We are still developing an online submission process. Stay tuned! 

Email Todd at [email protected] the following: 

1. The item being submitted 
2. A completed Submission Form or Submission Form for Students
3. A completed Non-Exclusive License Form from all authors/creators 

Please contact a member of the VCC digital repository team for support.

ELIGIBLE CONTRIBUTORS 

Items may only be deposited by members of the VCC community. 

• Individuals or groups affiliated with VCC administration, departments, programs, research teams, working groups, collaborative projects, or conferences, such as:  
  • Current and former VCC employees  
  • Participants in VCC events 
  • VCC invited speakers and guests 
  • Students with instructor sponsorship* 
• Other community partners, individuals and entities will be considered on a case-by-case basis. 

Instructor Sponsorship of Student Work 

• Instructors or academic units may sponsor student graduation and capstones projects, or other student projects deemed to be of outstanding quality. Examples include work that has won awards, competitions, or has been deemed the best in class, or work that has been showcased in fairs or symposiums. 

ELIGIBLE CONTENT 

VCC DR collects scholarly and creative materials, as well as important documents related to the governance and history of the College, in digital format.  

• Eligible types of work include:  
  • Journal articles  
  • Books or chapters 
  • Conference and workshop papers and presentations 
  • Lectures and speeches 
  • Research reports, technical reports and working papers 
  • Images, multimedia and audio-visual materials 
  • Student graduation or capstone projects with instructor sponsorship 
  • Outstanding student projects as selected by instructors or academic units 
  • Selected course-related materials and learning objects produced by instructors 
  • Selected digitized records and other materials which document the history of the institution, as decided by the VCC Library or as established by VCC policy 
  • Administrative documents concerning the College as a whole  
  • Other types of materials considered on a case-by-case basis. 
• Previously-published journal articles may include different versions including: working draft, pre-print draft, post-print draft, or published version. 
• Works published or created prior to an author’s affiliation with VCC may be retroactively deposited as long as the authors are currently affiliated with VCC and meet all other submission requirements. 
• Works published or created by authors who are no longer affiliated with VCC may be retroactively deposited as long as the work was published or created by authors while affiliated with VCC and meets all other submission requirements.  
• Works subject to a publisher’s embargo may be added at any time but will not be made publicly visible until the embargo period has ended. 
• VCC may deny materials not within the scope of these guidelines.  
• VCC may withdraw or remove any work without prior notice for administrative or legal purposes. 

SUBMISSION PROCESS 

Currently, there is one way to submit material to the VCC IR: Mediated Submission.  

• Mediated Submission: 
  • Authors/creators (“the depositor”) provide work to the VCC Library though a form. 
  • VCC Library employees review and then upload the work to the IR. 
  • Staff of the IR do not evaluate the content of submissions. Items are reviewed only for: 
• The eligibility of authors/depositors, 
  • Relevance to the scope of the repository, and 
  • Valid layout and format. 
• The validity and authenticity of the content submitted is the sole responsibility of the depositor. 

SUBMISSION REQUIREMENTS, COPYRIGHT & TERMS OF USE 

• Submissions will only be added to the IR with the permission of the author(s)/creator(s), or if the depositor has permission of the person(s) holding copyright on the materials.  
• Depositors must accept the terms of use by which they: 
  • Grant to VCC the non-exclusive right to reproduce the submission, migrate to different format or medium, and/or make publicly accessible free-of-charge in electronic format and in any medium, including but not limited to audio or video.  
  • Agree that VCC may, without changing the content, migrate these submissions to any medium or format for the purpose of preservation; and that VCC may keep more than one copy of these submissions for purposes of security, back-up and preservation.  
  • Affirm they are freely able grant the rights contained in this license. The submissions do not infringe upon anyone's copyright and the rights have not been previously assigned or relinquished. 
  • Grant VCC a license to make the work publicly and freely available on the internet in perpetuity for anyone to view and copy for non-commercial use, as long as the work is not altered and appropriate acknowledgement is given.  This is the equivalent of a Creative Commons CC-BY-NC-ND license.  
  • Acknowledge that Canadian Copyright law applies to the submissions.  
  • Acknowledge that if the submissions are based on work that have been sponsored or supported by an agency or organization other than VCC, the depositor has fulfilled all obligations required by the agreement with the sponsor.  
• Depositing in the VCC IR does not affect the copyright of the work, whether it is held by the author(s) or publisher. By agreeing to this non-exclusive license, depositors are not transferring copyright to VCC; they are simply giving VCC permission to make the work publicly-available on the internet and allowing VCC to archive and preserve the work in the IR.  
• If the repository received proof of copyright violation, the relevant item will be removed immediately.  
• Works that are subject to a publisher’s embargo period may be submitted when the embargo period has ended.  
• VCC will clearly identify the name(s) of the author(s)/creator(s) of the submissions, and will not make any alteration, other than as allowed by the license, to the submissions.  
• Depositors will provide all associated descriptive data (e.g. title, description, dates) at the time of submission.  
• The submitted material will be in a final formatted and edited state, and provided in digital form.  
• Student works must be approved by a sponsoring instructor, department or other College group prior to submission.  

