FAQs

Why should I submit my work to the repository?

There are many benefits of sharing your work using the open access repository: 

  • High Visibility 
    • Research shows that openly available scholarship is read and cited more. 
  • Accessibility 
    • Your works will be immediately, widely and easily accessible, free of charge. 
    • Your works will be preserved and accessible through technological changes. 
  • Research Impact 
    • Equal access to scholarship allows vital research and innovation to be accelerated. 
  • Collaboration 
    • Ensures the availability of your findings to community collaborators and practitioners. 
    • Depositing or making your work open access may be required by your funding agency.

Who can submit materials?

The MROAR is a digital showcase of the scholarship, research, and intellectual contributions of the MRU community. It aims to collect, preserve, promote, and provide free and open access to these resources for researchers and learners everywhere. MRU faculty, students, staff, and other employees may deposit materials in the repository. Works by visiting scholars and non-MRU affiliated authors/co-authors may also be accepted.

How do I submit materials?

Please see the submission page for details.

What type of materials can I submit?

Works produced in the course of research, scholarship, teaching, and learning are accepted in the collection. Items you'll find in the repository include:

  • Articles
  • Books/book chapters
  • Images
  • Maps
  • Musical scores
  • Presentations
  • Reviews
  • Sound recordings
  • Technical reports 
  • Theses/capstone projects
  • Unpublished manuscripts
  • University publications 
  • Videos Datasets    
  • Working papers

What file formats are accepted?

The repository is flexible, but prefers common, well-known file formats to help ensure submissions can be accessed by the widest audience and that files can be preserved. Preferred file types for common items include:  </p> <ul> <li> PDF or PDF/A for academic articles, books, chapters, proceedings, presentations, theses, etc.  </li> <li> JPG, PNG, GIF, TIFF, JP2, for basic and high resolution images.  </li> <li> MP3, WAV for audio content  </li> <li> MP4, MOV, QT, M4V, AVI, MKV, OGG for video content.  </li> <li> MS Office documents are also permitted. </li> </ul> <p> If you are interested in depositing a unique or rare file format, please contact us for assistance.

How will others find my work?

Your work will be findable and accessible by a worldwide audience. The contents of the repository are indexed by the main MRU LibrarySearch, by Google Scholar, and several other services and search engines. The repository can also be searched directly.

I’ve published an article in a journal. Can I submit my article to the repository? 

Most journal publishers will allow some form of your published article to be archived in the repository. Your publication agreement usually outlines these terms, or you can try the Open Policy Finder website to quickly find publishers’ policies regarding copyright and self-archiving. Our team can help, so please contact us and we'll do this work for you. 

To help you understand the information provided by the Open Policy Finder website, here are some helpful definitions: 

  • Submitted version: Also known as a pre-print, the submitted version is the manuscript you submitted to the journal for their consideration (example of a pre-print). It has not yet gone through the peer review process. 
  • Accepted Version: Also known as a post-print, this is the version that has been accepted for publication by the journal after the peer review process, but it hasn’t been copy edited or formatted for publication (example of a post-print). This version of the article is also known as the “final, peer-reviewed manuscript” in the Tri-Council Open Access Policy. 
  • Published Version: Also known as the final version or version of record. This version of the article has been published in print or online by the journal.

Will posting my manuscript to the repository affect my ability to publish it later? 

Sometimes journals/publishers will not publish content that has appeared online elsewhere. Such policies are constantly changing, so we encourage submitters to check with the journal or publisher about their specific policy. 

Does the repository meet funding agency requirements? 

The repository will help you meet the open access mandate set forth in many funder mandates, including Canada's Tri-Agency Open Access Policy on Publications. Please consult your funding agreement and the granting agency's policies for specific requirements. 

If you currently own the rights to your work, you can reinforce those rights through a Creative Commons license, or through standard Canadian copyright protections. In cases where rights are shared with or transferred to a publisher, your copyrights are determined by the existing agreement you have with your publisher. For more general information on Author Rights, please consult the CARL guide.

I’m not sure if I have copyright to a work that I want to deposit. Can you help? 

Students 

For more information about copyright and depositing a work, check out the Undergraduate Research FAQs on the Copyright Guide. 

Faculty

If you have an agreement with a publisher or other agency, the agreement will provide information under what terms you can deposit items. If the work includes third-party materials (e.g., images, audio, video, tables, graphs, charts, or other borrowed works), you must in some cases obtain written authorization from the copyright holder in order to reproduce this material for inclusion in the submission. If fair dealing applies, the material is usable under a Creative Commons or similar license, or the material is not protected by copyright (e.g., the work is in the public domain, the work is factual/data), permission may not be necessary. For more information about copyright and depositing work, contact the Copyright Advisor (mrucopyright@mtroyal.ca) or check out the Copyright Guide.

