Questions and Answers about the Digital Commons

Questions and Answers about the Digital Commons Paul Royster University of Nebraska-Lincoln, This paper is posted at DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska- Lincoln. What does a series editor or series administrator do? For most series, the editor or administrator: 1. receives an email notification when a paper is submitted to their series 2. checks if the paper conforms to the series guidelines mainly, that it is in the right subject area and isn t spurious or inappropriate 3. posts the paper to the series, which sends an automatic email notification to the submitting author A series editor also has the power to upload documents directly (without any review process), add other editors, and change the series configuration. Does a series editor (administrator) have to read all the papers in their series? No. It should be clear from the abstract if a paper is misguided or misdirected (such as a chemistry paper submitted in an economics series). If it is from a departmental colleague or graduate student known to Digital Commons Questions & Answers you, it should be okay. If it has already been published in a book or journal, it should be okay. Questions & Answers Can a paper be removed after it is posted? Yes. By the submitting author, by the series editor, or by the site administrator. If my article is already online, what is the point of depositing it in the Digital Commons? Your article may not be: • accessible to non-subscribers • accessible from IPs outside the subscribing institution • at its own stand-alone URL (but rather in a database that uses a Java search syntax) • preserved in the website s next revision or update • indexed by Google (search on the title and see if and where it comes up) • identified directly with UNL or contributing to its digital critical mass What if I don t have an electronic version of my article? We can take an offprint or xerox, scan it, and post it as a pdf image-only file. It will not be full-text searchable, so write a detailed abstract to aid in finding. Some scanning programs will also produce a text-based version, which is even better. 2 August 2005 Do I have to log in to view or download documents? No. Only to submit a document or (for editors) to perform administrative tasks. I deposited an article yesterday, but a Google search does not find it? Google indexes the web (including the Digital Commons site) on a monthly schedule, so it may take up to four weeks for the article to begin appearing in search results. Google will index the title and author information, the abstract, and the first 100 Kbytes of the text of the article. Why is there nothing in my department s area of the Digital Commons? Because we haven t set up any series there yet. To set up a series we need: 1) a title for the series, 2) a volunteer editor, and 3) about 15 minutes. If no other editor is available, then the site administrator can serve as the series editor (but, be warned: he may not be able to distinguish Shinola from other materials and will tend to err on the side of inclusiveness). 3 Digital Commons Questions & Answers Why is there no listing for my department, program, center, institute, etc. ? Again, because it hasn t been set up yet. We will be delighted to set you up as a community and to establish any number of papers series at your request. The only requirement is that there be some connection or association with UNL or a UNL-based sponsor. What is the difference between a series and a community ? A series contains only articles or documents. A community contains series or other communities. Documents (or articles) belong in a series; a series belongs to a community. Can an article be listed in more than one series? Yes, by the series editor. From the Configuration screen, select Collections/Groups, and add the article s URL to the Collections boxes at the bottom. Can someone from outsi