FIU Digital Commons

• Digital Commons allows authors to provide immediate access to their research freely and legally.
• Digital Commons content is search engine optimized increasing discoverability, visibility, citations and the potential impact of an author’s work.
• Digital Commons satisfies many requirements for dissemination of research resulting from grant funded projects.
• Digital Commons provides authors a place to publish grey literature such as research reports, presentations, images, data, and video.
• Digital Commons provides author’s with monthly readership reports with download counts.
• Digital Commons also serves as a digital archive, providing persistent URLs and preservation copies ensuring long term access to an author’s work.

Submitting Directly to Digital Commons

1. Find the Department/Center/Program/Publication you would like to submit to on Digital Commons Collections List.
2. Select "Submit Your Work" from the side bar on the right hand side.
3. You will be prompted to login with your Digital Commons account. If you don't already have an account, you can create one on the My Accounts tab. 
4. Review and sign the submission consent form.
5. Complete all required elements on the submission form.
6. Attach your file.
7. Submit.

Please remember when submitting your work, you must comply with all copyright and licensing agreements with journals/publishers.

Mediated Deposit

Digital Commons staff may also be available to assist you in uploading your research to Digital Commons. All you need to do is send your CV. Digital Commons staff will review your body of work, check copyright for your work and determine what can be placed in Digital Commons. Email CVs to Jill Krefft jkrefft@fiu.edu.

How do I or other’s benefit from FIU’s Digital Commons?

Digital Commons is a digital archive as well as another access point for research and creative works at FIU. Each deposit receives a permanent URL that you can copy into an email, vita, or elsewhere and open at the document level. The database is easy to search and highly discoverable on the web. Faculty experience wider distribution of their works, whether previously published in a different version or newly published, as the repository provides worldwide open access.

If you want to launch an e-journal, publish an e-newsletter or a book, Digital Commons is a publishing platform that allows for many types of publications and many levels of involvement. Additional training is available for those interested in starting a new journal or other types of publications, such as newsletters or conference proceedings. 

As an author, if your deposit has downloads, you receive monthly statistics that tell number of downloads. You can also access real time usage reports about your work from your Author Dashboard. In addition you may receive email inquiries for copies of your articles where the sender might not have access to printing a PDF.

Who can contribute?

The repository is open to all faculty, staff, graduate students and affiliates of FIU. Submissions from undergraduate students will be considered on a case by case basis by the IR coordinator in conjunction with a sponsoring faculty member.

What types of materials are included in Digital Commons?

Any scholarship, creative work or work of institutional importance coming from FIU are eligible for inclusion into Digital Commons. Examples of possible content are (but not limited to):

• Working papers, conference papers, and technical reports
• Faculty-student collaborative projects
• Journals published by the FIU community
• Published articles when copyright and/or license allow
• Faculty course-related output primarily of scholarly interest
• Organizational annual reports, newsletters, founding documents etc.
• Data sets
• Books or book chapters when copyright and/or license allow
• Image collections or audiovisual materials, either primary or supplementary

What is Selected Works and how do I get my Selected Works page started?

SelectedWorks are websites where faculty can collect and organize their research and creative works. They are easy to use, customizable and provide a persistent link to faculty work.  Types of materials include publications, gray literature, unpublished works and course materials in various formats (.pdfs, mp3’s etc) Work included in Selected works provides increased visibility of faculty research since it will be indexed by google and is easily uploaded into FIU Digital Commons. To get started

What formats are supported?

Digital Commons supports the preservation of digital objects no matter what format. However, it is suggested that materials be deposited in open formats such as .PDF, HTML, JPEG, MP3, WMV etc. for ease of user accessibility and preservation purposes. There is no limit on file size, but files should be reasonably sized. Contact the Digital Commons Coordinator if you are concerned about file size or format.

What are the copyright issues related to content in the Digital Commons?

To archive material in Digital Commons you should:

• Be the copyright holder
• Be licensed by the copyright holder to distribute the work through an open access digital archive

In many cases, when a researcher publishes an article in a journal they hand over the rights to the publisher. Some publishers allow authors to retain certain rights, such as making pre/post prints available. The best way to retain rights to work published is to read the agreement closely and make appropriate changes. Download this simple form and add as an addendum. Recently publishers are much more open to allowing authors to retain rights.

In the case of multiple authors, please be sure you have the consent of all authors to include the work in Digital Commons

Do I need to inform co-authors of an intention to add items to Digital Commons?

Co-authors are should be notified of the intent to include items in the Digital Commons. They also own part of the copyright. It is the responsibility of the contributor to seek appropriate rights. See the Non-exclusive rights form for more details

Who can access items in FIU’s Digital Commons?

FIU’s Digital Commons is an Open Access repository.  In most cases, anyone can access and download content from Digital Commons, unless the author or other agreement specifically limits access to the work.