EC Scholar Project Guide

For any assets added to the EC Scholar platform, consider the following:

1) Open Access rights - does your publication agreement state that your work is open access? Did you pay or agree to an open access publication fee? Only assets with clear open access policies can be shared on the platform. How openly available is the content? Is it shared without restriction, limited to the campus community, or hidden?

2) Copyright and licenses -  students own the copyright to theses published by the College. Faculty may own the copyright to their work but it may also be owned by publishers. Copyright owners have the option to apply alternative license models to their assets as well, including Creative Commons for published works or open data licenses for date and software. 

Open access publications often have a Creative Commons license to define reuse permissions. 

Access rights describe the level of availability for a particular item, and may include the following: 

• Open – The file is immediately available.
• Open with Embargo – The file will be available after an embargo period. 
• Restricted – The file is only available to on-campus users.
• Closed – The file is not available. 

We set access rights based on the open access status of submitted files. Files must be clearly marked as open access to be set as Open. Open access status is verified using Sherpa Romeo, a site that aggregates publisher open access policies.

DEFAULT COPYRIGHT STATEMENTS

This document is protected under copyright and other intellectual property laws. Reproduction or retransmission of the materials, in whole or in part, in any manner, without the prior written consent of the copyright holder, is a violation of copyright law.

FOR UNDERGRADUATE THESES

Students and their research partners (if applicable) shall retain the copyright of their original thesis. Researchers are asked to respect copyright policy for any copyrighted excerpts, charts, tables, or images used within their thesis.

For thesis students, the following sharing options are provided at the time of thesis submission:

Students should work with their Thesis Committee and relevant collaborators to agree upon the level of sharing that they would prefer for their thesis. You may change your sharing settings at any point by letting the library know your preferences.

• I agree to make my thesis available to the Eckerd College Community and to the larger community of scholars upon its deposit into the digital archive or successor technology. My thesis will be available in print in the EC Library or on Interlibrary Loan.
• I agree to make my thesis available ONLY to the Eckerd College Community upon its deposit into the digital archive or successor technology. My thesis will be available in print in the EC Library.
• I agree to make my thesis available in print in the EC Library, and in an electronic copy to be deposited for preservation purposes only. The electronic copy will not be made available to any users.