How do I get started with the Athena Commons Repository?
MUW and MSMS faculty, staff, and students should contact Fant Library at library@muw.edu if you are interested in depositing your research materials. Together and often with assistance from Nichole Bonaventure-Larson, the Collection Development Librarian, we will determine if you have the rights to deposit your research materials, or if we need to seek permission from the rightsholder in order to make the deposit. For each item submitted to the repository, the rightsholder must agree to the non-exclusive Repository agreement.
Although it seems understood that the author holds exclusive rights to the material, this is not often the case for materials previously published, such as articles and book chapters. In most cases, an author transfers copyrights to their publisher in a copyright transfer agreement. It is important to understand which rights were transferred in order to determine if the author has the right to post their work to an open access institutional repository. We can help navigate to answer this question. For students desiring to deposit their research, it may be done with the permission of their academic department.
Once the copyright situation is figured out, research may be deposited.
