COVID-19 Research cIRcle Submissions Workflow

This is a user guide to help cIRcle Team members as well as UBC Librarians and Staff partnering with cIRcle to identify, request, and deposit faculty- or researcher-authored scholarly materials relevant to COVID-19 in cIRcle, UBC's digital repository. This is an evolving workflow with the aim of enlisting Librarians and/or Staff from across Library branches to participate. Current participants include staff from Woodward Library and the Scholarly Communications & Copyright Office.

Request to participate in this initiative or to make changes to the workflow for UBC recruitment purposes should be directed to Tara Stephens-Kyte, Digital Repository Librarian at cIRcle.

Questions regarding permissions, metadata, and deposit in cIRcle may be sent to the cIRcle listserv.

How to Use This Wiki

This user guide is a step-by-step workflow to provide open access to articles of relevance to COVID-19 authored by UBC faculty/researchers.

Follow the steps to:

Select materials for COVID-19 according to the listed criteria;
Set up an automatic search alert notification for new content;
Check copyright permissions;
Request author permissions/permitted article versions;
Submit the article and completed cIRcle Non-exclusive Distribution License for Deposit in cIRcle;
Send notifications to author when submission is complete;
Maintain COVID-19 Research cIRcle Content Recruitment tracking spreadsheet.

Roles and Responsibilities

cIRcle Project Lead

Coordinates with participating Librarians and Staff to ensure clear and consistent expectations, workflows, and deliverables. Where a Subject expert Liaison Librarian is not designated as supervisor, the cIRcle Project Lead oversees the work of participating Staff to ensure deliverables are met and processes are executed accurately. This position is held by Tara Stephens-Kyte, Digital Repository Librarian.

COVID-19 Content Recruiter

Identifies suitable content for inclusion in cIRcle based on established selection criteria and self-archiving permissions, requests permissions and permitted article versions from content authors, ensures self-archiving conditions are met, and sends notifications of archived content. Works closely with the cIRcle Project Lead to perform and adjust workflows as needed, and maintain cIRcle COVID-19 workflow documentation. Attends monthly strategy meetings. This role may be scoped in accordance with a person's relationship to the cIRcle Office as follows:

Outreach Only

Maintains clear and consistent communication with the cIRcle Specialist to ensure content and licenses are delivered to cIRcle for deposit. This position is held by Patricia Foster at Woodward Library. cIRcle is looking for additional partners across the Library to perform this role in other branches. Please contact Tara Stephens-Kyte for more information.

Outreach and Submitter

Performs outreach tasks listed above as well as deposits content as a trained cIRcle Submitter. Maintains clear and consistent communication with the cIRcle Specialist to ensure licenses are archived. This position is currently held by Leila Malkin, Scholarly Communications & Copyright Assistant.

cIRcle Submitter and License Management Coordinator

The cIRcle Specialist is responsible for liaising with COVID-19 Content Recruiters to ensure all items uploaded to cIRcle have an accompanying cIRcle Non-Exclusive Distribution License or equivalent permission. This position is held by Kelly Gauvin, cIRcle Digital Library Specialist.

The COVID-19 Content Recruiter sends completed cIRcle Licenses to the cIRcle Specialist via the cIRcle listserv for archiving. Those only performing outreach send the content to the listserv as well.

Recruitment Assignments (2024-5)

The interdisciplinary nature of COVID-19 scholarship in particular poses some challenges for recruitment scope. Although efforts have been made to define scope according to branch liaison areas or other groupings, it is challenging to draw clearly defined lines between recruitment areas. Current recruitment assignments are listed below; however, where there is ambiguity or clear overlap, it is strongly encouraged that Recruiters communicate with one another via email, the Additional Notes field in the tracking spreadsheet, and in monthly meetings.

Patricia Foster: Focuses on disciplines supported by Woodward Library with a concentration on Health and Medicine.

Leila Malkin: Humanities and Social Sciences fields with a concentration on Sociology and Psychology. Potential areas for expansion include Social Work and History.

