Frequently Asked Questions


GENERAL QUESTIONS

SUBMISSION QUESTIONS

COPYRIGHT QUESTIONS

THESIS, DOCTORAL PROJECT, AND DISSERTATION QUESTIONS

What is The Athenaeum?

The Athenaeum is a digital repository supporting the research and teaching mission of the University of the Incarnate Word (“UIW”). It is intended to serve as a platform for preserving the research, scholarship and creative works of members of the UIW community and for promoting that work to the general public. The Athenaeum is maintained by the UIW Libraries as a service to the community of scholars worldwide.

The Athenaeum will be developed in several phases. In the first phase of the development of the repository, UIW Libraries is publishing UIW student theses, doctoral projects and dissertations, where written permission has been given to publish in the repository. As content in The Athenaeum builds, others will be designated as the repository coordinators for departments, offices or organizations. If you have other questions about The Athenaeum, please contact us at athenaeum@uiwtx.edu.

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Who may contribute works to The Athenaeum?

  • Phase One - Electronic Theses, Dissertations and Doctoral Projects:

    UIW graduate and doctoral students may submit their approved theses, dissertations and projects to The Athenaeum for a final review by the Office of Research and Graduate Studies. When final format is approved, the documents will be published in The Athenaeum.

  • Phase Two - Journal Publications and Departmental Repositories:

    The second phase of repository development will allow UIW faculty, staff, students (or their designated agents) to submit work they have authored, co-authored or created. UIW departments, organizations and other administrative units of the university will also be able to submit qualifying content. In addition, UIW Alumni and others closely affiliated with the university will be able to request permission from the UIW Libraries to submit materials.

    Content will be submitted to designated repository coordinators for the publication or department for review and approval.

      • The UIW Libraries reserve the right to determine which individuals or entities are eligible to contribute works to The Athenaeum.

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What works may be contributed to The Athenaeum?

Content in The Athenaeum is restricted to works that fall within the broad scope of research, scholarship and creative work conducted at UIW.

  • working papers and technical reports
  • published scholarly research articles
  • completed manuscripts
  • art, multimedia, and audio-visual materials
  • conference papers and proceedings
  • theses and dissertations
  • undergraduate honors theses
  • journals published on campus
  • data sets

      • The UIW Libraries reserve the right to determine what works fall within the scope of qualifying content for the repository based on The Athenaeum Policies Statement.

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How may I contribute my works to The Athenaeum?

  • Currently enrolled UIW graduate and doctoral students who wish to submit works to The Athenaeum must create an account (My Account). Once the account is established, it will be possible for work to be uploaded into the repository for review by designated repository coordinator.

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What responsibilities do contributors have with regard to works they contribute?

  • Contributors must submit the full text of their work, although the entire work may not be visible during a publisher embargo period.
  • Individuals submitting materials to the repository must have a legal right to submit the material. Any intellectual property rights violations are entirely the responsibility of the contributor. The sole remedy for proven violations will be removal of the item from The Athenaeum.
  • Submissions must not contain any confidential information, proprietary information of others or export controlled information.

      • The UIW Libraries check submissions for contributor eligibility, relevance to the scope of The Athenaeum, valid layout and format only. The validity and authenticity of the content of submissions is the sole responsibility of the contributor.

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Why should I contribute works to The Athenaeum?

Adding scholarly publications and creative works to The Athenaeum alongside those of your peers increases your work’s visibility and discoverability by researchers and the public. Additionally, unlike many internet sites that feature scholarly and other works, The Athenaeum is maintained by the University of the Incarnate Word, ensuring ongoing access and long term preservation of contributions in a stable digital repository.

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When I copy and paste abstracts into the Submit form, some formatted text reverts to plain text.

When copying abstracts from a word processing file or a PDF file, and pasting the text into the submission form, you are taking text from an environment that supports fonts and text style changes. Because the abstract is intended to be presented on the web, text styles must be specified using HTML codes.

If submitting an abstract in HTML format, please be sure to select the corresponding option on the submission form.

The following HTML tags are recognized by the system and may be used to format an abstract (use lowercase tags):

How to include HTML tags

HTML tags
<p> - paragraph
<p>This is the first paragraph.</p>
<p>This is the second paragraph.</p>

This is the first paragraph.

