OpenEmory has become a large, aggregated site for open access research and scholarly works by Emory faculty. With over 21,000 entries currently in the system, it rivals repositories from top-ranked universities and stands as an example for universities yet to create a repository. Nearly all entries in OpenEmory are previously published journal articles that are frequently held behind paywalls on the publishers’ sites, and after reviewing publishers’ sharing policies, we are often able to upload them to OpenEmory. This makes them freely available worldwide, reaching a wider audience than just fellow researchers and encouraging public engagement. While archiving journal articles is the most common function of OpenEmory, it is not its only purpose.
All scholarly works created by Emory faculty can be added to the OpenEmory repository, in addition to articles that have been previously published in journals. OpenEmory also includes conference proceedings, poster presentations, white papers, books and book chapters, and reports that would otherwise never be available online. Any unpublished, original scholarly work can be added to the repository.
The OpenEmory repository is designed to give faculty from all departments the opportunity to make their scholarly works accessible to the public. Conference proceedings and poster presentations that were only viewed by those attending the conference can be made available to all in the field. Articles that never found a suitable journal home or papers detailing unsuccessful experiments can be revised to working papers or reports and deposited. Our current workflow automatically pulls articles only from PubMed Central (PMC), so articles published in a journal that is not indexed in PMC are often not added to the repository. However, they can be manually uploaded and become just as accessible as the biological sciences articles that currently make up most of the repository.
When you submit your work to OpenEmory, you grant a non-exclusive license to Emory for the right to preserve, display, and distribute the work publicly and without charge, and copyright remains with you and your coauthors. However, if you wish, you can share your work even more openly by adding a Creative Commons (CC) license, which allows others to use your work in various ways. You can consult the Creative Commons website for details on what kinds of licenses are available, and Scholarly Communications Office staff are available to answer any questions you may have about them.
Staff in our office can do a copyright analysis of your CV to determine which items can be submitted to the repository and then upload them on your behalf. We are also happy to upload unpublished works; simply email us with your request. Submissions can also be made directly by those faculty who still have access to their EmoryFIRST profile. Instructions on how to do so are available on our website.
If you have questions about any of the above, please contact our office.
By Kylie Shannon, Scholarly Repository coordinator, Scholarly Communications Office, Emory Libraries