Scholarly Impact & Repositories

What Librarians Need from Faculty Authors Who are Submitting for Publication

Librarians Julia Pluta and Stephanie Hatfield will be handling postings to SSRN and the Institutional Repository. They will share information and work together to coordinate information for the two sites. Generally, Julia will handle SSRN and Stephanie will handle the Institutional Repository.

At Time of Submission

• As a general rule, for student-edited journals and law reviews, you can post your submission draft of your article on repositories.
• For commercial or peer-reviewed journals, they may require you to take down any drafts in the Institutional Repository or SSRN once you enter the acceptance and licensing phase.
• For book chapters, generally don't put up your submission draft.

Licensing Issues

Actively negotiate for:

• A non-exclusive license for the journal, where you retain copyright. This is the ideal situation. If you assign your copyright to a journal, they own the work. If you license the work, you retain some rights. Also consider Creative Commons licensing for your article, which will provide open access for either all uses or limited uses, including non-commercial use.
• Permission to put up the published version and a PDF copy of the article (we generally can't use HeinOnline copies of PDFs).

Retain your license agreement with your submission draft on your document. Share it with librarians.

If you don't like the licensing terms, think about publishing elsewhere.  You should also look to publish in law reviews and journals that place their publications on their own institutional repository--over half the law schools do this. You will get more downloads and citations when your article is open access.  See for example, Irma Russell's article, Got Wheels - Article 2A, Standardized Rental Car Terms, Rational Inaction, and Unilateral Private Ordering, 40 Loy. L.A. L. Rev. 137 (2006) and look at the PlumX Metrics.

During the process, consider the following circumstances:

• If the journal requires an embargo period (a period before you can put up the published version of your article), let the librarians above know.  We will establish a method for calendaring when we can post the published version.
• If you can't get permission for the published version, then negotiate to post the draft you submitted to the journal. If that is denied, let Stephanie or Julia know so we can remove anything they might have posted.  We can still put up an entry in our Institutional Repository for the metadata to your work.

Note that book and chapter licenses will probably require an assignment or limit when and what you can post to the Institutional Repository or SSRN to metadata and links to purchase your works.

Abstracts, Summaries and Key Words

You should consider preparing abstracts or summaries as well as key words for your work. We have learned that having an abstract or summary at the beginning of your article improves search engine optimization and the chance the work will be cited. Tables of contents also improve the chances of citation.  It is also good practice to submit an abstract with your article to journals and law reviews.

If you haven't written an abstract or article, Julia can do it for you, but moving forward, it's better if you do it. Librarians can also come up with key words, SSRN JEL codes (limited law subjects and focused on Law & Economics) and select what they think are the appropriate ejournals on SSRN LSN Subject Matter eJournals.  But your input is requested. There are also subject sub-disciplines on the Digital Commons Network Law Commons, which our Institutional Repository will be a part of by subscribing to the Digital Commons platform. Stephanie will need to assign your work to one of those subdisciplines, but again your input is requested. Below is a screenshot of the Law Commons with a partial listing of sub-disciplines visible.

Questions & Answers

Q: After placing an item in our Institutional Repository, how long does it take for Google Scholar to index the work?

A:  Stephanie Hatfield loaded some of Paul's works to the Institutional Repository on Sunday, and on Thursday, Paul received the following Google Scholar Alert in his email about one of his works being discovered by Google Scholar:

Q: What does an article look like when uploaded to the Institutional Repository?  What is the branding like?

A: Here is an example from one of Irma Russell's works:

Q:  If my publisher won't allow me to post my article or book chapter to the Institutional Repository, can the repository or SSRN still do anything for me?

A:  Yes, with respect to the Institutional Repository, librarians can post metadata and link to your publisher site or authorized databases.  See for example one of Irma Russel's works. Follow the Link to Full Text button on the page.  With respect to SSRN, Paul has succesfully put up the metadata for one of his book chapters, but without a link. We are unsure if we can do this for articles.