FAQ

What is IDeA?

IDeA is the institutional repository established to collect and disseminate IUPUI's scholarly output. IDeA uses the DSpace open source software created by the collaborative efforts of MIT and Hewlett Packard. For more information about DSpace, please visit: http://www.dspace.org/.

What is an institutional repository?

As it's interpreted by IUPUI through IDeA, an institutional repository is an online, open access collection of scholarly materials produced by members of an institution.

What is meant by the term "open access"?

When we say that IDeA is an "open access" repository, we mean that the items included can be viewed by anyone, without requiring users to pay to view them.

Do other universities have institutional repositories?

Yes. Many universities have implemented institutional repositories using a variety of software systems and organizational schemes. Lists of these universities can be found at: http://archives.eprints.org/eprints.php, or http://www.inkdroid.org/perl/b/feed/68/25.

Why did the library decide to start IDeA?

IDeA was created to collect and disseminate IUPUI created scholarly material. IDeA was envisioned as a means to preserve scholarly output and provide dissemination for material not supported by traditional print media publication.

What does IDeA stand for?

IUPUI Digital Archives.

So what does the "e" stand for?

Nothing. A few members of the IDeA working group lobbied for the name to be IDA, with the logo being a stereotypical librarian with a carpetbag full of scholarly material. We were overruled.

What are the advantages for a scholar who includes his/her work in IDeA?

Allowing your scholarly materials to be stored and distributed via IDeA will provide greater dissemination of your research than traditional journals or personal websites can. IDeA provides your work with a persistent web link that will remain constant and allow anyone worldwide access over the Internet. IDeA is also ideal for archiving and publishing multimedia formats that aren't suitable for traditional publication methods. IDeA, while holding a non-exclusive license to allow your work to be accessed, allows you to retain copyright to your own intellectual property.

Who can deposit materials into IDeA?

Any person or group affiliated with IUPUI. Materials created cooperatively with co-authors who are not affiliated with IUPUI are also accepted as long as at least one of the authors is affiliated with IUPUI and the submitter owns the copyright to the material.

How can I add my scholarly content to IDeA?

The scholarly content in IDeA is sponsored by a "community" that is responsible for creating the content and the content guidelines for their section of the repository. A community can be comprised of an academic unit, department, or any other group of IUPUI affiliated scholars. At least one member of the community must be affiliated with IUPUI. Once a community is established, the community members set up the workflow and who will accomplish which tasks. IDeA also offers IUPUI faculty, staff, and students the opportunity to add material as an individual through a general community, referred to as the IUPUI Community of Scholarship. This allows IUPUI scholars whose departments or units might not be interested in establishing their own communities at this time to still take advantage of submitting his/her research to IDeA.

What do I need to know to create a community in IDeA? Can I get training somewhere?

IUPUI librarians who are members of the IDeA working group (IN-ULIB-IDEA@exchange.iu.edu) are available to provide initial training (as well as consultation later on) in getting your community off the ground. This instruction will help your community to establish its workflow and to learn a little about the IDeA interface. The process of putting items into IDeA is relatively intuitive and does not require knowledge of any specialized software.

What are the rights and responsibilities of IDeA communities and submitters?

The members of each IDeA community will be responsible for establishing the policies and procedures that will guide their use of the repository for storing and disseminating their scholarly output. IDeA communities will also be responsible for maintaining their collections and deciding who will perform the work involved therein.

What types of material formats are accepted?

IDeA can accept a wide variety of formats but can only guarantee to preserve certain formats. To see a complete list of what formats are "known", "supported", and "unsupported" and what exactly those designations mean, please refer to IDeA's format support page.

Can I remove items once they've been posted in IDeA?

Under normal circumstances, no. Because IDeA is an archive, its primary goal is to preserve its contents indefinitely. IDeA will allow contributors to amend a previous admission with revisions, but will not remove the original item. IDeA is not meant for ephemeral materials and items likely to be revised.

Can I deposit materials that I created before I became affiliated with IUPUI? What happens to my materials in IDeA if I leave IUPUI?

You may submit items to IDeA that you created before you became affiliated with IUPUI if you hold the copyright to the item. As is discussed above, the archive does not remove items once submitted.

Will I need special software to upload materials?

No. Only a web browser to actually upload the item into IDeA. But, some collections (Electronic Thesis and Dissertations for example) do require that the item be processed using additional software before it goes through the uploading process.

Why do I need to attach "metadata" to the items I submit to IDeA?

The metadata attached to each of IDeA's submissions is similar to the information in a library's catalog record for a book. It is descriptive information about an item that allows it to be found via keyword searching (e.g. title of an item, author, subjects, etc.) Having descriptive metadata attached to an item allows it to be more easily accessed using tools like search engines.

What are the advantages IDeA provides researchers?

Researchers are allowed access to the scholarly work in IDeA without being required to pay for access. People around the world can access materials deposited in IDeA using a search engine such as Google without worrying about the restraints that proprietary databases often create.

Who can view materials located in IDeA?

IDeA is an open archive and its contents are therefore accessible free of charge to anyone on the World Wide Web. It is possible to restrict access to parts of IDeA, but we do not encourage that. The goal of IDeA is to allow any person with an Internet connection and web browser to view its contents.

How do I search for and access scholarly works deposited in IDeA?

IDeA allows users to search for items or browse through collections of materials. IDeA includes a search feature that allows users to look for items by author, title, or other types of keywords. Items in IDeA are also indexed by Google and other search engines.

Who is responsible for managing IDeA?

Administrative decisions regarding IDeA are made by a working group of librarians and information technology staff at IUPUI's University Library. This working group, along with other University Library staff, is responsible for upgrading IDeA and maintaining its hardware, software, and interface. You can contact the IDeA working group at: IN-ULIB-IDEA@exchange.iu.edu.

What are the rights and responsibilities of IDeA and its administrators?

IDeA and its administrators reserve the right to remove material and conversely, the right to refuse to remove material. IDeA is responsible for guaranteeing the preservation of materials whose formats meet "supported" designation and guarantees to make every effort to migrate the content if its format becomes obsolete.

What is Creative Commons?

Creative Commons is a not-for-profit group that recognizes the need for self publishing/archiving authors to have the ability to define how others may or may not use their web published material. As a result the Creative Commons website currently contains many different types of free, publicly accessible licensing statements that can be easily incorporated into an author's online posting of his/her work. The submission process within IDeA incorporates Creative Commons license selection. It is an optional benefit to scholars submitting to IDeA. Visit Creative Commons for more information.

Can I submit an already published or soon to be published work to IDeA?

The ability of an author to self-archive an already published or soon to be published work in an institutional repository such as IDeA is dependent upon the license agreement you as author agreed/agree to with the original publisher. It is possible to secure the necessary rights for archiving in IDeA both before and after a work has already been published and/or a license agreement signed. See IDeA's License Agreement page for more information.