TBD: Education disciplines including Kinesiology, and UBC affiliated indigenous authors.

Criteria: Selecting COVID-19 Scholarly Materials for Deposit in cIRcle

The criteria outlined below aims to define scope for this outreach initiative; however, you may need to adjust this criteria in consultation with the cIRcle Project Lead if you are struggling to find eligible content or to support specific strategies. A good resource for identifying researchers is the COVID-19 Researcher list and the COVID-19 Research Project list.

Representational Output

Assess whether the material is representative of the goals of the COVID-19 Research Content Recruitment project.

A significant portion of the item must be “about” COVID-19: To begin, you may want to focus on Researchers and topics identified by UBC https://covid19.research.ubc.ca/ It can be strategic to request multiple articles from authors currently researching COVID-19 if those publications relate to the topics addressed in their current COVID-19 Research (e.g. infectious diseases; virology, etc.). For now, subject areas for recruitment are assigned by the cIRcle Project Lead to avoid overlap.

Eligible for Self-Archiving

Version must be eligible for open access archiving: For scholarly articles, follow publisher guidelines to determine which version (Submitted Manuscript (i.e. pre-print), Author's Accepted Manuscript (i.e. post-print), or Version of Record (i.e. publisher’s version) is acceptable for archiving in university repositories. If no self-archiving version is allowed, or if we cannot obtain the required version, we cannot deposit the article to cIRcle. Please note that authors often require coaching to identify appropriate versions of articles as terminology differs across publishers. See the Adding Faculty Publications to cIRcle wiki for more resources on identifying different versions.

UBC Affiliations

Scope to UBC Faculty & Researchers: At least one author must have been affiliated with UBC at the time of publication. You may also wish to check to see if the author is already in the cIRcle repository. If so, you can include this detail in your communications and supply a URI to the item in cIRcle so they can review the item. This helps develop legitimacy of and familiarity with cIRcle, and can be an added incentive for faculty wishing to centralized access to their publications. See the section on Uniqueness below for a note about using Creative Commons licensed items to build an author's presence in cIRcle before contacting them.
Scholarly Level: Prioritize UBC Faculty, Researchers, and Postdoctoral students. UBC graduate student authors may be considered if there is a co-author with Faculty or Researcher status. In general, coursework is not eligible for inclusion in this project.

Timeliness

Scope content recruitment to materials published starting in 2020: Recruitment for this project is focused on COVID-19 related research published from 2020 on, though works on coronavirus preceded the current pandemic. In general, cIRcle recommends focusing outreach initiatives on materials published in the past three years to ensure greater success in obtaining permitted versions of articles from authors (see the Checking Copyright Permissions header below to learn more about publisher permitted versions and self-archiving).

Uniqueness

Not already in cIRcle: Articles from BioMed Central and MDPI are already added to cIRcle and so should be excluded from recruitment initiatives. Some authors also send independent deposit requests to cIRcle. Be sure to check cIRcle regularly to ensure you do not request an item that has already been archived.
Not permanent open access: Priority for this project are articles which are not currently available open access from other sources to focus our time and expertise on content that is currently behind paywalls or may have access revoked (e.g. at the end of a public health emergency). Where possible, this initiative may also help authors meet the requirements of grant-funding agencies. In these cases, the majority of these articles will be Author's Accepted Manuscripts (AM) aka postprints.

COVID-19 Research Projects

UBC maintains a COVID-19 Research response site with a list of Projects and Researchers. You can use these lists in concert with search alerts to prioritize authors/research topics for inclusion.

Open Access/Open Licensed

Content that is already CC-licensed or Open Access is the lowest priority for recruitment; however, some exceptions app

Author Not Already in cIRcle: If you aim to contact an author who does not already have content in cIRcle, consider first identifying an open access Creative Commons licensed publication that can be added to cIRcle immediately without the author having to be contacted for permission; this approach provides you with an existing item in cIRcle to reference when reaching out to an author for the first time as an added incentive to add more works to the repository. If you feel there are other strong cases for including already openly available content, please discuss with the project lead.

