Why use Qspace vs. other archives, department web page

I already put my stuff in another repository(e.g. arXiv ). Why should I put it in QSpace?

• QSpace will give your paper a URL that will never break – in 20 years and beyond, a citation to your paper that gives the QSpace link will still work and get people to your paper.

• Also, you don’t need to worry that the server will be maintained. Sometimes, at the departmental level, the “care and feeding” of a project or server is dependent on a set of interested individuals, and if they leave or get new interests, the project may languish. A fundamental role of libraries is to develop and maintain collections.

• We don’t know the capabilities of your eprint server, but QSpace provides “access control” – if you don’t happen to want the whole world to see something, we can control access to it, that is, the people you want to see your paper will be asked to log in to see it. See also “Published materials and copyright questions” section below

Why is posting to QSpace better than posting to a department web site?
There are both pros and cons – here are some pros:

• It’s easier to put your work in QSpace than to post documents to your personal or departmental web site – you just click a few buttons and fill in a few blanks; you can do it from any computer

• It’s far easier to interact with QSpace than with the campus web servers

• Google gives preferential treatment to materials in digital repositories: your paper definitely be picked up, and will appear higher up on the Google results list

• If you want to restrict access to your work, you can work with QSpace administrators to set that up.

• Long-term accessibility: things in QSpace get an address (the “handle”) that will never break – you can cite it, and the plan is that 20 years and beyond, that address will still work.

• With our ITS partners, we are pledged to maintain the server: backups, regular maintenance, etc.

And some cons:

• Only administrators can change things (the version of the file, for example) once it is deposited in QSpace. It’s quite ok – we’re happy to do it – but you have to ask someone to do it, you can’t do it yourself.

• QSpace doesn't have the same “look and feel” as your department pages. But you could deposit your paper in QSpace, and then make a link to it from your department page!

How will people find QSpace and the things in it? (Google)

Can you “Google” something in QSpace?

• Absolutely. Google actually “crawls” repositories more frequently, and puts them higher in its results lists. One of our faculty Googled one of her papers that was both on the departmental site and in QSpace, and the QSpace entry appeared first in the Google results.

How else will people find QSpace?

• We expect it will be mostly via Google, but QSpace is searchable from the Library's list of databases. There are also other repository harvesters that index items in QSpace, such as the OAIster (currently providing access to more than 12 million records from 851 institutions) and the CARL Harvester (providing access to a growing number of Canadian academic repositories). Departments can add links to QSpace from their web pages to help people get there. You can send people the URL to your work in QSpace too.

Searching: what is searchable?

• The "Quick Search" box in QSpace searches the content of the record people fill out when they deposit something in QSpace (authors, title, keywords, abstract, subject, etc.). A keyword search also searches the full text of the deposited item. The full text is also indexed (and thus searchable, retrievable) by Google and Google Scholar.

Published materials and copyright

I’ve already published it, why should I put it in QSpace?

• It’s easier to put your work in QSpace than to post documents to your personal or departmental web site – you just click a few buttons and fill in a few blanks; you can do it from any computer; you can even have an administrative assistant or student do it for you.

• When colleagues request copies of your scholarly materials, just give them the URL- no more attaching documents to emails.

• You don’t have to worry about backups, maintenance, etc. – QSpace does that for you.

• Your online files will receive on average 336% more citations than materials available only in paper format.

What do I do about copyright and what is Creative Commons?

• You retain all intellectual rights to your material assuming you have not already transferred your copyright to a publisher if the work to be submitted has been previously published. The next question deals with material that has been published elsewhere.

• During the submission process, you will have the opportunity to apply a Creative Commons Canada license to your submitted work. Creative Commons is a nonprofit corporation that promotes the creative reuse of intellectual works - whether owned or in the public domain. Creative Commons provides guided copyright templates to help authors select an appropriate, legal agreement for the reuse of their work.

• After accepting or skipping the Creative Commons step, you’ll see a license agreement stating that you are giving the Queen's University Library the non-exclusive right to make your work available electronically.

Can I put a journal article or published conference paper into QSpace? If the materials in QSpace are for educational use, do we even have to get permission from the publisher to put them there?

