Who is allowed to become a registered user and submit content to CommonKnowledge?

All Pacific University community members with valid Pacific email accounts may register as institutional users of CommonKnowledge. Registration will allow access to content that is restricted to institutional users only, and will permit users to submit content for inclusion in CommonKnowledge.

Individuals without a valid Pacific University email account may not register as users of CommonKnowledge, and are not able to directly submit content to CommonKnowledge. A co-creator/owner of content with a valid Pacific University email account must submit content on their behalf.

The only exceptions made are for Pacific University alumni, emeritus faculty, and honored staff retirees who do not maintain valid Pacific University email accounts. In these cases, a Pacific affiliation will be verified with the Registrar or Human Resources prior to account approval.

How do I submit my thesis, dissertation, or graduate capstone to CommonKnowledge?

If you are a student whose academic program requires you to deposit your thesis, dissertation, or graduate capstone in CommonKnowledge prior to receipt of your diploma, you should create an account in CommonKnowledge and review the instructions for preparing your document prior to beginning the submission process. It is recommended that you review these requirements prior to final formatting and submission of your paper to your committee or program. After you have successfully defended your thesis/dissertation and have had any required revisions reviewed and approved, you may submit following these procedures.

What criteria are used to determine whether to accept a submission to CommonKnowledge?

All current Pacific University students, faculty, and staff are eligible to contribute to CommonKnowledge during their course of study or employment at the University. Faculty and staff may contribute content created prior to their employment at Pacific University. Pacific University alumni are also eligible to contribute; preference will be given for work creating during their course of study at the University.

University Libraries staff generally review and approve the inclusion of all content submitted to CommonKnowledge. However, approval may be delegated to other Pacific University departments for specific collections such as theses and dissertations.

Submitted content is routed into a mediated publication queue; content will not be posted to CommonKnowledge until the following is verified:

The contributor is affiliated with Pacific University;
The content aligns with CommonKnowledge collection priorities;
The content has been submitted to the appropriate collection;
All metadata required for the specific collection has been supplied;
The contributor has completed the CommonKnowledge submission agreement (as part of the online submission process for direct submissions, or as a separate document for mediated submissions); and
The file(s) supplied is the correct version, is not corrupted/unreadable, and (in the case of previously published work) does not violate publishers’ posting policies.

How do I request the removal of content from CommonKnowledge?

In order to preserve the integrity and accuracy of the scholarly record, works contributed to CommonKnowledge will only be withdrawn under limited circumstances. Such circumstances include notification by an author, contributor, or other affected party that a work: (a) contains factual inaccuracies, (b) contains plagiarism, (c) infringes on copyright or any other intellectual property right, (d) infringes on an individual or corporate privacy right, or (e) includes defamatory statements.

Any request for withdrawal must be made to the Dean of University Libraries. Requests based on claims of copyright infringement will be subject to the CommonKnowledge Take-Down Policy; requests based on claims of defamation will be handled as described in the Defamation section. All other requests are subject to the following procedures:

Requests for withdrawal may be made by authors or contributors of the work in question, or by any other affected party.
Request must be made in writing.
Pending a final determination, full-text access to the work in question will be temporarily disabled for all users.
No content will be permanently removed from CommonKnowledge without an attempt to reach the author.
All determinations as to permanent withdrawal will be made within (10) working days of the initial request.

If it is determined that a work should be withdrawn from CommonKnowledge, full-text access to that work will be removed permanently for all users (except CommonKnowledge administrators). However, in order to preserve the scholarly record—and because the withdrawn work may have been cited using the CommonKnowledge URL—a metadata “tombstone” will be maintained at the original URL. This will include the original metadata for the work, as well as a note in the record that describes the purpose for the withdrawal: either “Removed at author’s request”, “Removed at Pacific University Libraries’ discretion”, or “Removed by legal order.”

Under exceptional circumstances, the metadata record may be removed permanently (except for access retained by CommonKnowledge administrators) along with the full-text of the work. This will occur in the following cases:

The request for withdrawal/removal is based on a personal safety concern.
The item for which withdrawal/removal is requested was posted to CommonKnowledge by the University Libraries as part of a digitization project and the creator(s) did not explicitly opt in to a record of the work being publicly available.

Can I request access to an institutional, embargoed, or private work?

Access restrictions in CommonKnowledge may be requested during the submission process by an individual contributor or by the academic unit, or office from which a content collection was produced. Access restrictions requested by student contributors must be approved by their school, program, or department, as appropriate. The University Libraries may also impose access restrictions on content in response to concerns about unlawful or unethical content. Access may be restricted either to the metadata record, to the file(s) that constitute the work, or to both. There are currently three types of access restrictions available for content in CommonKnowledge:

Pacific University Access: The metadata for the work is publicly visible, but the file(s) may only be accessed/downloaded by a registered Pacific University user.

Embargoed: The metadata for the work is publicly visible, but the file(s) are not accessible to any users (other than CommonKnowledge administrators) for a period of time specified by the content owner(s). When the time period has elapsed, the file(s) will become either publicly available or available only to the Pacific University community, depending on the option selected at the time of initial submission.

Private: Content is submitted to CommonKnowledge, but is not publicly visible or available. Private access may be temporary or maintained indefinitely, and may be set either for the metadata record, for the associated file(s), or both.

Requests for Restricted Content

Requests received by the University Libraries to access content in CommonKnowledge that is currently under access restrictions will be handled as follows:

Pacific University Access

Requestors will be notified that requests for files may be made via interlibrary loan at their academic institution or public library. Interlibrary loan requests will be accepted electronically via ILLiad or manually through use of the ALA request form.

Requestors who do not have access to an academic library or public library through which to place an interlibrary loan request may place a direct request IF they are affiliated with an academic institution

Requestors may also be provided access to files on-site at any Pacific University Libraries location

Access to files will not be provided outside of the above contexts

Embargoed

Requests for embargoed content will only be granted with the consent of the content creator(s)

Private

Requests for private content will only be granted with the consent of the content creator(s)

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