Policies

Metadata Policy

1. Anyone may access the metadata free of charge.
2. The metadata may be re-used in any medium without prior permission for not-for-profit purposes and re-sold commercially provided the OAI Identifier or a link to the original metadata record are given.

Data Policy

1. Anyone may access full items free of charge.
2. Copies of full items generally can be:
   • reproduced, displayed or performed, and given to third parties in any format or medium
   • for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-profit purposes without prior permission or charge.
   provided:
   • the authors, title and full bibliographic details are given
   • a hyperlink and/or URL are given for the original metadata page
   • the content is not changed in any way
3. Full items must not be sold commercially in any format or medium without formal permission of the copyright holders.
4. Some full items are individually tagged with different rights permissions and conditions.

Content Policy

1. This is a multi-institution subject-based repository.
2. The repository holds all types of materials.

Submission Policy

1. Items may only be deposited by accredited members of the subject community, or their delegated agents.
2. Eligible depositors must deposit bibliographic metadata for all their publications.
3. Eligible depositors must deposit full texts of all their publications, although they may delay making them publicly visible to comply with publishers' embargos.
4. The administrator only vets items for relevance to the scope of the repository, valid layout & format, and the exclusion of spam
5. The validity and authenticity of the content of submissions is the sole responsibility of the depositor.
6. Items can be deposited at any time, but will not be made publicly visible until any publishers' or funders' embargo period has expired.
7. Any copyright violations are entirely the responsibility of the authors/depositors.
8. If the repository receives proof of copyright violation, the relevant item will be removed immediately.

Preservation Policy

1. Items will be retained indefinitely.
2. The repository will try to ensure continued readability and accessibility.
   • Items will be migrated to new file formats where necessary.
   • It may not be possible to guarantee the readability of some unusual file formats.
3. The repository regularly backs up its files according to current best practice.
4. The original bit stream is retained for all items, in addition to any upgraded formats.
5. Items may not normally be removed from the repository.
6. Acceptable reasons for withdrawal include:
   • Proven copyright violation or plagiarism
   • Legal requirements and proven violations
   • National Security
7. Withdrawn items are not deleted per se, but are removed from public view.
8. Withdrawn items' identifiers/URLs are retained indefinitely.
9. URLs will continue to point to 'tombstone' citations, to avoid broken links and to retain item histories.
10. The metadata of withdrawn items will not be searchable.
11. In the event of the repository being closed down, the database will be transferred to another appropriate archive.