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Fresno State Library

ScholarWorks Overview

ScholarWorks is a shared institutional repository that collects, preserves, and provides access to scholarship by research communities at The California State University. Collections include CSU faculty publications, student dissertations and theses, datasets, and teaching materials.

Visit ScholarWorks

ScholarWorks is part of the California State University Systemwide Digital Library Services and is administered at Fresno State by the Library.

Who Can Submit?

Fresno State faculty or staff can submit scholarly, creative, or instructional materials, and research data sets. Student theses and dissertations will be added to the repository by the Library. Faculty who wish to sponsor student work may submit student work of particular scholarly or creative merit, such as capstones, senior or graduate projects, or other culminating experiences; outstanding entries to campuswide research or writing symposia or competitions; or peer-reviewed publications.

Content Guidelines

ScholarWorks accepts all kinds of scholarly materials and content including pre-prints, previously published material (if permitted by publisher policy), working papers, technical reports, presentations, data sets, and instructional or creative works. Guidelines for submission include:

  • The content must be produced, submitted, or sponsored by Fresno State personnel.
  • The content must be related to scholarly, creative, educational activities at Fresno State.
  • The content must be in digital form or in a form that can be digitized.
  • The content should be ready for distribution and not in draft form.
  • The author/owner must be willing and able to grant Fresno State the right to preserve and distribute the content via ScholarWorks.

File Formats

ScholarWorks will accept a range of file formats, but not all of them are recommended for long term preservation. This table, prepared by the UK Data Archive, contains data formats identified as optimal for long term preservation and can serve as a guide.

Contributing

Please read the contributor information page and then contact us so we can discuss the most efficient way to contribute your material.

Why Contribute?

  • Increase visibility and access for deposited scholarly/creative works

    Studies show that Open Access (OA) articles, including those deposited in an institutional repository, have higher citation rates than those in traditional publishing models. ScholarWorks helps publicize Fresno State’s contributions to broader community conversations in scholarship and higher education.

  • Meet funding agency requirements

    Through open access in ScholarWorks, researchers may meet open access requirements from funding agencies for publications and datasets, including federal funders.

  • Disseminate your research or artistic work as it develops

    You may deposit all academic, scholarly, or creative facets of a project or product, including posters, audio-visual items, pre-prints, post-prints, and derivative works.

  • Support Open Access and Open Education

    ScholarWorks is part of a larger movement of libraries, universities, and publishers who believe enabling a more open information culture aligns with our mission to educate the public, and contributes to scientific development, community betterment, and a richer scholarly conversation. It supports the Open Education movement by contributing Open Access instructional and scholarly materials.

  • Ensure persistent access and preservation

    ScholarWorks uses best practices to preserve and provide full access to deposited material, and uses information standards (OAI-PMH) that allow greater discoverability.

What are My Rights?

  • Contributors retain copyright to their work.

    Contributors may be required to submit a Content Use Agreement so that ScholarWorks can provide access to the work.

  • Access to documents can be embargoed or permitted only to certain users.

    While we encourage depositors to make their work fully open and accessible, works may be embargoed (only allowing access past a certain date), or limited to certain user communities (such as on-campus users, or Fresno State students, faculty, and staff).

  • Copyright holders can indicate reuse permissions using a Creative Commons license

    Contributors may choose to apply a Creative Commons license. Creative Commons licenses allow copyright holders to give permission for reuse with optional restrictions, such as requiring attribution or restricting commercial use.

Access Policy

All contributors are encouraged to make their content accessible without restrictions. If required by sponsor contract or other restrictions, content may be embargoed (only allowing access after a certain date), or limited to certain users, such as on-campus users or Fresno State users.

Withdrawal Policy

It may be necessary to remove items from the repository for a variety of reasons. Because any item may have been cited, we will always retain the item record, though not the content. This record will include the original item description and a statement explaining the reason for the withdrawal. The retained record will no longer be available to searches or external harvesting.