• There are now a growing number of publishers, such as Elsevier and Springer, who allow authors to deposit the pre-publication or post-publication version of their article into an institutional repository. A UK higher education consortium called SHERPA provides SHERPA/RoMEO, a searchable database of publisher policies regarding institutional repositories. For conferences, it is best to contact the publisher of the conference proceedings directly.

If I sign my copyright away to a publisher can I still post my article?

• It depends. Some publishers will allow you to post the article. We can help you figure this out; as mentioned above, the “Sherpa” project web site can be helpful for determining this.

What version of an article can I post? It is more natural to post an article at the time of submission. When it is published, I've moved on to other work.

• See above – if the publisher allows it, the last pre-publication version – the text you send to the publisher – should be the “ok” version. Some publishers will allow you to post the "published" pdf but only if if explicitly permitted.

Control, versions, and removals

Can I control who sees my work in QSpace?

• Indirectly, yes: you cannot do it yourself, but you can just ask your QSpace administrator to set up restricted access. At this time, restricted access can be limited by: (a) Queen's domain (to individuals with a Queen's netid and password) or (b) to specific individuals (people you want to give rights to see your work will need to register and be added to an internal “group” that has access rights to the item you deposited).

• Please note that in general, we would prefer that most of the material going into the repository be available to the world.

What if I revise a paper I’ve put in QSpace? Can I add the new version, or replace the old with the new?

• This might be a good place to note that the repository is meant for finished material, not works in progress. At the same time, we know “revisions happen,” and we are happy to make sure the most up-to-date version of your work is available in QSpace.

• Unfortunately, at this point you can’t get back in and edit your deposit. (We realize this is inconvenient.) However, it is worth bearing in mind that a scholar may have cited the link to specific text from your previous in a paper. If you were able to revise your original submission, the scholar's citation might no longer be valid.

• Nevertheless, if you revise a paper you’ve deposited, or want to add an addendum, you can send the new material to your campus QSpace administrator, with a note requesting what you want done. We may be able to add a new version to your existing deposit, along with labels indicating which is the original paper, and which is the latest version (or addendum).

What if I really want to remove something I put in QSpace?

• This is something you can’t do yourself, but your campus QSpace administrator will be happy to do it for you. There are 2 levels of making something no longer available in QSpace:

• Withdrawal: the item will not be visible, and search engines will be blocked from detecting it, but the item will actually continue to exist in the repository. An Administrator would be able to reinstate it.

• Removal: the item will be completely expunged from the database and cannot be reinstated without re-submitting it.

• An important benefit with QSpace: when an item is Withdrawn or Removed, a “tombstone” is left in its place so a scholar who linked to an item in QSpace will never be faced with a broken link. If someone should enter the item’s URL (or “handle”, in repository parlance), they will get a message that gives a reason why the item is no longer available, and the email for the QSpace administrators. If the QSpace administrators receive a message about a removed item, they will forward it to the appropriate person(s).

Who are these “campus QSpace administrators”?

• Many of the Queen's librarians can help guide you through the registration or deposit process, or explain how the repository works. In addition, there is a librarian who is also the designated QSpace administrator, known as the “QSpace Coordinator,” who has administrative access rights to QSpace. He can set up communities and collections, set up access controls, change or remove deposits, and correct obvious errors in the metadata record describing each item deposited.

The present QSpace Coordinator is Sam Kalb. Email: kalbs@queensu.ca. Phone: 613-533-2830

What can go into QSpace, and who can do it?

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Who can make deposits to QSpace?

• Any Queen's faculty member or research staff who registers and requests authorization to deposit to a particular collection. We try to set up the “collection structure” with input from the department. Where possible, we try to assign a "Collection Administrator" who can provide the names of authorized contributors. This Administrator can also change or remove deposits, and fix typos in records.

Can students deposit into QSpace?

• Graduate students are automatically authorized to deposit their completed, accepted thesis into the QSpace Theses & Dissertations Collection. Other than theses, students can only deposit material into specific collections authorized by Queen's faculty members. Such works must be vetted prior to deposit to ensure that quotations from published sources are appropriately cited and permission has been obtained to reproduce images and other materials from published sources not in the public domain. Alternatively, student works may also be deposited in a closed collection accessible only to specific individuals or accessible only from the Queen's domain.

How do I register in QSpace?

• Any member of the Queen's community who can supply a Queen's netid and password when they log in via My Account -> My QSpace, is automatically registered. Non-Queen's community members can register by following the instructions on the registration screen. Registered members are able to register for "alerts" (email notification when a item is added to a specific collection) or subscribe to the RSS feed. Registration is also required to submit items provided that the registrant has been authorized to submit to the collection (see previous question).

What can be posted? Who decides? Is it peer reviewed?

• Each community can establish its own collection policy bearing in mind that open access collections will be made available to all scholars and researchers. It is possible to set up a collection workflow whereby a person or several people are required to review and accept or reject items submitted to the collection before they can become accessible. If an item is rejected, the reviewer is able to send a customized message to the contributor explaining why the item has been rejected or suggesting revisions. In the latter case, the system deletes the original submission and the contributor has to resubmit the corrected item.

What file formats do the submissions have to be in and how can you be sure they are updateable?

• You can put any kind of digital material in QSpace, including data files, images and multimedia formats. There is a full and detailed list available here: http://library.queensu.ca/webir/planning/guidelines/format.htm. Almost all types of formats can be submitted. If you can upload it, you can put it in QSpace. At this time, the Library does not have the resources to guarantee that file formats will remain accessible. Accessibility is dependent on the software available to the researcher.

Can I put web pages in QSpace?

• Yes you can. Web pages with no other linking pages can be submitted as a single file. When submitting a multi-page web site, you will have to indicate which file is the main or home page. Current policy requires all the linked pages of a web site to be part of the QSpace submission to guarantee continued access to the whole web site. In addition, all links to web pages included in the submission but be "relative links." A "relative link" is the name of the linked file (e.g. facilities.html) as opposed to a full link (e.g. http://library.queensu.ca/websrs/facilities.html). QSpace software assumes that all web pages are in located at the same QSpace "address". So, you may have to adjust the links in your web pages before submitting them.

What if I don't have the time to post my work to QSpace?

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• Posting your work is easy and quick to do. You can even have an administrative assistant or student do it for you. The Library will provide training and support to you and any staff or student who may post material on your behalf. If you do not have anyone to post your materials, contact the QSpace Coordinator to discuss how the Library may assist you.

Other answers

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What are these strange URLs? Who owns Handle.net?

• Each item deposited is given a unique and unbreakable URL, such as https://qspace.library.queensu.ca/handle/1974/425, known as a “handle.” To ensure that URLs don’t break even though the files themselves may have to be physically moved from one storage location to another, all of the URLs point to Handle.net, which is a service provided by the Corporation for National Research Initiatives (CNRI). Handle.net then redirects the user to the current location of the file.

Is there a permanent way to cite work in QSpace in my CV?

• Yes – that is what the “handle” system is all about. Once deposited, just copy the “handle/1974/…” URL that appears in the record. That is your permanent link to your item in QSpace.

Will QSpace be part of a larger consortium of repositories?

• Yes, the software we are using is called DSpace, and the University is linked to the DSpace Federation, which includes many other prestigious institutions such as University of Toronto, MIT, Columbia, Cornell, and Cambridge just to name a few.

Why do we need a digital repositry when we have journals?

• QSpace includes, among other works, materials that may not, for whatever reason, make it into a journal. Things like conference presentations, preprints, working papers, learning objects (course notes, etc.), white papers, theses and dissertations, special collections (such as unique musical scores and 19th century photographs)… There are many, many great pieces of scholarship and artistic endeavor produced on our campus that don’t end up as journal articles. Why not try to capture them and share them with the world?

What is QShare and is it the same as QSpace?

• QShare is an on-line file storage, distribution and sharing solution for works in progress while QSpace is place to deposit completed works for public distribution to the research community.

QShare provides a web-based file space where your work-in-progress can be securely stored as if it was on your computer. However, unlike files on your computer, you can access and work on your paper in QShare from any computer with access to the internet. There is no danger of losing your work if something happens to your computer. QShare can also be a collaborative work space where you and your colleagues can prepare collaborative publications. QShare Personal accounts are available free of charge to all Faculty, Staff and Graduate Students of Queen's University.

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Acknowledgement: This list of questions and answers is based, in part, on the University of Rochester's "crib sheet" for librarians, compiled by staff at the UR Research digital repository from their extensive experience and feedback from their user community.