In general, no. However, if the faculty, researcher, or student is affiliated with a program at the University of Texas, publishes as part of a conference or in a journal or other publication sponsored through the University of Texas, or co-authors a publication with a University of Texas researcher, the work may be submitted to the Repository.
- Dissemination: The Repository provides high visibility and increased access to your research by furnishing descriptive information about your submitted works to Google and Google Scholar, OAIster, and other services.
- Increased impact and citation of your research: Works in the Repository are openly available on the web. See a bibliography of studies on the increased impact and higher citations of open access research and scholarship.
- Persistence: The Repository provides a permanent web address for your work.
- Long-term access: The Repository commits to responsible and sustainable management of submitted works. View the Preservation Policy for details.
- Control: You or your assignee retain copyright in works you submit to the Repository. Many publishers will allow you to submit previously published works to institutional repositories.
The Repository provides benefits that may not be available on your own web site:
- full-text indexing of text files;
- enhanced discoverability through Google Scholar, OAIster, and various repositories of scholarly material;
- a permanent and persistent web address for your work so that it may be reliably cited over time;
- managed archival services for your files.
Yes. One benefit of submitting to the Repository is that your work is assigned a permanent and persistent web address.
Both online services allow UT faculty, staff, and students to store and access works, but there are differences:
|
|
The Repository |
|
|
Access to works from anywhere in the world |
|
|
|
Long-term storage of works |
|
|
|
Service for collaboration on works in progress |
|
|
|
Works discoverable by Google, search engines |
|
|
|
Can submit works in many formats |
|
|
|
Persistent web address for works |
|
|
|
Open access to works |
|
|
|
Service for dissemination of works |
|
|
|
Must be current UT faculty, staff, or student to access works |
|
|
UT Austin is a founding member of the Texas Digital Library (TDL), a group of higher education libraries in Texas working together on infrastructure to support digital repositories. For more information about TDL, its members, or its services, please visit http://www.tdl.org .
The Repository organizes content around established collections to simplify the process of submitting your work and to provide you with the most flexibility for finding works of interest to you. Communities hold Collections, and Collections hold digital works. The Repository offers established Collections for faculty/staff/and student submissions. In addition, we will set up a community for those departments or research units on campus wishing to establish and manage their own collections.
- I'm trying to access the UT Digital Repository and am getting system errors or no response. Who should I report this to?
If you are trying to access the UT Digital Repository and it is not responding, please contact Colleen Lyon, Repository Curator, at utdr-general@utlists.utexas.edu to report the problem.
In order for video to play progressively the video must be created as a hinted format. If a video is not created in this format, then the whole video must download first before it will play. Sometimes your browser may timeout while the video is downloading. This situation tends to happen with Flash videos with an .flv extension. If it does, please try downloading the video again. If this does not work, the next step is to request the file be sent to you outside of a web browser.
If you are experiencing this or another issue with embedded video in the UT Digital Repository please contact Colleen Lyon, Repository Curator, at utdr-general@utlists.utexas.edu to report the problem. We will help you as we can, or put you in touch with the person who submitted the video.
Faculty
If you are UT faculty, you are automatically authorized to submit to the UT Faculty/Researcher Works collection. Simply login to the UTDR with your EID and password, then click "submissions" on the right-hand navigation bar under My Account. From the Submissions page, click the link "start a new submission". If you are interested in submitting to a different collection or in setting up your own collection, please contact Colleen Lyon at utdr-general@utlists.utexas.edu.
Department
Departments or research centers on campus wishing to establish and manage their own collections may do so by contacting Colleen Lyon at a utdr-general@utlists.utexas.edu to begin the process.
Staff
If you are UT staff, the first step is to identify the collection you would like to submit to within the Repository. Next, email Colleen Lyon, Repository Curator, at utdr-general@utlists.utexas.edu to request authorization to submit your work (please include your full name and the name of the collection for which you are requesting authorization).
Students
Students wishing to submit must first obtain a faculty sponsor. Once faculty sponsorship has been obtained, contact the Repository Curator at utdr-general@utlists.utexas.edu for authorization.
