• Section 1 - Summary
• Section 2 - TEQSA/ASQA/ESOS Alignment
• Section 3 - Scope
• Section 4 - Definitions
• Section 5 - Policy/Regulation
• Section 6 - Procedures
• Part A - Summary of Roles and Responsibilities
• Part B - Procedures
• Section 7 - Supporting Documents and Information

Section 1 - Summary

(1) This Procedure provides guidance on depositing material into the Victoria University Research Repository (VURR) as required to implement the VU Research Repository Open Access Policy.

Section 2 - TEQSA/ASQA/ESOS Alignment

(2) HESF: Standard 4.1.1 Research; 7.3 Information Management

Section 3 - Scope

(3) This Procedure applies to all VU staff, postgraduate research students, and authors affiliated with the University.

Section 4 - Definitions

(4) Author: The creator of an original work.

(5) Author Accepted Manuscript: A document that has been through the peer review process, addressed the reviewers’ comments and is now accepted for publication.

(6) Creative Commons (CC) licence: A licence which allows a creator of works to prescribe the different ways the public can use their work.

(7) Metadata: Information describing an item, for example title, author, year of publication.

(8) Open Access: Available online and world-wide, free of charge or other access barriers.

(9) Refereed: Papers or articles that have been the subject of external or peer review prior to inclusion in a scholarly journal or proceedings.  For research theses, the examination process is considered equivalent to the external or peer review referee process.

(10) Scholarly Work: Work intended for academic publication (e.g. article, book, manuscript or manual regardless of format).

(11) VU Elements: The University’s research information management system.

Section 5 - Policy/Regulation

(12) VU Research Repository Open Access Policy

Section 6 - Procedures

Part A - Summary of Roles and Responsibilities

Part B - Procedures

(13) VU staff, postgraduate students, or authors affiliated with the University may deposit into the VURR.

Exclusions

(14) The following material will not be accepted for deposit

1. Material which contains confidential information, or of which the promulgation would infringe a legal commitment by the University and/or the author;
2. Any work for which the author has entered into an incompatible licensing or assignment agreement;
3. Unedited/un-reviewed personal opinion outputs, letters;
4. Unreferenced draft papers or draft versions made available for comment;
5. Book reviews;
6. Non-educational/non-scholarly outputs;
7. Textbooks and teaching materials;
8. Material to which granting unrestricted access would compromise ethical considerations; including those relating to cultural sensitivities;
9. Theses, other than Masters by Research or Doctorates [except by special request of Institute Director);
10. Newspaper articles;
11. Abstracts or extracts of conference papers, PowerPoint presentations, posters;
12. Administrative documents and records including those associated with a research project.

How to Deposit

(15) The University has a research publication system (VU Elements) that is integrated with the VURR. Subject to Clause 16 below, staff are to deposit their scholarly works via VU Elements. Staff are able to attach a full text version of their work at the same time as they deposit. 

(16) It is recommended for scholarly works that staff keep their Author Accepted Manuscript (after peer-review changes but before publication).  This is generally the version of the work that can be made publicly available on the VURR. 

(17) Library staff will:

1. assess copyright issues involved and work with authors to ensure an appropriate version of the work is made publicly available;
2. assist VU staff in assessing suitable publishers and preferred copyright conditions for their publications.  This includes providing examples of suggested clauses for authors to utilise when submitting research for publication to ensure that they retain the ability to publish in Institutional Repositories;
3. perform quality checks, and determine permissions for public release;
4. if an appropriate full text version of the publication was not initially submitted, contact the author for the most appropriate version of the work.

(18) When the full text is not available VU staff are still able to deposit bibliographic details of their work via VU Elements into the VURR.

(19) Acceptable material not able to be deposited via VU Elements can be nominated for deposit into the VURR by emailing the repository team at vuir@vu.edu.au with a request to deposit.  Library staff will then discuss with the staff member an appropriate deposit process.

Deposit of Theses

(20) Deposit of theses to the VURR is handled as part of the graduation process for research students.  The deposit process is coordinated by the Graduate Research School:

1. Qualifying students complete a VURR Submission and Permission form as part of the Graduate Research School thesis deposit process;
2. The Library copy should preferably be in Adobe PDF format or Word document and on a CD-ROM or USB.  CD-ROMs are provided by the Graduate Research School;
3. Students lodging an electronic copy of a thesis with a completed VURR Submission and Permission form agree to allow the Library to publish the material in electronic format;
4. Restriction of access to full version of submitted theses may be possible in specific cases. In order for access to full version to be restricted, the student must contact the Graduate Research School and complete and submit a Restricted Access to a Thesis form. The Graduate Research School is responsible for approving restrictions and will advise the Library as appropriate.

Quality Control

(21) All works are assessed for compliance with this Procedure and copyright conditions. The Library ensures the metadata of deposits meets established metadata standards in the VURR. 

(22) Where issues arise with compliance with this Procedure and copyright conditions the VURR administrators will provide feedback to the depositor.

(23) Where VU staff maintain home pages, staff are encouraged to provide links to the works that have been deposited to the VURR as the authoritative University source.

Acceptable Formats

(24) Materials can be accepted in the following formats:

1. PDF (the preferred format); 
2. HTML;
3. Postscript;
4. MS Word;
5. Image JPEG, PNG, GIF, BMP, TIFF;
6. Video MPEG, QuickTime, AVI;
7. URL link to the accessible full text content where it resides on another web site;
8. Research data and primary materials.

Deposit License

(25) The University will only accept material for deposit in the VURR where the Author agrees the following:  

1. To grant an irrevocable licence to VU to store material and, when legally permissible, make it freely available via VURR;
2. To warrant that you have the authority to grant VU this licence;
3. To warrant that VU will not infringe any third persons’ rights by using the material in accordance with the licence where the material contains copyright works (which are reproduced in whole or in part in the material) belonging to other persons.

Copyright

(26) As the copyright owner the Author is encouraged to apply a Creative Commons (CC) licence to their work, and depending upon conditions of their funder may be required to do so.    

(27) Responsibility for complying with the University’s copyright policies and procedures; any third party contracts; copyright legislation and publishers’ rights rests with the VU staff member or student submitting the material. The Library, with advice from Legal Services, will assist in checking copyright where the author is unclear. 

(28) Information and guidelines on the University’s intellectual property policies and procedures is available on the University’s website.  

(29) Information on the policies of certain publishers on depositing in repositories is available from the Library.

(30) In the event of a dispute regarding VU’s right to make material accessible via the repository, the Library reserves the right to deny access to or remove the material from VURR until the matter is resolved to the University’s satisfaction.

Take Down Procedure

(31) Library Staff will comply promptly with requests to remove material from VURR if:

1. the author has a reason for the work to no longer be in the public domain; or,
2. if the publisher requests and the University accepts the removal of the material from the VURR citing contravention of copyright or licensing agreements.

(32) Staff should complete the Copyright Take Down Notice when making a take down request.

(33) Theses will be removed for a period of one month to allow the author to complete a Restricted Access to a Thesis form (PDF, 58 KB) and submit it to the Graduate Research School.  The Graduate Research School will be responsible for approving restrictions and will advise the Library as appropriate.  If restrictions are not granted, full-text of the thesis will be returned to the VURR.

(34) Note that only the full version of the work will be removed via the take down procedure, the metadata (name, title, and year) will remain in the VURR.

Section 7 - Supporting Documents and Information

(35) National Health and Medical Research Council’s (NHMRC) Dissemination of Research Finding

(36) Australian Research Council (ARC) Open Access Policy

(37) Measuring Individual Research Activity Procedure

(38) Copyright Policy