OHSU Digital Collections

The Digital Collections Working Group (DCWG) provides broad oversight and leadership for the development of digital collections. The group establishes goals and develops recommendations that further the Library's mission, vision, and strategic plan, and collaborates with other departments. DCWG is composed of library staff members whose work focuses on the creation and maintenance of digital collections.

Current members:

OHSU’s Digital Collections serve to document the University’s scholarly output as well as the history of the institution and health science practices through a diverse array of materials. The Digital Collections Development Policy provides guidance for the overall collecting and maintenance of these digital materials and follows the Library Collection Development Policy; however, some records may be governed by collection-specific policies, such as the Historical Collections & Archives (HC&A) Collection Development Policy.

The Digital Collections and this policy are maintained under the guidance of the Digital Collections Working Group.

The Library acquires materials representing OHSU’s scholarly and creative outputs, including theses, dissertations, research posters, manuscripts and presentations. The Library also provides digitized reproductions of historical materials for preservation and access, as well as digital files from archival acquisitions.

Collections and materials selected for inclusion will meet the academic, research and documentary needs of OHSU. All materials will also follow best practices for making digital content accessible. The value and interest of the materials to OHSU and the wider community are the primary criteria for inclusion. Selection of content for inclusion is also contingent upon resources available to undertake projects. Other considerations include the condition of material, the need for digital reformatting to enable access, and whether a duplicate digital copy exists.

Historical materials are collected according to the HC&A Collection Development Policy and abide by the terms of the HC&A Donation Policy.

Submissions to Digital Collections must be authored, produced or sponsored by OHSU faculty, staff, alumni, students or volunteers, or by members of OHSU-affiliated organizations. Works created by users unaffiliated with OHSU may be deposited into Digital Collections if the work is related to an OHSU-sponsored publication, grant-funded project or event, or adheres to the HC&A Collection Development Policy.

By depositing materials to OHSU Digital Collections, authors ensure that:

• They are the sole author of the work, or they have permission from co-authors to submit the work;
• Submitted materials do not infringe upon the copyrights or intellectual property rights of others;
  • NOTE: if your work was created as part of your duties at OHSU and it might be of commercial value, please contact OHSU Technology Transfer before submission. Please see OHSU's policies around intellectual property for more information.
• Submitted materials do not violate privacy rights, laws, or understandings;
• Necessary right of review has been performed if materials were sponsored or supported by agencies or institutions external to OHSU;
• Any restricted, confidential, or potentially defamatory content has been appropriately redacted.

The OHSU Library ensures non-exclusive distribution of an author’s work, which means that authors can publish their work in other places even when the work is already on the OHSU Digital Collections platform.

Authors agree to grant the OHSU Library the following non-exclusive, royalty free, perpetual, worldwide rights and licenses:

• To publicly display, reproduce, and disseminate materials, in whole or in part;
• To make derivative works based on the materials in order to protect, preserve, and store materials, including, but not limited to, processes such as format migration or other future forms of materials synthesis, for the purposes of the maintenance and preservation of public access to the materials.

Submitting a work to the repository does not transfer ownership of the work's copyright.

All submissions are reviewed by repository managers before publication in the repository. Authors will be contacted if there are any issues with the submission. OHSU Library staff reserve the right to accept or reject submissions.

Reasons that OHSU Library staff would withdraw content include, but is not limited to, factual inaccuracy, copyright infringement, or plagiarism. Ordinarily, content will not be removed simply because the author has produced a revised version of a work.

When content is removed, the description for the work will remain as a placeholder in the archive, with its affiliated handle, or URL. A brief statement explaining the reason for withdrawal of the content will be added to the metadata.

We attempt to notify authors if their content is being removed. Digital Collections reserves the right to remove items from the repository if notified by a third party of potential copyright infringement. In such cases, we will attempt to notify authors and involved communities.

Materials may also be removed by request of the author. 

While every effort has been made to provide accurate information within the repository, OHSU cannot guarantee the accuracy of all information, especially when information is obtained through third party sources. The university is not responsible for the content, availability or accessibility of third-party content, or for the accidental/premature disclosure of confidential information and findings.