About KU ScholarWorks
KU ScholarWorks (KUSW) is the institutional repository of the University of Kansas. It contains scholarly work produced by KU faculty, staff, and students, as well as departmental research publications.
KU researchers who add their scholarly work to ScholarWorks increase their visibility and impact by making their scholarship available to a worldwide audience, as well as providing for long-term preservation of the materials. Our staff deposit the materials for you so that you can spend your time doing teaching, service, and research, instead of learning yet another submission system.
If you have questions about adding materials to KU ScholarWorks or any other questions about KU ScholarWorks, please contact Marianne Reed, Digital Publishing & Repository Manager, at mreed@ku.edu.
Services
We have services to help KU scholars and departments deposit materials in KU ScholarWorks:
- In order to make this process as easy as possible, we will deposit eligible materials into ScholarWorks on your behalf. See What can be deposited in ScholarWorks on this page for specific information about how you can share each type of material.
- Give presentations for departmental or research groups about how their work can be made available to a worldwide audience in ScholarWorks.
- Analyze the publisher policies about open sharing for the published works of KU researchers or departments.
- Advise researchers about the benefits of obtaining an Open Researcher and Contributor ID (ORCID).
- Assist scholars in finding other library services that support research and teaching as needed.
What Can Be Deposited in ScholarWorks?
In general, work by KU scholars that is allowed to be openly shared may be added to KU ScholarWorks. Some content may not be accepted for deposit into ScholarWorks, either because it does not meet the general guidelines above or due to issues of copyright or technical limitations. ScholarWorks records contain the works themselves, not just links to the works.
If you have questions about what can be deposited in ScholarWorks, please contact us.
Materials that are commonly shared in ScholarWorks:
- Scholarly articles authored by KU researchers
- Theses and dissertations
- Works produced or sponsored by KU departments and research groups (Working papers, technical reports, presentations, interviews, research series, etc.)
- Data
- Books, book chapters and manuscripts
- Presentations
- Conference proceedings for conferences organized by KU researchers or departments
- Works by students, including capstones, senior projects, senior theses and honors theses approved by the appropriate department or academic unit
- Learning objects such as openly-licensed textbooks by KU authors, course-based research assignments, information literacy assignments, and more. Please note: Syllabi and other similar course materials are not deposited in KU ScholarWorks.
- Journals published at KU or edited by KU researchers
Other materials that may be added to KU ScholarWorks:
- Papers, slides and recordings from conference presentations.
- Software/code
- Audio and visual materials created by faculty as part of their research and/or scholarly work.
- Art and creative works
Visibility
- Open Access: KU ScholarWorks strives to provide open and public access to all content in the repository. For exceptions, see Delayed Access (Embargoes), below.
- Google and Google Scholar: 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.
- Article Metrics: 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.
- Permanent Links: All items in KU ScholarWorks are assigned URLs that will never change and can be used whenever the work is cited.
- ORCIDs: 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. Researcher identifiers like ORCIDs are used by many systems in the research ecosystem, including many granting agencies, where ORCIDs are used by applicants to automatically populate lists of publications.
- OAI-PMH: KU ScholarWorks makes article metadata available to other systems for harvesting, including web crawlers such as DuckDuckGo, Google, and Bing, by adhering to standards that meet the Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting (OAI-PMH).
Delayed Access (Embargoes)
Where required by publisher policies, items in KUSW may be embargoed for a specified period of time after which they will become openly available.
KU Theses and Dissertations are deposited in KU ScholarWorks as a requirement of graduation and may be embargoed. Authors of theses and dissertations can find information about embargoes, including how to request or renew an embargo, on the Graduate Studies Embargo page and in the Graduate Studies Embargo Policy for Theses and Dissertations.
Withdrawal of Content
Items may be withdrawn from KUSW at the request of the author or copyright holder, at 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 Marianne Reed, Digital Publishing & Repository Manager, at mreed@ku.edu.
Copyright
Copyright and Non-Exclusive License: Items in KU ScholarWorks remain the property of the copyright holder(s) and 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.
Using materials found in KU ScholarWorks: Linking to materials in ScholarWorks is strongly encouraged. For uses beyond Fair Use, permission from the copyright holder, as well as full attribution, will be required. Where indicated, some works may have Creative Commons Licenses that specify permissions.
Accessibility
An accessible version of the scholarly articles on this site will be made available upon request. Please contact Marianne Reed, Digital Publishing & Repository Manager, at mreed@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 KU Libraries or the University of Kansas.
Metadata
Items in ScholarWorks that have accurate information about the item (metadata) are more easily discovered by systems such as Google and Google Scholar.
At a minimum, metadata such as title, author and date must be provided before the material can be added to KU ScholarWorks. For further information about the metadata needed for each type of material that can be added to ScholarWorks, please see the links in the What Can Be Deposited in ScholarWorks? section on this page.
KU Libraries will conduct a periodic analysis of repository records to identify areas where additional metadata would be beneficial. KU Libraries will make every effort to ensure all resources conform to repository metadata policies while still fulfilling their own unique documentation needs.
Preservation and Access
Preservation: 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.
Access: KU Libraries ensures that items deposited in KU ScholarWorks will remain retrievable from the repository in the future.
Preferred file formats: Since file formats change and evolve over time, older file formats in ScholarWorks records may not be able to be read by modern software. In general, files created with open or non-proprietary software offer the greatest hopes for long-term usability. Please consult the UK Data Service's guide for further information on preferred formats for various data types.
If you need assistance in choosing the appropriate file formats for your content or data so that they can be used in the long term, please contact us.
Resources from KU Libraries
Did you know that KU Libraries also publishes books and journals edited by KU researchers? These resources can help you learn more about publishing with KU Libraries:
Looking for help with your research data and aren't sure where to go?
Do you receive Federal funding for your research? Here is a guide to the research sharing policies from Federal agencies that must be in place 12/31/2025: