Content Submission Policies and Guidelines

Introduction

Southeastern University FireScholars, a service of Southeastern University Steelman Library, is a digital repository and publication platform designed to collect, preserve, and make accessible the scholarly output of Southeastern University faculty, students, staff, and affiliates. This document outlines policies and guidelines regarding the submission of content to Southeastern University FireScholars, including submission criteria, author and user rights, and procedures for removing posted content.

Submission Criteria

To best represent the spectrum of Southeastern University’s scholarly communications, Southeastern University FireScholars maintains an inclusive collection policy based on the principle of open access, which emphasizes broad electronic dissemination of scholarly works. Southeastern University recognizes the Academic Freedom and Responsibility of its faculty as outlined in the Faculty Handbook (4.14). Members of the Southeastern University community interested in submitting materials should review the policies and guidelines below prior to submission. Please contact the firescholars@seu.edu for questions or clarifications. Appropriate content may be added following the guidelines below:

  • The work must be original, produced and submitted, or sponsored by a faculty, staff, student, organization or department of Southeastern University.
  • The work must be creative, scholarly in nature, research oriented, or of institutional significance.
  • The author must own the copyright to all components and content within the work, or have received and shown permission to have the material available in Fire Scholar.
  • The author or representative of the organization or department must sign a permission form prior to material being uploaded to the repository, granting Southeastern University the right to distribute and preserve the material via Southeastern University FireScholars.
  • Content submitted by students will require the approval of a faculty mentor or sponsor involved in the creation of the work.
  • Contributors may include non-affiliated scholars if they are co-authoring with Southeastern University authors, are affiliated closely with the university, or are submitting via a Southeastern University-sponsored publication, conference, or event.
  • Although most content is open access, some material may be available only to current university faculty, staff and students, or may be the subject of a publishing embargo for a fixed period.
  • The work must be in digital form, including supplementary materials. Ideally, all of the digital components of a submission will be provided as a set.
  • A wide range of file formats is accepted (including text files, datasets, audio files, and video files) and there is no formal limit to size of material. Examples of possible content include:
    • Journals produced by the Southeastern community
    • Published articles or preprints when copyright and/or license allow
    • Books or book chapters when copyright and/or license allow
    • Working papers, conference papers, and technical reports
    • Honors projects, senior theses, and other distinguished student work
    • Datasets
    • Institutional or organizational newsletters, reports, and related materials
    • Image collections or audiovisual materials, either primary or supplementary

Please note that the following content is not permitted for submission/publication to Southeastern FireScholars:

  • FERPA-protected information, including student email addresses
  • HIPAA-regulated information (protected health information), including any information related to the past, present or future physical or mental health of an individual, except only if the individual has authorized release of his or her information in writing, and such release is in the hands of the publisher
  • Content barred by law or regulation from publication
  • Intellectual property for which the submitter does not have permission to submit and distribute
  • Non-public personally identifiable financial or contact information of any kind, including, but not limited to, social security numbers, credit/debit card numbers, account numbers, account balances, and private residential addresses, except only where such records preexist as legitimate publicly accessible records outside the university
  • Photographic depictions of individuals in areas where a reasonable expectation of privacy exists, except only if all individuals depicted have given written consent to publication of their image
  • Records protected by state privacy laws. Please note that privacy laws vary by state, and protect their residents even when they are out of state.

Author Rights

  • The author retains the copyright for all works submitted.
  • The author is free to reuse the content, but it is his or her responsibility to check the terms of the publication agreement if a document published in FireScholars is published elsewhere.
  • Authors may update and add to existing works.
  • Sherpa/Romeo lists author rights based on publisher and journal http://www.sherpa.ac.uk/romeo/
  • Bepress Author Toolkit contains papers and presentations on copyright and ownership http://digitalcommons.bepress.com/toolkits/4/
  • The FireScholars Author Submission Agreement can be obtained in PDF format here.

User Rights

  • All users must respect the intellectual property rights of the author.
  • Material may be downloaded for educational and research purposes provided due recognition is given to the author.
  • Material may not be copied, distributed, displayed, altered, or used for commercial purposes, unless such use is specified by a Creative Commons License.
  • Click this link for information on Fair Use exceptions to copyright law: https://fairuse.stanford.edu/overview/fair-use/what-is-fair-use/

Withdrawal of content

Southeastern Fire Scholar is a permanent repository. Once deposited, an item will not be withdrawn unless removal is legally required. However, under some circumstances a work may be removed from view:

  • Authors or affected parties may request that works be removed for reasons of factual inaccuracy, plagiarism, or potential copyright infringement.
  • No materials will be removed without an attempt to reach the author.
  • If a work is removed, a citation including original metadata will always remain, with a note regarding the removal, e.g. “removed at request of author,” or “removed by legal order.”

Southeastern University Steelman Library thanks Pepperdine University for permission to use the Pepperdine Digital Commons Content Submission Policies and Guidelines as the basis for this document.