Repository Policies

Metadata Policy for information describing items in the repository

1. Anyone may access the metadata free of charge.
2. The metadata must not be re-used in any medium for commercial purposes without formal permission.

Data Policy for full-text and other full data items

1. Anyone may access most full-text items free of charge.
2. Single copies of full items can be:
1. reproduced for personal research or study purposes without prior permission or charge, provided:
1. the authors, title and full bibliographic details are given
2. the content is not changed in any way.
3. Full-text items must not be harvested by robots
4. Full-text items must not be sold commercially in any format or medium without formal permission of the copyright holders.
5. Some full-text items may be individually tagged with different rights permissions and conditions.

Content Policy for types of document and datasets held

1. This is an institutional repository.
2. D-Scholarship@Pitt is restricted to scholarly research material produced by University of Pittsburgh faculty, staff and students.
3. Deposited items may include:
1. research papers, published or unpublished
2. working drafts
3. submitted versions (as sent to journals for peer-review)
4. accepted versions (author's final peer-reviewed drafts)
5. published versions (publisher-created files)
6. supporting files, including multimedia files or datasets
7. scholarly creations in various supported media formats
4. Metadata-only records are not permitted in D-Scholarship except with explicit approval of a repository administrator.

Submission Policy concerning depositors, quality and copyright

1. Items may only be deposited by faculty, staff, students, or other affiliates of the University of Pittsburgh with a currently valid university Computer Account.
2. Authors may only submit their own work for archiving.
3. Eligible depositors must deposit bibliographic metadata for all their publications.
4. The administrator only vets items for the eligibility of authors/depositors, relevance to the scope of D-Scholarship@Pitt, valid layout and format, and the exclusion of spam.
5. The validity and authenticity of the content of submissions is the sole responsibility of the depositor.
6. The author may restrict access to individual files to University of Pittsburgh users for an optional embargo period, after which the file will become accessible to users worldwide.
7. Any copyright violations are entirely the responsibility of the authors/depositors.
8. If D-Scholarship@Pitt receives proof of copyright violation, the relevant item will be removed immediately.
9. Files exceeding 2GB in size should not be directly uploaded to the repository. For files with sizes larger than 2GB, a link to an external hosting site should be used, or special upload permissions may be sought out with the repository administrator.

Preservation Policy

1. Items will be retained indefinitely.
2. D-Scholarship@Pitt will try to ensure continued readability and accessibility of items in the repository. However, it may not be possible to guarantee the readability of some unusual file formats over time.
3. D-Scholarship@Pitt regularly backs up its files according to current best practice.
4. Items may be removed at the request of the author/copyright holder, but this is strongly discouraged.
5. Acceptable reasons for withdrawal include:
1. Journal publishers' requirements
2. Proven copyright infringement or plagiarism
3. Legal requirements and proven violations
6. Withdrawn items are not deleted per se, but are removed from public view.
7. Withdrawn items' identifiers/URLs are retained indefinitely.
8. URLs will continue to point to 'tombstone' citations, to avoid broken links and to retain item histories, with:
1. a link to a replacement version, where available
2. a note explaining the reasons for withdrawal
9. Errata and corrigenda lists may be included with the original record if required.
10. If necessary, an updated version may be deposited. The item's persistent URL will always link to the latest version.