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Depositing to the DukeSpace Repository

A guide to sharing scholarly works and student theses and dissertations openly at Duke University.

Policies for Scholarly Works in DukeSpace
Works deposited to DukeSpace are granted a Creative Commons CC-BY-NC license, which allows anyone to read and reproduce the publication, as long as they cite the original author and source and do not use it for commercial gain. Any commercial use still requires permission from the copyright holder.

Before you deposit a work, ensure you are the copyright holder or have rights to make intellectual property decisions for that work. The 2010 Open Access Policy only applies to scholarly articles authored by full-time Duke faculty.

What types of scholarly works are eligible for deposit?

Scholarly Articles

  • Peer-reviewed scholarly articles published in scholarly journals, including pre-prints

Research & Writings

  • Review articles, newspaper articles, magazine articles, blog posts, or other non-peer-reviewed writing
  • Conference abstracts and proceedings
  • Book sections
  • White papers, working papers, and other non-published scholarly documents
  • Fictional and creative works

Who may deposit?

  • Faculty

Tenure-track, non-tenure-track, and professors of the practice.

Under the 2010 Open Access Policy, faculty may grant Duke a non-exclusive license to distribute their works in DukeSpace, making them openly available to anyone with an internet connection. Publications are deposited through the Elements system.

The Open Access Policy is only applicable to scholarly articles authored by Duke faculty. For any other item listed above, you must confirm you are the copyright owner or otherwise have the rights to make intellectual property decisions about the work.

  • Students

Graduate students and some undergraduates.

Active students with a NetID can submit their scholarly work through the Elements publication system. Students who have graduated cannot submit.

Ensure you are prepared to share the work publicly and long-term for anyone to view. Items in DukeSpace are only removed under extraordinary circumstances, not including future embarrassment or typos.

  • Post-Doctoral Fellows

As affiliates with the university with NetIDs, post-docs can submit their work through the Elements publication system. Once you leave Duke, you can no longer submit.

  • Affiliated Researchers

Researchers with a NetID and password who wish to deposit their work may do so through the Elements publication system. Once you leave Duke, you can no longer submit.

What file formats does DukeSpace accept?

Stable document formats of small size:

  • PDFs
  • Microsoft Word or other word processor documents
  • Plain text documents

Removing or altering deposited scholarly works

Items deposited to DukeSpace are considered parts of the scholarly record and are not removed or substantively altered unless under extraordinary circumstances.

Before you deposit a scholarly work to DukeSpace, ensure:

  • You are the copyright holder or have rights to make intellectual property decisions for that work, including granting Duke the non-exclusive right to distribute the work under a CC-BY-NC license
  • It contains no sensitive or restricted information that should not be made public
  • It is not in violation of copyright or university policies
  • It is the final version of record you wish to make available
    • DukeSpace does not support versioning and it is not in scope to replace the deposited version of an item with an updated one.
    • In cases where authors have a new version that supersedes the previously posted one, they can post the new item separately through the Elements system, and request that a note be added to the old one to refer readers to the new one, with an explanation. The old version will not be removed.

If you deposited an incorrect PDF that does not match the metadata of the record, contact open-access@duke.edu to have it replaced. Authors cannot modify DukeSpace records; they are managed by the repository staff.

See the Deaccession and DCMA Takedown Policy for further detail.

For major errors in metadata records and/or questions about whether an item is appropriate to deposit or needs to be modified or removed under the Deaccession Policy, contact open-access@duke.edu.