Introduction: Showcasing Your Work
The WSU Libraries provide services to help you showcase your scholarly work online. Any member of the WSU community may share their work in Research Exchange, a digital repository that features research completed at this institution. This page presents factors to consider should you wish to place your work in the repository. Please contact us at libraries.research@wsu.edu.for more information.
Why Use Research Exchange?
Research Exchange is a digital repository where WSU community members may share and preserve their scholarly work and educational materials. The repository is indexed by major search engines, thus making its contents accessible to anyone with access to the Internet. Research Exchange adds value to the WSU community by:
Increasing the visibility of faculty and student scholarship and facilitating its discovery
Preserving institutional memory
Rapidly communicating new research to the national and global scholarly community
Allowing WSU community members to comply with federal and funder mandates to share research outputs with the general public
Supporting WSU's mission as a land-grant institution that has valuable knowledge to share with a global audience
Getting Started with Research Exchange
If you would like to share your work in Research Exchange, you have several options for doing so. We can work with you to post virtually any scholarly or educational material--documents, presentations, grey literature, media, syllabi and open educational resources, datasets, and more. In general, we will need to receive the following from you:
Citations for and/or copies of material you would like to publish in Research Exchange.
Your agreement to WSU's non-exclusive license to share your work in Research Exchange
For previously published work, copyright clearance to post your work online
The following video shows how you can deposit research on your own, but you can also get in touch with the library for assistance with any part of this process.
Posting to Research Exchange: Upload Options
As noted in the above video, you have three options for sharing your work in Research Exchange:
The WSU Libraries can post for you once you've provided materials and your approval.
You can post your own material. If you prefer this option, navigate to this submission form and log in using your WSU Network ID. You will be prompted to enter basic information about your submission before uploading files. Upon review, your uploads will be assigned to appropriate collections. Should you have further questions about copyright or use of the repository, check this Research Exchange FAQ or contact the WSU Libraries for assistance.
If you would like to manage your own collection in Research Exchange, contact the WSU Libraries and we will provide instruction and support.
Posting to Research Exchange: Copyright Considerations
If you would like to post previously published work to Research Exchange, you will need to consider copyright. Anytime you create a piece of scholarship, you--as the author--automatically own the copyright for that work and, therefore, have the right to:
Reproduce your work
Distribute your work
Make adaptations
Publicly perform or display your work
However, when you publish your scholarly work, publishers often ask that you transfer all or some of these rights to them. Depending on the agreement you have made with the publisher, you may lose the ability to post work online, distribute it to students in course packs, or permit adaptations. More commonly, the publisher might restrict access to your work for a period of time or stipulate that you can only share a particular version of the work.
The WSU Libraries can help you determine whether work can be posted online by checking your publishing agreement, the publisher's website, or a database of publishers' policies called SHERPA/RoMEO. We can work with you to comply with publisher's requirements, so don't hesitate to contact us for assistance.
Negotiating Your Copyright
If you would like to ensure that you can post your work online after publishing it in traditional venues, consider negotiating your agreements with publishers. When you publish, you can attach an addendum to your publishing agreement, asking to retain particular rights, such as your right to make your work freely accessible online. The following addenda have been created as suggested templates; however, you are welcome to borrow or repurpose as appropriate:
Scholar's Copyright Addendum Engine via Science Commons
SPARC Author Addendum
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