This is the second paragraph.

<br /> - line break
<p>This is a line of text with a linebreak here. <br /> This is text after</p>

This is a line of text with a linebreak here.
This is text after
<strong> - strong/bold
<strong>bold text</strong>

bold text

<em> - italics/emphasis
<em>italicized text</em>

italicized text

<sub> - subscript
Text with <sub>subscript</sub>

Text with subscript
<sup> - superscript
Text with <sup>superscript</sup>

Text with superscript

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How do I include accents and special characters in the abstracts and titles?

The repository software supports the worldwide character set (Unicode, utf-8). Accents, symbols, and other special characters may be copied and pasted into the abstract or title field from a word processing file or typed in directly. Windows users may also use the Character Map to insert these characters. Macintosh users may use the Character Palette (available via Edit > Special Characters in the Finder).

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How do I revise a submission?

To revise a submission that has been posted to the repository, contact the repository administrator with the new version.

If the submission has been submitted, but not yet posted, you may revise it via your My Account page:

  1. Locate the article on your My Account page, and click the title.
  2. Click Revise Submission from the list of options in the left sidebar.
  3. Enter your changes in the Revise Submission form, and click Submit at the bottom of the page to submit your changes. (You only need to modify the portion of the form that corresponds to the changes you wish to make.)

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Can I post related files (sound clips, data sets, etc.) alongside the published article?

Yes. The bepress system refers to these supplementary items as Associated Files. You will be prompted to submit Associated Files when you upload your submissions. The name of the files you upload will appear on the web site along with your short description of it. Viewers must have the necessary software to open your files; that is not provided by the bepress system.

Please be sure that there are no permissions issues related to use of the associated material. Sometimes, especially with images, you must write a letter seeking permission to use the material before it can be posted.

Also note that where possible, items such as images, charts and tables that are referenced in the document (or otherwise an integral part of the document) should be included directly in the article itself and not posted just as associated files.

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What rights do I grant the university when I deposit my work?

You grant the University of the Incarnate Word and your academic department the non-exclusive rights to copy, display, perform, distribute and publish my work to the repository known as The Athenaeum and to make it available in any format in perpetuity as part of an institution, department, or The Athenaeum communication or distribution effort.

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Will I lose my copyright by depositing my work?

No. You will retain your copyright to your work.

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What rights do I retain to the materials uploaded to the repository?

You will retain all rights to your work such as rights to future publishing.

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What rights and permissions are necessary to deposit material?

You are responsible for securing permissions from your publisher and, in the case of co-authors, permissions from those parties, as well. If your work involves a study of a named organization, you should obtain permission from that organization to deposit the work.

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Where can I learn more about retaining copyright to my work?

We suggest that you go to UT’s Copyright Crash Course for more information on copyright.

Additionally, we recommend that you register your work with Creative Commons before submitting it to the repository in order to have the required documentation to make a claim against violators in a court of law.

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May I contribute something if I have signed away my copyright?

You may if you obtain permission from the current copyright holder.

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Why are students required to submit theses, doctoral projects and dissertations to the Athenaeum?

In an effort to reduce costs and to increase accessibility, the university no longer requires paper copies of theses, doctoral projects and dissertations be submitted. Instead, theses, doctoral projects and dissertations must be submitted to Athenaeum, UIW’s institutional repository as a condition of graduation.

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What are the university’s rights to my work?

UIW retains non-exclusive distribution, reproduction and archival rights to theses and dissertations submitted by students, in whole or in part. Distribution is subject to a release date stipulated by the student and approved by the university.

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What are my rights when I submit my work to the Athenaeum?

As the owner of their work’s copyright, students have the exclusive right to reproduce, distribute, make derivative works based upon, publicly perform and display their work, and to authorize others to exercise some or all of those rights. You also have the right to embargo or restrict access by others to your document.

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What is an embargo?

An embargo is a period that a document is made unavailable. When you submit your work, you may specify an embargo period during which only the metadata (ie. Author’s name, Title of Work, Abstract, etc.) will be available for public viewing. We recommend restricting access to your work only in rare circumstances.

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For more information, please visit the Office of Research and Graduate Studies’ Theses, Doctoral Projects and Dissertations site.