Policies

  • Access & Use
    How items in Loyola eCommons may be accessed, used, downloaded, and cited.
  • Content
    What items can be deposited in Loyola eCommons.
  • Contributors
    Who may contribute items to Loyola eCommons.
  • Withdrawal
    Policies regarding the removal of materials that have been deposited in Loyola eCommons.

Access & Use

Access Policy

There are two levels of access for works deposited in Loyola eCommons:

  • Open-access: The work may be publicly viewed by anyone, regardless of institutional affiliation.
  • Loyola-only: The work may only be viewed by current students, faculty, and staff of Loyola University Chicago or persons using a workstation on-campus.

Loyola eCommons encourages contributors to make their works available for open access whenever possible. However, in some cases, it may be necessary to restrict access to the Loyola community (for example, due to a prior agreement with a publisher).

In some cases, contributors may request that their items be restricted to Loyola-only access for a defined "embargo" period, after which they will be made available as open-access. For more information on this option, please contact us.

Use Policy

Licensed under a Creative Commons "Attribution / Non-commercial / No derivative works" agreement, works deposited in Loyola eCommons are freely available for online viewing, printing and download for the purposes of non-commercial research or private study only. Users may make or use personal copies in print or electronic format as permitted under statutory provisions of copyright law as amended, provided that:

  • The author(s), title and full bibliographic details of the item are cited clearly when any part of the work is referred to verbally or in the written form
  • A hyperlink/URL to the original Loyola eCommons record for the item is included in any citation of the work
  • The content is not changed in any way
  • All files required for usage of the item are kept together with the main item file

You may not:

  • Sell the whole or any part of an item
  • Refer to any part of an item without a citation
  • Amend any item or contextualize it in a way that will impugn the contributor's reputation
  • Remove or alter the copyright statement on an item
Failure to comply with this policy may result in the infringement of the author's intellectual property rights in the work.

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Content

Statement of Collection Scope

Loyola eCommons will seek to collect, organize, preserve, and provide access to academic and scholarly content produced by members of the Loyola University Chicago community which is of demonstrable value to the larger academic community and/or to the public, reflects the intellectual and academic standards of the university, and warrants enduring access.

What Can Be Deposited

Loyola eCommons will collect, preserve, and provide access to scholarly, pedagogical, and creative materials created by the Loyola community, as well as works documenting the intellectual life of the university.

Submissions must meet the stated requirements for acceptance, and should reflect the intellectual and academic integrity of Loyola University Chicago. Research submitted must comply with policies and procedures mandated by the Office of Research, especially in regards to safety regulations, use of human subjects, and intellectual property.

To qualify for inclusion in the collection, works deposited must either:

  1. make some contribution to the body of research
  2. be an original creative work (or a facsimile thereof)
  3. comprise part of the teaching and learning process
  4. represent a significant part of the public record of the activities of the university community
  5. constitute a primary resource for further research and learning

Some examples of acceptable materials include:

  • journal articles
  • conference papers
  • presentation slides or videos
  • poster presentations
  • technical reports
  • field notes
  • data sets
  • theses and dissertations
  • maps, charts, graphs, drawings, or diagrams
  • photos and/or images
  • audio and video recordings
  • original creative works (writing, visual materials, music, choreography, etc.)
  • musical scores
  • bibliographies
  • syllabi
  • handouts
  • recorded lectures, discussions, or events
  • tests or other assessment tools
  • university publications

File Formats & Sizes

All digital file formats are accepted. Microsoft Word documents will be converted to PDF upon upload. Files of any size can be uploaded, though files larger than 25MB have the potential to cause problems with browser time-out during the upload process. For larger files, contact us.

If your materials are not in digital format, Loyola eCommons may be able to digitize and convert them for you. See Digitizing Your Materials for more information.

Copyright & Intellectual Property

When submitting materials, contributors must approve a license agreement, which grants Loyola University Chicago the non-exclusive right to reproduce and distribute the submission in electronic format. The author represents that the submission covered by this license is his/her original work and that he/she has the right to grant this license. The author further represents that the submission does not, to the best of his/her knowledge, infringe upon any third-party's copyright. See Copyright & Intellectual Property for more.

Review of Submissions

All submissions will be reviewed by Loyola eCommons staff prior to inclusion in the collection. Loyola eCommons reserves the right to make final decisions about what materials will be accepted. Once submissions are approved, they cannot be removed, except in the case of copyright violations. See Withdrawal Policy for more information.

What Cannot Be Deposited

  • Student works, other than final copies of theses and dissertations submitted for a Master's or Doctorate degree, or those appearing in an official Loyola publication
  • Items whose appearance in the collection violate a previous copyright agreement, such as an agreement between and author and a journal publisher (See Working with Publishers for more information)
  • Learning objects which might contribute to cheating or unfair advantage in academic work (such as tests still in use, answers to problem sets, etc.)

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Contributors

Contributors to Loyola eCommons may include any persons officially affiliated with Loyola University Chicago. This includes faculty, instructors, administrators, affiliated researchers, visiting scholars, and staff. Non-affiliated scholars may also contribute material if the work has been co-authored with a Loyola University Chicago author.

Student contributions are limited to final copies of theses and dissertations submitted for a Master's or Doctorate degree, or works that have been co-authored with a Loyola faculty member.

Persons who are no longer directly affiliated with the university, including emeritus professors or alumni, may also submit material, provided that the work originated, took place, or was finished within the context of the university's spheres of teaching, research, and learning.

All contributions will be reviewed by repository staff to determine if they meet the criteria for inclusion. Loyola eCommons reserves the right to make final decisions about what materials will be accepted. Users who repeatedly submit materials in violation of stated policies will be blocked from further contributions.

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Withdrawal

In general, once submissions have been approved and posted in Loyola eCommons, they cannot be removed, as they constitute a permanent record of the academic output of the Loyola University Chicago community.

However, the University Libraries acknowledge that there may be instances when it may be necessary to remove items from the repository in several cases:

  • The appearance of the item in the collection violates a previous copyright agreement, such as an agreement between and author and a journal publisher
  • Permission to deposit the material has not been properly obtained from the copyright holder(s)
  • The contributor(s) has failed to comply with the policies and procedures mandated by the Office of Research, especially in regards to safety regulations, use of human subjects, and intellectual property
  • The item may contribute to cheating or unfair advantage in academic work (such as tests still in use, answers to problem sets, etc.)
  • The item has been determined to contain false or libelous claims toward another individual or group

Works may not be withdrawn when a depositor leaves Loyola University Chicago. (The non-exclusive license agreement preserves the depositor's right to submit additional copies elsewhere.)

A withdrawal request may be initiated by the depositor or, in the case of a copyright violation, an internal or external entity. Requests for removal should be directed to and should include the item title, URL, and reasons for withdrawal.

After reviewing the request, Loyola eCommons staff will contact the requestor to let them know a work has been withdrawn, or, if withdrawal is not appropriate, to let the requestor know the reason(s) withdrawal was not completed.

If a withdrawal is requested due to an alleged copyright violation, Loyola eCommons staff will also notify the depositor. If it is found that copyright was not violated, access to the withdrawn item will be reinstated. Loyola eCommons and the University Libraries are not responsible for resolving copyright disputes.

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