CommonKnowledge – Content Administration – Pacific University Libraries

CommonKnowledge Content Administration

Selection and Submission

The Scholarly Communications & Research Services Librarian, as well as the Local Collections and Publication Services team, and the other liaison librarians within the University Libraries, are all responsible for (a) communicating the purpose of CommonKnowledge to faculty, staff, and students, and (b) identifying and recruiting content for inclusion in CommonKnowledge.

Content may be submitted to CommonKnowledge directly by contributors or by library staff on behalf of contributors. Submission by contributors requires the creation of a personal account within CommonKnowledge.

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

The contributor is eligible (see Eligibility to Contribute and Requirements for External Contributors);
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.

Editorial Responsibility

CommonKnowledge is open to eligible scholarly and creative work, whether or not that work has undergone external peer-review prior to submission.

The University Libraries do not provide editorial support or facilitate peer review for content in the repository. Individuals submitting work to CommonKnowledge, whether through an online submission form or through an administrator-mediated submission, are solely responsible for the content of their work. While the University Libraries reserve the right to request assurances or relevant documentation from submitting authors related to the legality of their submissions (and to delay posting until said assurances or documentation are received), CommonKnowledge administrators do not systematically review the content of submissions for compliance with intellectual property, privacy, or other applicable law.

Though works from University Libraries-published journals are accessible through the CommonKnowledge platform, content submitted to a journal is subject solely to the editorial and peer review policies of that journal and is not received or administered through the same workflows as content submitted for inclusion in repository collections.

Content Management

Excluding editorial oversight (other than determining that submitted content complies with the CommonKnowledge collection parameters and policies), the Scholarly Communications & Research Services Librarian is responsible for managing content in CommonKnowledge. Core content management responsibilities are:

Creating, and configuring, standard content collections, as well as any collections requested and approved by the Pacific University community or its collaborators;
Managing the creation, and consistent application, of relevant metadata to improve discovery and access of content collections;
Facilitating the submission and posting process for content collections (with the exception of those addressed in Independent Content Management below);
Obtaining and preserving appropriate license agreements from contributors;
Maintaining the integrity of the ‘version of record’ for individual works included in CommonKnowledge (consistent with Corrections and Withdrawals);
Determining appropriate access restrictions, if any, for individual works or content collections, and ensuring that such restrictions are correctly applied;
Making determinations on requests to withdraw individual works or collections from CommonKnowledge (consistent with Corrections and Withdrawals);
Performing an appraisal of long-term preservation needs within twenty (20) years of the creation of each content collection; and
Communicating with the Pacific University community, and especially with content contributors, regarding updates or changes to the CommonKnowledge platform or policies that will affect the access or presentation of their content.

Independent Content Management

Although the Scholarly Communication & Research Services Librarian is ultimately responsible for the administration of content in CommonKnowledge, limited content management functions may be delegated to other individuals for specific collections, particularly for those collections developed in partnership with an external entity or collections where independent editorial oversight is required.

Requests for independent management of new or existing content collections will generally be approved in the following circumstances:

The content in the collection is subject to the review/approval (prior to public posting) of the academic unit, office, or external entity from which the content was produced;
The content in the collection requires substantive editorial oversight and/or revision prior to public posting;
The collection is connected to an event (e.g. academic conference) and requires oversight by the organizing individual(s) or body; or
The content in the collection otherwise requires management or oversight beyond the scope of that provided by the Scholarly Communication & Research Services Librarian.

Individuals, academic units, offices, or external entities that assume independent management of a content collection are responsible for:

Collaborating with the Scholarly Communication & Research Services Librarian to develop consistent standards for the submission and description of content in the collection;
Ensuring that content posted in the collection complies with copyright and other intellectual property laws;
Ensuring that content posted in the collection does not violate any individual’s or entity’s rights (especially privacy rights);
Ensuring that content posted, and the administration of that content, complies with all applicable parts of this policy; and
Promptly reporting any technical errors or issues with the content collection to the Scholarly Communication & Research Services Librarian.

Individuals, academic units, offices, or external entities that assume independent management of a content collection retain the right to:

Determine who is eligible to submit content to the collection;
Determine what type of content is eligible for submission;
Determine the appropriate access restrictions (if any) for content;
Correct or withdraw content; and
Receive a copy of all metadata and digital files from the collection within (2) weeks of such a request.

Note: All of these rights must be exercised within the bounds of, and consistent with, this policy.

For content collections under independent management, the University Libraries retain the right to:

Refuse or de-accession content that is not within the CommonKnowledge collection scope, or that otherwise violates this policy;
Assume management of collections for which the independent manager(s) is not meeting the responsibilities outlined in this policy;
Distribute/redistribute metadata for all content to improve access or visibility of content;
Migrate content locations and formats as needed;
Set limits of content size and type, or determine an appropriate fee-for-service, if a collection requires the allocation of additional Library resources (system, financial, or human) to appropriately manage; and
Perform appraisal for long-term archiving when new content is not added to a collection for a period of one (1) year or more or within twenty (20) years of the creation of a collection, whichever comes first.

For content collections under independent management, the University Libraries commits to:

Notify collection manager(s) of significant changes to either content (e.g. format migration) or system (e.g. system upgrades or outages); and
Return content to collection managers if the Libraries cease to support CommonKnowledge.