Why It Makes Sense to Archive Your Work in NC DOCKS, A Web-Accessible Institutional Repository (IR) For Faculty Scholarship

a. The main benefit of depositing your papers in an open access IR is increased visibility and accessibility which translates into increased citations and impact. Studies show that traditionally published articles that are also posted in an IR receive a significantly greater number of citations than others not posted. They simply get more readers who can find them on the web. You will be engaging more colleagues in your discipline, more students searching for your topic, and more practitioners in the field.

b. Archiving in an IR will also benefit researchers around the world who cannot afford subscription to the journal or do not have access to a research library or interlibrary loan.

c. Finally, the IR provides a permanent URL for your work and a convenient place to store and access your scholarship when you need to self-reference in a future article or refer colleagues and students. With your scholarship secure in NC DOCKS, you can link from citations in your CV or departmental web page to the full text in your archive.

Submitting an Item

It's a simple process to contribute your papers to NCCU's Institutional Repository (IR), NC DOCKS (NC Digital Online Collection of Knowledge and Scholarship):

Any faculty member of NCCU interested in contributing works to NC DOCKS, should contact an NCCU librarian.

  1. To begin the process, you can send an updated list of your scholarly works (see content criteria below). We will then verify which publishers allow self-archiving and you will receive an email about which items can be archived. We can then work out which electronic files you can send and which the library can find for you.

  2. IMPORTANT: Save the final electronic text or Word version of your future papers you submit for publication that contains all changes made by the editor and peer-reviewers for submission to NC DOCKS.

    Though most publishers allow self-archiving of the paper’s final content, most journal publishers do not allow their final PDF product (with nice layout, value-added features, and branding) to be archived. That is why it is important to save the final Word or text version for submission to NC DOCKS. Extracting the author’s permitted content from a publisher’s PDF is possible but can be difficult and time-consuming.

  3. Submit the final text or Word version of each new paper (as an e-mail attachment) upon completion of the peer-review process and acceptance by the publisher. After verifying the publisher’s policies, it will be immediately posted-- usually within a couple of days. If the publisher requires it be hidden from the public for a number of months (some publishers have a 12 to 18 month embargo after publication), the library will load it immediately but mask it until the appropriate date.
  4. Contributions to NC DOCKS are entirely voluntary and if a contributing author later wishes to remove a work from the archive, the Library will be happy to comply with the request.

Content Criteria for NC DOCKS

  • It must be a scholarly or educational work in its final form. Examples: it can be a published journal article, conference paper, workshop presentation, technical report, book review, or other kind of scholarship or educational work you wish to make more accessible to the world.
  • Each work must be the intellectual property of an ASU faculty member. (Exception – student theses and dissertations will also be included in the IR.)
  • The author/creator of each work must grant to ASU Libraries the non-exclusive right to preserve the work and make it available for global access at no cost via the Web

HOW NC DOCKS CONNECTS YOUR SCHOLARSHIP TO THE WORLD

PERMANENCE
Works are archived permanently, with a stable server and a URL that will never break.
ACCESSIBLIITY
Works placed in NC DOCKS are not blocked by subscription barriers and are freely available on the Web. Thus, researchers worldwide have continuous and perpetual access to publications in NC DOCKS.
HARNESSING THE POWER AND REACHING THE AUDIENCE OF INTERNET SEARCH ENGINES
Google is a primary discovery tool for a vast number of researchers and although the NC DOCKS has its own searching interface, most researchers will use an Internet search engine, such as Google, to discover works archived in IRs such as this one. Google “crawls” IRs for new material, provides full-text keyword access, and gives preferential treatment to works in IRs.

Visit ASU Library’s Scholarly Communications web site for more information on institutional repositories, open access, and related issues.