Do I have the right to reuse materials from third parties in my submission?

Data visualization (i.e. graphs, charts, tables, etc.) 

Data and factual information (e.g., rainfall or temperature measurements, mortality rates, population numbers, currency values, chemical structures, historical facts and dates, the number of Twitter followers someone has) are not protected by copyright. Additionally, simple and typical visualizations such as line graphs and tables (see example below) are often not creative enough to be eligible for copyright protection. These types of material may be able to be copied and used without permission, while more creative forms of visualization (e.g. photographs, audiovisual recordings, detailed diagrams and charts, etc.) are most likely protected by copyright and can be used under a user right (if applicable) or through permission from the copyright owner. 

User rights

Fair dealing (or a similar user right provision) may apply to your submission. In order to balance the rights of creators and the rights of users of copyright-protected materials, user rights (sections 29-32.2 of the Copyright Act) allow for some limited copying of works by those who do not own the copyright for the works. The most prominent of these user rights is fair dealing, which can be used for the following purposes: research, private study, education, parody, satire, criticism, review, and news reporting. If a use qualifies under fair dealing, the user does not need to ask the copyright owner for permission nor pay them royalties. To determine if fair dealing applies to the use of third party material in your submission, you can watch Opening Up Copyright’s Applying Fair Dealing module (10 mins.). The Copyright Guide will also provide additional information and resources. 

Permissions

If the work is under copyright and a user right does not apply to your use, you will have to seek permission from the copyright owner to use it in your submission. Best practices for permission seeking can be found on the Copyright guide.

Can the Copyright Advisor give me a definitive answer about whether my use of something is fair dealing or not?

While the Copyright Advisor can assist you with your fair dealing analysis, they cannot provide a "definitive" answer. The limits of what can be included under the fair dealing exception is a matter of interpretation and involves a number of factors. If there is a dispute with the copyright-holder regarding such an interpretation of fair dealing, the ultimate decision-maker would be the courts. However, in practice, for non-commercial uses (such as short excerpts included in your submission) with minimal economic impact on the copyright holder, such disputes are often resolved between the parties themselves.

How do I label third-party material in my submission?

While you likely own the copyright over your work, you may have used third party materials that you do not own. It is your responsibility to properly cite and label these materials. While standard citation styles (e.g., APA, MLA, Chicago) are applicable, certain materials may require additional information. 

Creative Commons Licensed Materials 

For Creative Commons licenses, it is required to indicate the license of which the material is available under. Creative Commons has provided best practices for attribution, though standard citation styles can still be used. The applicable license would be added at the end of the citation. 

Example: zuk0. (2014). Cat [Photograph]. Flickr. https://www.flickr.com/photos/7788419@N05/15218475961. Licensed under CC BY 2.0. 

Materials Used with Permission 

You may have received permission to use certain materials. Providing a “Used with permission” label is sufficient, unless the copyright owner has requested a specific attribution. Example: Figure 1: A pictorial representation of magpie nesting patterns in Calgary, Alberta. Used with permission.

What if I'm not granted copyright permission in time or the copyright fee being charged is too expensive? 

In cases where the third-party material is copyrightable, a user right doesn’t apply, the material is not in the public domain or under open access, then permission must be sought. 

If you have to seek permission outside of Copyright Clearance Center and permission is not granted in time for you to submit your work to the Open Access Repository (or if the copyright holder is asking for a fee that you decide not to pay), the image(s) for which clearance/permission was not received must be removed from your work before it is submitted to the Open Access Repository. In the space where the image was removed, add a statement indicating that the image was removed due to copyright restrictions and include an image description and full citation where the image can be found. Here is an example statement: 

“Figure 3 has been removed due to copyright restrictions. It was a diagram of the apparatus used in performing the experiment, showing the changes made by the investigating team. Original source: Wu, G., & Thompson, J. R. (2008). Effect of ketone bodies on dairy cattle. Biochemistry Journal, 255, 139-144.”

Can I remove materials from the repository? 

Please see the withdrawal and takedown statement for details. 

Can I restrict public access to my works? 

There are circumstances where open distribution of a work may not be possible because of privacy, ethics, or copyright concerns. If you would like to deposit materials that cannot be made public, please contact us to consult with a repository administrator.

[For students] My project involved the collection of data from human participants. Students in my course received approval for this work from the Student Human Research Ethics Committee (SHREC), rather than submitting individual ethics applications to the Human Research Ethics Board (HREB). Can I submit materials relating to this research to the repository? 

No - SHREC approved projects are not eligible for deposit. Please speak to your course instructor if you are unsure if your course project falls into this category. Individual student projects that have received ethics approval from HREB can be submitted to the repository.

 

Where can I get help?

Please contact us with any questions and concerns.