Policies

Policies

Metadata Policy

for information describing items in the repository

1. Anyone may access the metadata free of charge.
2. No metadata re-use policy defined. Assume no rights at all have been granted.

Data Policy

for full-text and other full data items

1. Anyone may access full items free of charge.
2. No full-item re-use policy defined. Assume no rights at all have been granted.

Content Policy

for types of document & data set held

1. This is an institutional or departmental repository.
2. BIROn - Birkbeck Institutional Research Online holds all types of materials except:Theses and dissertations
3. Deposited items may include:
   • accepted versions (author's final peer-reviewed drafts)
   • published versions (publisher-created files)
4. Items are individually tagged with their publication status.
5. Principal Languages: English

Submission Policy

concerning depositors, quality & copyright

1. Items may only be deposited by accredited members, academic staff, registered students, and employees of the institution
2. Authors may only submit their own work for archiving.
3. Eligible depositors must deposit bibliographic metadata for all their publications.
4. Eligible depositors must deposit full texts of all their publications, although they may delay making them publicly visible to comply with publishers' embargos.
5. The administrator only vets items for the eligibility of authors/depositors, relevance to the scope of BIROn - Birkbeck Institutional Research Online, and valid layout & format
6. The validity and authenticity of the content of submissions is the sole responsibility of the depositor.
7. Items can be deposited at any time, but will not be made publicly visible until any publishers' or funders' embargo period has expired.
8. Any copyright violations are entirely the responsibility of the authors/depositors.
9. If BIROn - Birkbeck Institutional Research Online receives proof of copyright violation, the relevant item will be removed immediately.

Preservation Policy

1. Items will be retained indefinitely.
2. No functional specification policy has been defined.
3. BIROn - Birkbeck Institutional Research Online regularly backs up its files according to current best practice.
4. Items may not normally be removed from BIROn - Birkbeck Institutional Research Online.
5. Acceptable reasons for withdrawal include:
   • Proven copyright violation or plagiarism
   • Legal requirements and proven violations
   • National Security
   • Falsified research
6. Withdrawn items are not deleted per se, but are removed from public view.
7. Withdrawn items' identifiers/URLs are retained indefinitely.
8. URLs will continue to point to 'tombstone' citations, to avoid broken links and to retain item histories.
9. The metadata of withdrawn items will not be searchable.
10. If necessary, an updated version may be deposited.
    • The earlier version may be withdrawn from public view.
    • The item's persistent URL will always link to the latest version.
11. No closure policy defined.