• • What is Mountain Scholar?
  • What are the benefits to a scholar who includes his/her work in Mountain Scholar?
  • What is meant by the term “open access?”
  • What types of content can be deposited in Mountain Scholar?
  • Why do we need Mountain Scholar when we can publish in journals?
  • What about peer review?
  • How is depositing my research in Mountain Scholar different than posting research on my own web site?
  • What preservation services will Mountain Scholar provide?
  • Can I embargo my work in Mountain Scholar?
  • I believe an item should be removed from Mountain Scholar. What should I do?

What is Mountain Scholar?

Mountain Scholar stores, indexes, distributes, and preserves the scholarship of faculty, researchers, staff, and students of the university in digital form.

What are the benefits to a scholar who includes his/her work in Mountain Scholar?

• Increased dissemination and impact of your research: Mountain Scholar provides high visibility and increased access to your research. The descriptive information about your deposited work will be indexed and crawled by Google and other search engines.
• Increased citation of your research: Research suggests that open access to online articles may increase citation impact by 50-250%, depending on discipline, specialty, and year.
• Visibility: Presentation and promotion of your individual and department’s research.
• Persistence: Mountain Scholar provides permanent URLs to your digital research.
• Preservation: The Libraries is committed to preserving your digital content for long term access and use in Mountain Scholar.
• Copyright control: Because control of intellectual property has specific legal implications, every situation is unique. In some cases, you may retain control and ownership of your research and creative works. Even if the work has already been published, many publishers will allow you to deposit it in a digital repository.
• Maintain the scholarly record: Mountain Scholar provides the infrastructure to collect, preserve, and manage access to this important part of the University’s scholarly record, thus continuing the long term tradition of archives and libraries.

What is meant by the term “open access?”

When we say that a digital repository provides “open access,” we mean that researchers and any other interested parties may view the items included without having to pay to do so. Access is immediate, free, and unrestricted in most cases.

What types of content can be deposited in Mountain Scholar?

Faculty

• Preprints and other works in progress, peer-reviewed articles, research papers, working papers, technical reports, conference papers
• Multimedia, videos, teaching materials, learning objects
• Web-based presentations, exhibits, etc.

Students

• Theses and dissertations
• Projects and portfolios
• Awarded research
• Performances and recitals

Why do we need Mountain Scholar when we can publish in journals?

Mountain Scholar complements the traditional scholarly communications model by expanding the readership and availability of scholarly research and facilitating the self-archiving of your work. Concentrating and showcasing the work of faculty in Mountain Scholar also makes it easier to demonstrate the scientific, social, and financial value of the university, which can result in tangible benefits, including funding.

In addition, Mountain Scholar makes it possible to capture and share those materials that may not, for whatever reason, make it into a journal. This includes many great pieces of unpublished scholarship and artistic endeavor produced at CSU such as conference presentations, working papers, white papers, technical reports, and other examples of “gray” literature.

What about peer review?

Depositing your work in a digital repository will not impact the peer review process. You could deposit the final, post- peer reviewed article in repository in compliance with copyright law and publisher policies; or, you could choose to deposit your preprint in repository and then submit it for peer review to an open access journal. In both cases, the important functions of peer review will be preserved.

How is depositing my research in Mountain Scholar different than posting research on my own web site?

• CSU Libraries will maintain your files and make them accessible from a central place.
• Control over access. Mountain Scholar allows you to limit who can see various aspects of your work for a given time, if you need to do so.
• Mountain Scholar is stable and permanent. Persistent URLs won’t break, move or change in the years ahead.
• As formats change and develop with the fluidity of technology, the Libraries will do the work of upgrading the formats of your materials.

What preservation services will Mountain Scholar provide?

For all content you deposit, CSU Libraries will:

• Maintain a persistent URL and the files/metadata (descriptive information) associated with it.
• Provide secure storage and backup of materials.
• Monitor format changes and migrate to succeeding format when necessary and possible.

Can I embargo my work in Mountain Scholar?

Authors of current theses and dissertations may request an embargo of up to two years, if approved by the Graduate School. For more information please see Guidelines for CSU Authors & Creators.

I believe an item should be removed from Mountain Scholar. What should I do?

Under certain circumstances an item may be removed from view (e.g., due to a violation of the submission agreement). You may contact Mountain Scholar staff to request that an item be removed. Please see our Takedown Policy for more information.