Skip to Main Content
 

AUB ScholarWorks: Policy

AUB ScholarWorks is the institutional repository of the Amerian University of Beirut. It showcases the research, scholarly and creative output of AUB's community.

ScholarWorks Structure and Stakholders

Any department, center or other unit of the University can participate as a community in ScholarWorks. Each community assigns a coordinator who can work with the University Libraries to develop the unit's content and to define the kinds of material to include in the Institutional Repository (IR).

Communities may contain Sub-Communities and Collections to reflect the structure of the unit and the nature of research conducted. Repository submissions and content management may be carried out at individual (submitter) level or by the library staff.

Who Can Deposit Content?

  • Any department, center or other unit of the University can assign a staff to submit content in ScholarWorks.

  • AUB faculty, students and staff can self-deposit scholarly content to ScholarWorks.

  • AUB students (mainly, but not limited to, theses/dissertations and final projects).

  • AUB authors and centers can delegate the University Libraries to deposit content on their behalf after signing the Mediated Deposit Agreement.

What Content Can be Deposited?

  • The work must be authored, produced, or sponsored by AUB faculty.
  • Submissions must be scholarly, research, or pedagogical materials (e.g. manuscripts, journal articles, books/book chapters, research data, conference presentations, working papers, policy briefs, reports, projects, audiovisuals, theses and dissertations, etc.)
  • The work should be ready for public dissemination in open access environment immediately upon submission or after an embargo period.
  • Related works (e.g. sets or series) should be submitted together where possible.

Rejected Content

  • Breaching copyright legislation.
  • Confidential in nature.
  • Format which cannot be stored or displayed satisfactorily.
  • Size of the submission (in terabytes, for example) is prohibitive.

Copyrights

Check here

Metadata

After logging in for submitting content, depositors are expected to complete the electronic Deposit Form where they enter metadata about the submitted material. The metadata covers bibliographic details of the material you wish to deposit. For example, a journal article should include but not limited to: author(s), title of article, abstract, year of publication, publisher, and subject. For datasets: creator, dataset title, description, date created. related publication, etc.

AUB Scholaworks uses Dublin Core schema for metadata documentation.

Conteny Sharing License 

Authors/copyright holders or their designated representatives when submitting materials to ScholarWorks they are asked to agree to a non-exclusive distribution license which allows the University Libraries to reproduce, provide access, and migrate the submitted work to new formats where necessary and feasible.

By granting the non-exclusive license, copyright holders permit the University Libraries to distribute their work while retaining the right to pursue any other publishing ventures.

Open Access and Embargo

Since the first role of an IR is to provide the Open Access literature, the content is usually available as open access from ScholarWorks platform. The depositor may require an embargo of six months before the article may be made publicly accessible. The maximum embargo period should normally not exceed 5 years.

However, researchers may choose to restrict access to works, whether in part or in full, particularly if copyright permission is in doubt or unavailable. In such cases, a citation, abstract, descriptive information and alternative location or link to the publisher's version may be added.

AUB ScholarWorks allows access restrictions to be imposed at the collection or item level: The depositor may control basic access levels (i.e., for Public or for AUB users only)

 

File Format

In order to preserve and provide long term access to the deposited material, the University Libraries would prefer to have the submissions in open formats. Nevertheless, we are ready to accept the data you have in any format. Some of the major formats are found in the table below.

 

Image  Preferred         .pdf/a, .odt, .odf

  Acceptable       .csv,.txt,.xml,.rtf,.doc,.xls,.pdf,.ps

Image  Preferred         .tiff, jp2

  Acceptable      .tiff, .jp2, .gif, .png, .jpeg

  Preferred         .bwf, .flac

 Acceptable       .aif, .lla, .ogg, .wav, .aac, .mp3, .ram, .wmv

  Preferred         .avi, .mj2, .mpj2

  Acceptable      .avi, .mj2, .mpj2, .mp2, .mp4, .wmv, .mov

   
   
   

File Naming Convention Recommeded for AUB ScholarWorks

  • Each file name consists of three components: <name>.<extension>;<version> 
  • The number of characters of the name is restricted to 8, the extension is restricted to 3.
  • File name should follow the structure and hierarchy of the project.
  • A name should tell exactly what's inside the file without having to open it.
  • It should include unique identifiers such as project name or grant number.
  • Reflect the data structure and hierarchy.
  • Stick to one date format e.g. YYYY-MM-DD
  • When using numbers in a file name, use leading zeros 
  • Use underscores or capital letters to separate words in your file name.
  • Start with the Institute/Center abbreviated name then the category or group then the publication year, then the family name and first name (no space).
  • If the work is collaborative or there are no authors, add three words from the title (no space).
  • If the collection and title are more than one word capitalize the first letter.

Below are some examples:

  • Collection_YYYY_ FamilynameFirstname.ext
    • k2p_2023_JardaliFadi.pdf

  • Collection_YYYY_Title(first letter capital, few word of the title).ext
    • ifi_2012_QuestionOfCivil.pdf

  • Updated version: Collection_YYYY_ FamilynameFirstname _v01.ext
    • asfari_2010_ChaabanJad_v02.pdf

  • Databank & Datasets: YYYY_Author/Description _Version.ext
    • 2015_RemoteSensing_v01.xlsx

  • Education department: EDUC218_YYYY_FamilynameFirstname.ext
    • educ218_2024_KalashMirna.pdf

  • Thesis: FamilynameFirstName_YYYY.ext
    • JonesMary_2024.pdf
    • JonesMary_ReleaseForm_2024.pdf
    • JonesMary_ApprovalPage_2024.pdf

Avoid

•Using special characters such as !, #, &, ., and *
•Starting or ending your filename with a space or non alphanumeric character.

Withdrawal and Modification of Content

The University Libraries reserves the right to withdraw content in cases that may include but are not limited to copyright infringement, invasion of privacy, or where content does not meet the institutional repository content criteria.

ScholarWorks is intended to provide persistent public access to deposited material. As such, requests for withdrawal are reviewed on a case-by-case basis and must include a justification for the request. The ScholarWorks staff notify the author before withdrawing the work, whenever possible. Any work removed will be traced in the form of a withdrawal note in the metadata record.

Since any ScholarWorks item may have been cited in its original form, modifications are only permitted in the form of updated versions posted alongside the original documents.