You should find the process of submitting to the UT Digital Repository quick and easy:
- obtain authorization (see question #15: "How do I gain authorization to submit to the UT Digital Repository?" for more information);
- login to the UT Digital repository;
- select a collection;
- grant a distribution license;
- upload your work ;
- describe your work ;
- review your submission;
- click Submit.
More detailed information about the submission process can be found in our Help section, and you may see a short video showing the submission process .
During submission the following information about your work is required:
- Author(s) or Creator(s)
- Title
- Date published or created
- Department
- Subject keywords/tag (at least one)
Additional information about your work is optional and encouraged:
- Publisher
- Citation
- Series/Report number
- Identifiers (ISBN, ISSN, etc.)
- Type of work (article, preprint, technical paper, etc.)
- Language
- Abstract
- Sponsors
- Description
At the time of submission the Repository automatically assigns:
- A persistent web address for you and others to cite;
- The date of submission;
- The name of the submitter (as this may be different from the author/creator of the work);
- File format (based on its extension).
If your department or research unit wants to establish and manage a collection, we are happy to work with you to set up access, membership, and other parameters. Each collection will have one or more curators who will help define specific procedures and guidelines. The Collection Curator should be a faculty or staff member from the department or research unit. For more information about collection responsibilities, see the Collections Policy. To get started, please contact Colleen Lyon at utdr-general@utlists.utexas.edu.
Yes. If the conference is organized or sponsored by UT Faculty or a UT Department, we can assist you in setting up a collection or a series of collections in the Conference Proceedings community in the UTDR. To get started, please contact Colleen Lyon at utdr-general@utlists.utexas.edu.
The Repository accepts research and scholarship, as well as works that reflect the intellectual and service environment of the campus. Specifically, all kinds of scholarly research materials and content including preprints, postprints, previously published material (if allowed by the publisher), working papers, technical reports, presentations, data sets, as well as other scholarship not usually submitted for peer-reviewed publications may be submitted to an appropriate collection in the Repository. The work submitted must be ready for distribution (see the Submission and Withdrawal Policy for more information on submission guidelines).
The Repository will accept audio and video files - we have no format restrictions. However, at this time we cannot offer streaming of the video and audio files; audio and video will be available for download only. Depending on the size of your files and the speed of your internet connection, you may experience difficulties or delays when uploading audio and video files for submission. Submission of any single file larger than 512 MB may require the assistance of the Repository Curator. Please contact Colleen Lyon, Repository Curator, at utdr-general@utlists.utexas.edu if you plan to submit files larger than 512 MB.
Any digital format will be accepted; however, we encourage you to submit in a file format recommended for submission (please see Recommended File Formats for a list of preferred formats).
The Repository recommends file formats based on the following characteristics:
- openly documented;
- supported by a range of software platforms;
- widely adopted;
- no compression (or lossless data compression);
- does not contain embedded files or embedded programs/script;
- not a proprietary format.
Submission of any single file larger than 512 MB may require the assistance of the Repository Curator. Please contact Colleen Lyon, Repository Curator, at utdr-general@utlists.utexas.edu if you plan to submit files larger than 512 MB.
There is no limit on the number of files you may submit. Should you have more than 500 files for submission, please contact Colleen Lyon, Repository Curator, at utdr-general@utlists.utexas.edu to request a batch load.
You may use the Repository to archive an electronic journal and make it available online; however, the Repository is not an electronic journal publishing system and has no workflows for peer review. The Texas Digital Library (TDL) provides journal publishing services with a peer review workflow for researchers who want to start new journals or migrate an existing peer-reviewed journal to a new online system. Please visit http://journals.tdl.org/ for more information on this service from TDL.
Copyright and Intellectual Property Questions
When you agree to our standard Distribution License you grant the Repository the non-exclusive right to:
- retain, reproduce, and distribute the submitted work;
- keep more than one copy of the work for purposes of security, backup, preservation, and access, and;
- migrate the work to various formats as needed in perpetuity for preservation and usability.
For additional information, please see the Copyright and Licensing Repository Policy.
