Policies

Withdrawal Policy
Revision Policy
Author Name Change Policy

Withdrawal Policy*

The UND Scholarly Commons is intended to be a preservation repository. Upon submission authors acknowledge that they have the right to share their work and that the Commons will have a non-exclusive license to redistribute the work going forward. In order to maintain this preservation function, all efforts will be made to ensure material deposited on the Commons will remain there for the foreseeable future. In the event of a withdrawal request, we are guided by this principle and will generally respond as follows:

  1. Withdrawal for Legal Reasons

    In the event that an author requests their work be removed for copyright reasons (for example discovering after the fact that it contains copyrighted material that permission was not acquired for) the work will be removed inasmuch as is required to meet the copyright claim. This may take either the form of partial redaction or a takedown of the entire document. The metadata record will remain in order to avoid breaking possible links or citations.

  2. Sensitive Information

    In the event that a patron requests a work be taken down due to sensitivity concerns the request will be evaluated against our guiding principles (see Chester Fritz Library’s Copyright and Ethics Issues in Digitization Policy). While we prioritize preserving access if the request shows that continuing to share the work could cause human harm (for example, if the work contained research that could result to harm to the living subjects who shared information with the researcher in confidence) then we will remove the work from the repository. Please note that reputational harm to public figures would generally not count in this category. The metadata record will remain in order to avoid breaking possible links or citations.

  3. Outdated Information/Updates

    In the event that an author requests their work be removed due to having new information rendering the work out of date, we will request the new publication be deposited in the repository. The metadata record for the prior work will be updated to note the information has been superseded by a new publication and direct readers towards it. The prior work will remain on the repository for preservation purposes.

Revision Policy**

Items submitted to the UND Scholarly Commons are assumed to be the final version; authors should not plan on making any changes to the posted material. Please review your items carefully before submitting them.

If, however, there are appropriate revisions, they will need to be made by the administrators. Authors cannot make any changes after the item has been posted.

The following types of changes may be made at the administrators’ discretion:

  • Small edits to the metadata, such as adding a department or correcting to the spelling of a name (for other name changes, see the Author Name Change Policy).
  • Edits to the document itself, such as spelling corrections, that do not affect the meaning of the contents.
  • Material changes that affect the meaning of the content. Since people may have already used or cited the existing version, these changes must be clearly noted in the description as well as the document itself.
  • Note that theses and dissertations cannot be revised. The posted version reflects the final accepted version approved by faculty for graduation, and the contents may not be changed after the fact, with the exception of author names as needed (see the Author Name Change Policy).

In order to make these changes, contact the Digital Initiatives Librarian (zeineb.yousif@und.edu) with your request, and include the following information:

  1. Exactly what you want to have changed. These changes will be noted in the system, but readers will see only the updated information. If you want only the metadata revised, rather than the contents of the material, this is all you need to do.
  2. If the changes are to the item itself, provide an updated version of the file to replace the existing one. In your email, specify what changes it includes and why you needed to make them.
    1. If the changes are small cosmetic edits that do not affect the meaning of the material, simply provide the revised version. The new file will replace the old one; the change will be noted in the system, but readers will see only the updated version.
    2. If the revisions affect the meaning of the material, the updated document should include the following note on the front page: “REVISION [number], [new date]. Replaces [previous version number and date], available at [link to item in Digital Commons] under ‘Additional Files.’ [Describe change].” This document will replace the previous one as the primary file; the Digital Commons link will remain the same as the original version. Earlier versions will be available as additional files, and the updates will be noted in the comments section.

If you have questions about what revisions you can make and how to make them, contact the Digital Initiatives Librarian at zeineb.yousif@und.edu

Author Name Change Policy**

Anyone with materials in the UND Scholarly Commons may change the name displaying on the record and/or the materials themselves. While there are any number of reasons that someone may need to do this (including name changes related to gender, marriage, religion, and others), no justification is required for an author name change to be implemented. The change does not need to reflect the author’s past or current legal name(s).

To have your name changed, email the Digital Initiatives Librarian (zeineb.yousif@und.edu) with the following information:

  1. Name(s) currently listed on your materials in the UND Scholarly Commons
  2. Complete list of materials with the old name on them, with a link to each item
  3. The new name that you would like to be listed under

We will then change your name as requested on both the item record(s) and the document(s). There will be no mention of the previous name unless you specifically request that; if you want such a note, let us know what language to use. You are responsible for contacting your coauthors if you want them to know about the change.

*Excerpted from the Chester Fritz Library’s Copyright and Ethics Issues in Digitization Policy

**Policy language adapted from the Dartmouth Digital Commons Policies page (accessed on December 13, 2021).

Policies last revised and adopted on 12/13/2021.