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Scholarly Communication: How can I use Bucknell Commons for Open Access

The Scholarly Communications committee provides Bucknell’s faculty scholars with customized information, education, and guidance as well as the technical resources and support services needed throughout all steps of the scholarly communications process.

How Can I use Bucknell Commons for Open Access

Bucknell Digital Commons is our institutional repository, a place for collecting and disseminating research, scholarship, and other intellectual and creative outputs of our campus. 

As outlined in the University’s Open Access Policy, faculty can use the institutional repository to make their articles (and other forms of scholarship, when possible) ‘green’ open access. Faculty can also use the repository to increase their work's visibility by submitting their work's metadata without including the full text.

 

 

1. From Bucknell’s Digital Commons homepage, you can click “Submit Research”

Alt text for image: a screenshot of the homepage of Bucknell Digital Commons

 

2. You will be brought to a page of the different series and collections. Click the link that you feel best describes what you will be submitting. If you are unsure or if you do not see a collection that fits, please contact the scholarly communications committee at scholarlycommunications@bucknell.edu

a screenshot of the list of series and collections listed in Bucknell Digital Commons

 

3.  Fill out the required and any optional metadata in the relevant form. Filling out the keywords and description are particularly helpful in enhancing the findability and visibility of your research through Google and other commercial search engines through Digital Commons’ search engine optimization.

a screenshot of the form to upload materials to Bucknell Digital Commons

 

4.  If you wish to use Digital Commons as a tool for making your published scholarship “Green OA” or for disseminating your works with a creative commons license, we encourage you to use the upload file section and upload a version of your work (often the accepted manuscript or the official version) to Digital Commons or link out to the site where the content is openly available. 

  • When pursuing green open access, it can be confusing to ensure you are not violating the copyright-transfer agreement you may have signed with your publisher. We recommend using a tool like Sherpa-Romeo or reaching out to us to understand better:

    • Which version can you upload. Often journals will allow you to upload the “Author’s Accepted Version”, which is after peer-review and acceptance, but without copyediting and journal formatting. We recommend that you include the DOI for the final version in addition to uploading the accepted manuscript, which will assist readers and researchers whose needs are best served by the version of record.

    • If there is an embargo period before the article can be made accessible.

    • If the journal requires you to include a publisher’s statement, a link to the published version, or other information that connects back to the journal.

a screenshot of the form to submit materials to Bucknell Digital Commons with a red box around the Upload File section

 

5. Click “Submit” and your submission will be sent to an administrator for review and final posting.