Library Background

About FalconWorks

Guidelines for the Repository of Scholarly and Creative Works at Fitchburg State University

Purpose

FalconWorks is an online repository that provides open access to scholarly and creative works by Fitchburg State University faculty, librarians, staff and students. It also includes research across all academic disciplines and departments, as well as content produced by University offices, centers, and programs. 

The platform, with a global reach, provides long-term access and preservation of scholarly, professional, scientific, and creative output produced at Fitchburg State University. FalconWorks is a free and open access environment for enhanced discovery and research value.

Platform

FalconWorks runs on DSpace, a software hosted by Atmire Solutions. 

Depositors & Contributors

Anyone affiliated with the university can contribute to the Faculty Repository, including but not limited to faculty, staff, librarians, administrators, and faculty emeriti. At this time, student work is not accepted.  

Organization Structure

The structure of the IR is hierarchical. The current community is Faculty, Librarian and Staff Research and Creative Activity which is subdivided by academic department

In most cases, contributors will submit material to the departments in which they belong or that sponsored their work. Collaborative or interdisciplinary work may be submitted to (or shared with) more than one collection. 

Acceptable Types of Materials

The types of materials accepted into the Faculty, Librarian, and Staff Research and Creative Activity encompass externally published, presented, exhibited or performed scholarship and creative works. 

These can include but are not limited to:

  • Published articles, chapters, and books at various stages:
    • Pre-print - this is the initially submitted version of your manuscript prior to acceptance and peer-review.
    • Post-print - this is also referred to as the author's final manuscript.  It has been peer-reviewed and contains all the revisions during the review process.  However, it has not been copy-edited or formatted by the publisher.  Publishers will occasionally refer to post-prints as accepted author manuscripts (AAMs).
    • Published version - this is the final version of the article or book chapter as formatted by the publisher.  It can also be referred to as the version of record.
  • Materials supplementary to submitted publications
  • Conference proceedings, papers, posters, and presentations
  • Design plans and models
  • Data sets
  • Images, films, music scores, and audio-visual recordings of performances and documentaries. 

For published  articles, chapters and books, authors should consult with Open Policy Finder or the publisher to secure permissions to submit material to the IR. Content may be withdrawn due to violation of the deposit agreement, if required by law, or under any other exceptional circumstance.

Acceptable Formats

Preferred formats:

  • Digitally accessible PDF  or .docx for text-based documents such as articles, presentations, websites etc.
  • MP3 for audio with a file transcript as a separate document
  • MP4 (compressed) for video with closed captions or an audio description

Acceptable formats include but are not limited to PDF, DOC, DOCX, TXT, CSV, XML, HTML, PPT, JPEG, JP2, TIFF, WAV, AIFF, MP3, MP4, MOV, and citations. However, we may convert or migrate files to different formats for public use when those formats are determined to be proprietary, obscure, obsolete, or impact system performance.

FalconWorks will display most text-based documents as PDF or.docx, in which case certain elements may change in appearance or completeness. PowerPoint and HTML web pages should be converted to digitally accessible PDFs before submission to FalconWorks. 

Depositors/contributors should consider reformatting large files into smaller, more accessible formats. Submissions should limit the file size to about 2 gigabytes. Contact a FalconWorks administrator at falconworks@fitchburgstate.edu for special needs regarding file sizes and data space requirements.

Licensing of Works

Depositors/contributors give The Amelia V. Gallucci-Cirio Library, Fitchburg State University non-exclusive, royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide license to access, reproduce, publish, and distribute content submitted to FalconWorks. The author(s) of the submitted work must be willing and able to grant copyright permission to Amelia V. Gallucci-Cirio Library at Fitchburg State University. 

If you have published your article or book chapter in a fully open access journal or book, you may upload the published version to FalconWorks.  

Depending on your funder and other publisher policies (if applicable), you might be able to upload the published version to FalconWorks.  If you are unsure which version is the right version, please email  FalconWorks@fitchburgstate.edu

Creative Commons License Option

The Amelia V. Gallucci-Cirio Library, Fitchburg State University respects the rights of creators to retain their copyrights. However, for those who want their work to be shared freely on the Internet across multiple platforms without restrictions (but requiring attribution and non-commercial purpose), the Amelia V. Gallucci-Cirio Library suggests that a depositor/contributor assign a Creative Commons “Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International” License (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)” to their submitted material. Visit Creative Commons for more details and legal code. Other Creative Commons licenses are available.