MODERATION & QUALITY CONTROL 

• Content must be scholarly, educational, or research-oriented, or of cultural or historical value to the VCC community.  
• Works must not contain libellous or other unlawful matter, promote hatred or discrimination against, or expose to contempt, any person or group of persons as applicable under legislation or law, or violate anyone's right to privacy. 
• The validity and authenticity of the content of submissions is the sole responsibility of the depositor. 
• In the case of student works, the sponsoring instructor, department or other College group is responsible for verifying the quality of submissions. 

ACCESS & RE-USE OF DATA  

• Anyone may access the items held in the VCC DR free-of-charge. 
• Users may view, download and copy any work based on the license attached to the work. Typically, this will be a Creative Commons CC-BY-NC-ND licence.  
• Some items may have differing conditions of use: 
  • If the contributor owns the copyright in the work being deposited, they can request to assign a license permitting additional uses of the work. 
  • If the copyright is held by a third-party (e.g. a journal publisher), the permitted re-use terms will be specified in the item description in the DR. 
• Re-use of VCC metadata: 
  • The metadata may be re-used in any medium without prior permission for non-for-profit purposes, provided the OAI identifier or a link to the original metadata is given. 
  • The metadata must not be re-used in any medium for commercial purposes without formal permission. 
• The College is not responsible for any use or misuse by third parties who access works through the VCC DR. 

RETENTION & WITHDRAWAL 

• Retention Period 
  • The VCC DR is meant to be a permanent scholarly record. Items will be stored indefinitely. 
  • Once an item is deposited in the repository a persistent URL is generated. 
• Withdrawal Policy 
  • Items are not normally withdrawn from the repository. 
  • Acceptable reasons for withdrawal include, but are not limited to: 
    • Proven copyright violation or plagiarism, 
    • Legal requirements and proven violations (e.g. privacy), or 
    • Falsified research. 
• Withdrawn Items 
  • Withdrawn items are not deleted but are removed from public view, available only to repository administrators. 
  • Identifiers/URLs of withdrawn items are retained indefinitely. 
  • Original URLs will continue to point to ‘tombstone' citations, to avoid broken links and retain item histories, but the work itself will not be available for public access.  
  • The metadata of withdrawn items will not be searchable. 
  • In extraordinary circumstances, VCC Library may choose to remove materials fully from the repository. 
• Version Control 
  • Changes to deposited items are not permitted. 
  • If necessary, an updated version may also be deposited. There will be links between the earlier and later versions, with the most recent version clearly identified. 

PRESERVATION 

• VCC Library is committed to preserving and providing access to the works in the institutional repository. The repository will work with Arca to ensure continued readability and accessibility by: 
  • Regularly backing up its files according to current best practice. 
  • Encouraging the use of standard and open content formats that meet community-accepted digital preservation standards, are widely supported on a number of platforms, and that can be preserved and migrated forward to new preservation formats over time. 
  • Migrating items to new file formats where necessary. 
  • Retaining the original bitstream for all items, in addition to any upgraded formats. 
  • Providing software emulation to access un-migrated formats, where possible. 
• Some file formats may cease to be supported as a result of changes in technology and the private sector which are beyond the control of the Library. Files in these formats may no longer function on current computer equipment and hence, become unusable. 
• VCC Library may determine that our current Institutional Repository platform no longer best meets the needs of the university community. Should this be the case, and where possible, all content will be migrated to whatever new platform is chosen, and the library will make every effort to ensure that all content will continue to be accessible. 

With thanks to Kwantlen Polytechnic University Library KORA staff for the borrowed text.