KU ScholarWorks

KU ScholarWorks (KUSW) is the institutional repository at the University of Kansas, Lawrence and Edwards campuses. Its aim is to centralize and provide persistent and reliable access to the research output, scholarship, and creative works of faculty, staff, and students at KU in addition to housing digital content from the University Archives. KUSW complements traditional publishing outlets by increasing access to the scholarly journal literature produced by KU researchers and by hosting journals edited by KU faculty and departments. As an evolving resource, an ongoing focus of the repository is to capture emerging research driven by the intellectual environment of the campus, in addition to providing access to documents that are of permanent value to the University.

The collections in KUSW are focused on the research, scholarship, creative works of KU faculty and researchers, and in some cases students, as well as materials that document the history of the University and reflect its intellectual environment.

Examples of potential content include but are not limited to:

  • Scholarly articles
  • Books, book chapters, and manuscripts
  • Theses and dissertations
  • Conference papers and presentations
  • University documents such as speeches, departmental bulletins and newsletters, scrapbooks, etc., as covered by the KU Archives Collection Policy.
  • Working papers and technical reports
  • Art and creative works
  • Software/code
  • Data
  • Journals published at KU or edited by KU researchers
  • Audio and visual materials related to the intellectual endeavors of administrative units on campus or created by faculty in the course of their research and/or scholarly work.
  • Works by undergraduates, including senior projects / theses and honors theses where approved by the appropriate department or academic unit.

Some content may not currently be accepted for deposit into KUSW either because it does not meet the general guidelines above or due to issues of copyright or technical limitations. For clarification of what can be deposited in KUSW, please contact kuscholarworks@ku.edu.

Visibility

  • The developers of DSpace--the software package behind KU ScholarWorks--have worked closely with Google to ensure that the works in those systems are easily found by Google and Google Scholar. We supply Google with an XML sitemap for KU ScholarWorks to help ensure that all content is indexed.
  • KU ScholarWorks adheres to standards that meet the Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting (OAI-PMH) that allows harvesting of the article metadata by other systems.
  • All items in KU ScholarWorks are assigned permanent URLs that will never change and can be used whenever the work is cited.
  • KU ScholarWorks supports the use of Open Researcher and Contributor IDs (ORCIDs). An ORCID gives each researcher a unique identifier that supports connections between the author and their work that are increasingly being used by many automated systems, including granting agencies
  • Articles in KU ScholarWorks display Altmetric scores that show visibility and impact of the research from online forums, including news outlets, policy documents, blogs, Twitter, readers on Mendelay, etc.
  • KU ScholarWorks is a part of the SHared Access Research Ecosystem (SHARE), in which metadata from research repositories and publishing systems is made freely available to the world.

Embargoes

KU strives to provide open and public access to content in KUSW. Where required by publisher policies, items in KUSW may be embargoed for a specified period of time after which they will become openly available.

Embargoes of KU Theses and Dissertations deposited in KU ScholarWorks as a requirement of graduation are subject to the KU Graduate Studies Embargo Policy for Theses and Dissertations.

Withdrawal of Content

Items may be withdrawn from KUSW at the request of the author, the direction of the Provost or General Counsel, or by legal order. Withdrawn items will be removed from all public access, but will be retained in the repository. Withdrawal requests should be directed to kuscholarworks@ku.edu.

Copyright, Intellectual Property and Digital Rights Issues

Works by KU faculty, staff, and students in KU ScholarWorks are made publicly available for anyone in the world to read, though some works are required by the copyright holder to be restricted for a limited amount of time.   For other uses, it is important to note that items in KU ScholarWorks remain the property of the copyright holder(s) and that any rights held by the copyright holder (whether the author or publisher) before depositing the work in KU ScholarWorks remain unchanged by the non-exclusive license granted to KU ScholarWorks to distribute the works.  Proper permission from the copyright holder, as well as full attribution, will be required for uses beyond Fair Use.  Where indicated, some works may have Creative Commons Licenses that specify permissions. The management of digital rights associated with the repository will develop in tandem with University policy and legal requirements. See the Intellectual Property Policy for the Lawrence Campus and the Policies and Procedures Related to Use of Blackboard, University of Kansas for more information.

Metadata

Ensuring the discoverability and access of resources in ScholarWorks is a primary goal of KU Libraries. Creating, maintaining, and enhancing metadata for resources is central to this task, and KUSW administrators make significant efforts to create high quality metadata and ensure the overall organizational coherency of the repository's communities and collections. Modest bibliographic metadata (e.g. title, author, date) is required before an item may be submitted. KU Libraries will conduct a periodic analysis of repository records to identify areas where additional metadata would be beneficial for the long term viability of the repository. KU Libraries will make every effort to ensure all resources conform to repository metadata policies while still fulfilling their own unique documentation needs. For questions about KUSW metadata, please contact kuscholarworks@ku.edu.

Preservation and Access

KU Libraries uses standard data management practices to protect items stored in KU ScholarWorks. The repository is backed up regularly and is kept secure against deletion or unauthorized modification.

KU Libraries assures continuing access to items deposited in KU ScholarWorks. Every item deposited will remain retrievable from the repository. However, because file formats change and evolve over time, older formats may lose some of their functionality. In general, files created with open or non-proprietary software offer the greatest hopes for extensibility and usability as digital environments change. Please consult the UK Data Archive's guide for further information on preferred formats for various data types.

Faculty and other creators of digital content are urged to carefully consider the implications of choosing a particular file format or software application, and to balance the importance of the functions provided by a software application against the importance of being able to access and use the data over a period of years or decades. If you need assistance in choosing the appropriate file formats for your content or data, please contact kuscholarworks@ku.edu.

Accessibility

An accessible version of the scholarly articles on this site will be made available upon request. Please contact Marianne Reed at kuscholarworks@ku.edu to request the document be made available in an accessible format.

Historical Context

Materials in KU ScholarWorks reflect the attitudes of the people, period, or context in which they were created. Certain images, words, terms, or descriptions may be offensive, culturally insensitive, or considered inappropriate today. These items do not represent the views of the libraries or the university.