Policies

Withdrawal Policy
Revision Policy
Author Name Change Policy

Withdrawal Policy

The purpose of Dartmouth Digital Commons is to provide permanent, free, public access to materials created by Dartmouth faculty, staff, and students. Generally, items added to the repository will not be removed except under specific circumstances.

Depending on the situation, an item may be removed from Dartmouth Digital Commons entirely, placed under an embargo for a set period of time before becoming public again, or made visible only to Dartmouth community members. Additionally, the metadata (title, author, abstract, etc.) may remain publicly available or be removed.

Possible reasons for removal may include, but are not limited to, the following:

  • The item was posted by someone other than the author without the author’s permission
  • Part or all of the content is found to be plagiarized, and therefore in violation of university policy
  • Part or all of the content is found to be in violation of copyright law
  • The item is in violation of relevant Dartmouth or other applicable policies
  • item contains information that should not have been made public (confidential, proprietary, endangers the author or a subject, etc.)
  • The item is a duplicate of something already part of the repository

The following are not generally justifications for removal:

  • The content is deemed embarassing or offensive, by the author or anyone else
  • The author wishes to edit the content (see the Revision Policy for what can and cannot be changed and how to do that)
  • An author’s name has changed (see the Author Name Change Policy for how to change this information)

This policy will be continually reviewed and edited as needed to meet current community needs. If your work is in Dartmouth Digital Commons and you would like it removed, or if you have a concern about something in the repository, contact the administrators at . Your request will be considered and responded to by staff within the Scholarly Communication, Copyright, and Publishing Program. In some cases, the material in question may be hidden from public view during the review process, to be replaced if there is not a valid reason for removing it from the repository.

Revision Policy

Items submitted to Dartmouth Digital Commons are assumed to be the final version; authors should not plan on making any changes to the posted material. Please review your items carefully before submitting them.

If, however, there are appropriate revisions, they will need to be made by the administrators; authors cannot make any changes after the item has been posted.

The following types of changes may be made at the administrators’ discretion:

  • Small edits to the metadata, such as adding a department or correcting to the spelling of a name (for other name changes, see the Author Name Change Policy).
  • edits to the document itself, such as spelling corrections, that do not affect the meaning of the contents.
  • Material changes that affect the meaning of the content. Since people may have already used or cited the existing version, these changes must be clearly noted in the description as well as the document itself.
  • Note that theses and dissertations cannot be revised. The posted version reflects the final accepted version approved by faculty for graduation, and the contents may not be changed after the fact, with the exception of author names as needed (see the Author Name Change Policy).

In order to make these changes, contact the Dartmouth Digital Commons administrators () with your request, and include the following information:

  1. Exactly what you want to have changed. These changes will be noted in the system, but readers will see only the updated information. If you want only the metadata revised, rather than the contents of the material, this is all you need to do.
  2. If the changes are to the item itself, provide an updated version of the file to replace the existing one. In your email, specify what changes it includes and why you needed to make them.
    1. If the changes are small cosmetic edits that do not affect the meaning of the material, simply provide the revised version. The new file will replace the old one; the change will be noted in the system, but readers will see only the updated version.
    2. If the revisions affect the meaning of the material, the updated document should include the following note on the front page: “REVISION [number], [new date]. Replaces [previous version number and date], available at [link to item in Digital Commons] under ‘Additional Files.’ [Describe change].” This document will replace the previous one as the primary file; the Digital Commons link will remain the same as the original version. Earlier versions will be available as additional files, and the updates will be noted in the comments section.

If you have questions about what revisions you can make and how to make them, contact the Dartmouth Digital Commons administrators at .

Author Name Change Policy

Anyone with materials in Dartmouth Digital Commons may change the name displaying on the record and/or the materials themselves. While there are any number of reasons that someone may need to do this (including name changes related to gender, marriage, religion, and others), no justification is required for an author name change to be implemented. The change does not need to reflect the author’s past or current legal name(s).

To have your name changed, email the Dartmouth Digital Commons administrators () with the following information:

  1. Name(s) currently listed on your materials in Dartmouth Digital Commons
  2. Complete list of materials with the old name on them, with a link to each item
  3. The new name that you would like to be listed under

We will then change your name as requested on both the item record(s) and the document(s). There will be no mention of the previous name unless you specifically request that; if you want such a note, let us know what language to use. You are responsible for contacting your coauthors if you want them to know about the change.