Private & Confidential Information

Submitted materials, including data sets, must be free of restrictions and must not contain private, confidential, classified, or legally-protected information. The depositor/contributor is responsible for reviewing materials and removing or redacting private, sensitive, classified, or confidential information or third-party copyrighted material. Any materials containing private, sensitive, confidential, classified, or copyrighted information may be subject to review and may not be accepted into FalconWorks

Process for Submission

Users can submit materials through falconsworks.fitchburgstate.edu. Content can be submitted at any time. Submitted content must wait for review by a FalconWorks administrator, during which time the content and any metadata will not be displayed. Once approved, the content will be published to FalconWorks and displayed along with its metadata. Depositors can also submit work (along with any metadata) directly to a FalconWorks administrator, who will then review the materials and ingest them into FalconWorks.

Depositors can also set embargo periods if required by publishers or at the request of the copyright holder.  The metadata for the embargoed item will be discoverable in FalconWorks but users will not be able to access the artifact until the embargo period has expired. 

Metadata

Metadata (information about the submitted work) must be provided by the depositor. The metadata can be provided in an electronic web form during the submission process.

The minimum metadata required for submitted materials are usually title and resource type (e.g. text). The Amelia V. Gallucci-Cirio Library, the inclusion of title, author, date created or issued, abstract, type of resource, rights statement, and relevant subject terms in order to facilitate research and discovery.

Review of Materials

FalconWorks administrators will review submitted materials for acceptable formatting and general adherence to research guidelines. However, it is the responsibility of the author to ensure that the submitted material reflects the research standards of the university, does not infringe on privacy and any other rights, protects confidentiality, has secured all copyright permissions, and, if sponsored or agency-supported, has met all obligations concerning the research, including peer review. The submitter is also responsible for ensuring that any submission meets the WCAG 2.2 digitability standards. 

Migration & Reformatting

Scholarly materials in the repository may be migrated to a more accessible and preservation-friendly file format during initial deposit or at any time in the future. Although the intent of FalconWorks is to offer long-term open access to materials, there is no guarantee of permanent and persistent storage or re-formatting of deposited works. If there comes a point where the platform will need to be changed, data of the content will be returned to the University Libraries and transferred to the new platform. Every effort will be made to maintain the integrity of the materials.

Use of IR Content

Materials in FalconWorks are free and openly accessible to the general public, unless restricted by an embargo or legal hold.

Use of FalconWorks content is for personal, research, educational, and non-commercial purposes only. Users and researchers who access or attempt to accessFalconWorks content assume full responsibility of how FalconWorks materials are used or re-used.

Metadata located in FalconWorks is openly available and may be reused without permission for non-commercial purposes.

Citation

Materials accessed in FalconWorks must be cited if published and/or distributed. Researchers should consult an appropriate style guide for adherence to specific guidelines.

Withdrawal of Content

FalconWorks has been established as a permanent repository. Once deposited, an item will not be withdrawn, although under some circumstances, it will be removed from view.

Any requests for withdrawal must be sent to the falconworks@fitchburgstate.edu Authors or affected parties may request that works be removed from FalconWorks for reasons of factual inaccuracy, plagiarism, or potential copyright infringement. No materials will be removed without an attempt to reach the author.

If authors who have submitted work to FalconWorks leave the University, their work will be retained in the archive. If the authors would like to have new contact information added to their material in FalconWorks, a FalconWorks administrator will assist them in having such information added.

If a work is withdrawn, a citation including original metadata will always remain, but the work is noted as withdrawn. Sample statements might include “removed at request of author” or “removed by legal order.

Disclaimers

Any researcher and user of FalconWorks materials agrees to indemnify and hold harmless the Fitchburg State University, its officers, employees, and agents from and against all suits, claims, actions, and expenses arising out of the use and reuse of materials provided by FalconWorks. 

Fitchburg State University makes no representation of FalconWorks content linked to other websites or third-party information. Fitchburg State University cannot be held responsible for errors and omissions or damage caused by access or non-access to FalconWorks.