You, or your copyright assignees, retain all your intellectual property rights. The limited rights you grant to the Repository are non-exclusive, and your ability to grant, assign, or retain any and all rights you had before your submission does not change as a result of your submission. For more information please see the Copyright and Licensing Policy. Please note that some publishers may ask that you grant them exclusive rights to your work, thus limiting your ability to use the work as you see fit and perhaps even limiting your ability to submit it to the Repository.
- If I no longer hold the copyright to an article or other publication, can I still submit it to the UT Digital Repository?
You may ask your publisher whether you can submit your previously published work into the Repository. Initially when you publish you may negotiate with the publisher to retain the right to submit your work to the Repository by using the SPARC Author Addendum or by directly modifying the publisher’s license. SPARC offers other useful resources for authors as well (see http://www.arl.org/sparc/author/). Please see the Copyright and Licensing Policy for more information.
It depends. Some publishers will not accept material that has been made available elsewhere - even if it has not been formally published. This is slowly changing, but we do recommend checking with potential publishers to ensure that you can safely submit a preprint, for example, into the Repository. The Sherpa list of Publisher Copyright Policies and Self-Archiving is the most definitive list of publisher policies at this current time.
- I just found some interesting work by someone else in the UT Digital Repository and am about to download it—what can I do with that work once I have it?
Unless otherwise noted in the Repository or the work itself, you should treat the work like any other copyrighted material and may make “Fair Use” of it as allowed by law.
The UT Digital Repository was established to provide open access to the digital works of the University; however, in exceptional cases access restrictions may be warranted. Concerns about access restrictions should be discussed with the Repository Curator before submission of a work occurs. Please contact Colleen Lyon, Repository Curator, at utdr-general@utlists.utexas.edu with questions or concerns about restricting access to a work.
Access to electronic dissertations are open in accordance with the policies of the Office of Graduate Studies; see FAQ #36.
The Repository does not support revisions or editing of works once they are in the Repository. However, you may make separate submission of different versions of a work (e.g., submitting both a preprint and a postprint).
Revisions to electronic theses or dissertations are not accepted; see FAQ #37.
Under special circumstances, items may be withdrawn from the Repository. Please see the Withdrawal section of the Submission and Withdrawal Policy for more information.
Access to electronic dissertations are open in accordance with the policies of the Office of Graduate Studies; see FAQ #36.
The UT Digital Repository adheres to UT’s Web Privacy Policy and to the security standards for Category II data.
Electronic Theses and Dissertations Questions
Graduating doctoral students at The University of Texas at Austin, beginning with the summer semester of 2001, are required to publish an electronic copy of their dissertation. Beginning with the fall semester of 2010, master's theses and reports must also be published electronically. The UT Digital Repository accepts deposits of Theses and Dissertations from the Office of Graduate Studies at UT Austin. These digital documents and their metadata are exposed to Google and other search engines upon deposit so they can be available to the world for viewing and downloading.
For more information please contact:
- UT Libraries: Paul Rascoe, 512-495-4262, prascoe@mail.utexas.edu
- UT Office of Graduate Studies: 512-471-4511
Or contact the Dean of Graduate Studies (in writing only, not an email message):
Judith H. Langlois,
Vice Provost and Dean of Graduate Studies, ad interim
The University of Texas at Austin
Office of the Vice Provost and Dean of Graduate Studies
1 University Station G0400
Austin, TX 78712
- I’ve found my Thesis/Dissertation in the Repository, and I’d like to amend it. Can I submit additional material or replace it altogether with a new version?
No. The digital version of your work in the UT Digital Repository is an exact copy of the analog source, which was signed and approved by your committee and the Office of Graduate Studies. The UT Libraries cannot accept modified or replacement versions. If you would like more information about modifying your thesis or dissertation, please contact in writing (not an email message) the Dean of the Office of Graduate Studies at this address:
Judith H. Langlois,
Vice Provost and Dean of Graduate Studies, ad interim
The University of Texas at Austin
Office of the Vice Provost and Dean of Graduate Studies
1 University Station G0400
Austin, TX 78712