SOAR Content Guidelines

  • Original creative and research-based scholarly works by faculty, staff, or students of a SUNY institution (collectively referred to as SUNY authors) will be accepted.
  • Outside of embargo periods, all content will be publicly available.
  • SUNY authors must own copyright to the materials submitted or have documented permission to deposit materials.
  • If a work is co-authored, each co-author can grant a non-exclusive license by accepting the deposit agreement without permission of the other co-authors. However, it is recommend that the depositing SUNY author talk with their co-author colleagues prior to submitting the work to the SUNY Open Access Repository to avoid potential disagreements.
  • A wide variety of content types can be deposited including published articles, post-prints, preprints, monographs, conference papers, dissertations, theses, honors projects, and creative works.
  • Most file formats are accepted.
  • Works produced by SUNY-affiliated students solely to fulfill course requirements are outside the scope of this repository.
  • Open Educational Resources (OER) content has historically been archived in SUNY Digital Repository (SDR). However, because this content is more closely aligned with the mission of SOAR, as of this date we recommend putting all new OER content in SOAR. The OLIS will be analyzing and updating these content guidelines to better distinguish between the two repositories, as outlined in the 2023-2026 OLIS Strategic Plan. (Updated March 15, 2023)
  • SUNY Open Access Repository administrators reserve the right to reject submissions that do not represent intellectual output from the SUNY community or cannot be accommodated due to size or format considerations.

SOAR Submission Guidelines

  • SUNY authors will submit deposit agreements confirming it is original work and the SUNY author either owns the copyright or has permission to deposit the materials.
  • SUNY authors will submit a rights permission release granting SUNY a non-exclusive license to provide online open access to the contributor’s scholarly/creative work through the SUNY Open Access Repository
  • At the time of submission, SUNY authors will be asked to provide information about themselves and co-authors; as well as the title, abstract, keywords, and electronic format of the file or hyperlink to the file of the work. ORCID and DOI information will be accepted if available.

SOAR Rights and Terms for Use

  • SUNY authors retain all copyright in their work but give SUNY the permission to make it available online for anyone outside of defined embargo periods.
  • Users will respect the copyright of the authors.
  • Users are permitted to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of articles for any lawful purpose without financial, legal, or technical barriers other than those inseparable from gaining access to the internet.

SOAR Withdrawal of Content

  • Works deposited in the SUNY Open Access Repository will not be removed unless there are legal requirement, they are libelous, invasions of privacy or that do not meet the criteria listed under content guidelines.
  • Requests for removal are to be sent to the SUNY Open Access Repository administrators at the “Contact Us” link in the footer of the site page. Removal requests will be made in consultation with the repository contacts of the SUNY campus of the SUNY author.
  • If the work is removed the record describing the work will be retained along with the reason for removal. The SUNY Open Access Repository administrators reserve the right to withdraw content as noted in the above.

SOAR Preservation

  • Standard data management practices related to access controls and regular backups of the servers, the storage systems and databases are followed.
  • While checksums are created upon submission, no guarantees can be made over time of the integrity of file formats particularly as the platform will have ongoing version upgrades or may be migrated to a new system.
  • The focus of the repository is to provide access rather than preservation.

SOAR Accessibility

  • In support of the SUNY Electronic and Information Technology Accessibility Policy https://www.suny.edu/sunypp/documents.cfm?doc_id=883 submitters will be asked to follow guidelines developed by campuses in support of this initiative. While the SUNY Open Access Repository strives to be accessible, please contact the repository manager at soar@suny.edu if a more accessible version is needed.

If you are interested in contributing to the SUNY Open Access Repository, please submit a request through the Support portal.

Definitions

  • DOI - Digital Object Identifier is a unique digital identifier used to permanently identify and link to articles and documents on the web. The DOI is persistent which means it is not subject to change or deletion. Additional information is available at https://www.doi.org/.
  • Embargo - Restricts access to full text content for a designated period of time. This is generally done at the request of an author or publisher to limit full text access until a defined future date.
  • Repository - Is an online database with a set of services to capture, store, index, preserve, and make available digital materials created by institutions, in this case with a focus on scholarly output of SUNY faculty, students, and staff.
  • Open Access - Refers to the ability to make available scholarly research output that is distributed online and free of cost or other access barriers. Users are permitted to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of articles for any lawful purpose without financial, legal, or technical barriers other than those inseparable from gaining access to the internet (Budapest Open Access Initiative).
  • ORCID - Researcher and Contributor ID is a unique digital identifier that distinguishes a researcher from all other researchers with the same or similar names. Additional information is available at https://orcid.org/.
  • SUNY Author - Faculty, staff, or students of a SUNY institution who deposit creative and scholarly works to SOAR are collectively referred to as SUNY authors.