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SPARK Digital Commons Repository

SPARK is the Institutional Repository (IR) for Bethel University's digital resources and digital commons for advancing the strategic objective of supporting open access to Bethel's scholarship.

Author Copyright Guidelines for SPARK

In order to deposit a Work in SPARK, you must hold the copyright to that Work, or have the approval of the copyright holder to do so. Knowing the copyright status of your Work before submitting it to SPARK is required. 

AUTHORS WHO RETAINED FULL COPYRIGHT

If you retain the full copyright to a Work you have created and have not given away exclusive rights to distribute it, you may submit the full-text Work to SPARK. If you share the copyright with other authors, gain their approval for the Work to be  made available in SPARK. 

AUTHORS WHO TRANSFERRED COPYRIGHT

If the Work is also being published by a traditional publisher, you may have transferred your copyright as part of the publication process. If you do not retain copyright and have transferred your rights to your publisher, you may still be able to deposit a pre-published version of your Work to SPARK. Self-archiving with institutional repositories is a common practice. Check the individual publisher’s website directly to learn which types of deposits they allow per their contractual specifications. You may request assistance in this process by emailing spark@bethel.edu.

The majority of Publishers allow institutional repository deposits, also known as Green Open Access, though some may have certain conditions and/or others may stipulate which Version should be deposited. These are the most common Versions or conditions:

  • Preprints/original manuscripts: A “preprint” is a pre-reviewed publication- check with your publishers’ policies prior to submitting your Work. A statement indicating that it has not been reviewed must be included in the abstract of your submission. The citation to the final published version (which includes the name of the journal/publisher and a URL link to the final published version and/or the final DOI) must also be included.
  • Accepted manuscript: An accepted manuscript is the version of a manuscript accepted for publication after peer review, but before edits are finalized.
  • Postprint: The "postprint" is the final, post-peer-review version of the article as it has been accepted for publication - check which version your publisher allows. The “publisher’s PDF” is an exact page image of the article as it appears in print, so this might not be allowed for publication other than on the publisher's site. 
  • Delayed deposit: A delayed deposit is a work that is hidden until the publisher’s version has been released or after some specified period after release, typically 6-12 months (also known as an embargo).
  • Link only: Instead of a full-text document, a link to the final version located on the publisher’s website and the appropriate journal citation is added to the institutional repository when the publisher does not allow the full-text version to be submitted to any institutional repository.
  • Metadata only: Some publishers do not allow any text version of an article or a link to the article to be deposited. Metadata (i.e. citation level information: Title, Author, & Abstract) may still be deposited in the institutional repository.

RETAINING SOME COPYRIGHTS 

Consider retaining some rights from your publisher. This ideally should be done before signing a publisher contract, but it can be requested even after you have transferred your rights. These tools allow you to choose how you want to retain rights to your own Work:

  • Attach the Scholar’s Copyright Addendum to your publisher’s contract from the non-profit Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC) & Science Commons: https://scholars.sciencecommons.org/  

Learn how to negotiate with publishers here: https://wiki.creativecommons.org/wiki/HOWTO_Negotiate_a_CC_License

ADD A CREATIVE COMMONS (CC) LICENSE TO YOUR WORK

We advocate for assigning a Creative Commons license to each Work submitted to SPARK. A Creative Commons license and attribution provides a more detailed account of the use of that Work, as it is governed by the terms of the license selected by the content creator. Creative Commons licensing preserves access to scholarship by maintaining open access to publications and allowing publications to be discoverable and freely shared.

Use the “License Chooser” here:  https://chooser-beta.creativecommons.org/  

QUESTIONS?  Please contact spark@bethel.edu.

(Adapted with permission from St. Kates, Sophia Repository, https://sophia.stkate.edu/policies.html)

Author Copyright Guidelines for SPARK © 2024 by Kari Jagusch is licensed under CC BY 4.0