Inclusive or Strategic Representation: Where relevant topics or communities are underrepresented in the repository or are otherwise are candidates for focused recruitment (e.g. Indigenous authors; UBC COVID-19 Research Projects).
Not Open Licensed: By recruiting Open Access content that is not open licensed we ensure CC license terms are applied when deposited in cIRcle to facilitate sharing and re-use. Scope for this approach should focus on Inclusive or Strategic Representation principles as noted above; however, it should be noted that some Open Access publishers specifically prohibit third-party licensing and many authors do not see value in adding already open access content to a repository.

Setting Up Search Alerts

A search alert is a search string crafted for a specific database that, once saved, will e-mail an alert when new content meeting the criteria is added to that database. This step will describe generally how to pick databases, craft a search string, and set up a search alert. Google search alerts are generally not recommended at this time.

Selecting Databases

Select databases relevant to your assigned subject area(s). We recommend looking in at least two large databases; however, include as many databases as are necessary to cover the field in question.

Too broad? If you have too much content to choose from, consider focusing on journals that have published a lot of UBC faculty work over the past few years or limit your search on journals that you know have good open access policies. Consider a resource such as Scientific Journal Rankings for journal ideas to narrow your search.

Too narrow? If you struggle to identify relevant articles, consider broadening your search to general subject databases such as Web of Science or reviewing lists of published articles on author websites for relevant content.

Sociology

When looking for sociology research related to COVID-19, try searching the Proquest Sociology Collections Database or the Web of Science. Scope to authors in the UBC Department of Affiliation.

Education

When looking for education research related to COVID-19, try searching the following Education-specific EBSCO databases: Education Source, ERIC (EBSCO interface), Teacher Reference Centre. Multidisciplinary databases that are good bets for education-related research include Canadian Business & Current Affairs Database, PsycInfo (ProQuest) and Web of Science. Scope to authors in the UBC Faculty of Education.

The databases EdITLib Digital Library (LearnTechLib), ERIC (Free), Informit Indigenous Collection, International ERIC and Shamaa did not return pertinent results.

Crafting a Search String

Create a search string using the search box in your selected database. Make a search string that returns relevant content by UBC faculty contributors within your subject area (e.g. "COVID-19" and "coronavirus").

Where possible, include an affiliation parameter and/or proximity operator to the string to limit your results to UBC authors.

Consider reviewing a general guide to Advanced Search for tips if this is a new skill for you, or use the Advanced Search guide provided on most databases for information on their parameters and operators.

Health Sciences

Suggested comprehensive search strings for COVID-19 in the health sciences can be found here.

Sociology

A suggested search string for COVID-19 in a sociology database: coronavirus OR covid19 OR "covid 19" OR "covid-19" OR "wuhan virus" AND "university of british columbia" (Note: Some databases include an Author Affiliation field on the Advanced Search page where you can limit to UBC).

Education

A suggested search string for COVID-19 in an education database may generally look something like this: (coronavirus OR covid19 OR "covid 19" OR covid-19 OR "wuhan virus") AND "university of british columbia".

When creating search strings in multi-disciplinary databases, use specify education-related keywords to ensure relevance and consider limiting to specific parameters. For example, a search string for PsycInfo specifying keywords that must be present in the article's title is: TI ( coronavirus OR covid19 OR "covid 19" OR covid-19 OR "wuhan virus" ) AND TI ( education OR educator OR teacher OR school OR learning OR teaching OR classroom OR pedagogy OR students) AND "university of british columbia".

Setting up Alerts

When satisfied with the amount of relevant results returned in the search string, save the search and/or set up a search alert. The terminology is often database specific, but a link or icon saying "save search" or "create search alert" is usually found in the header or sidebar of the page. Follow instructions to create or log in to an account. Make sure to use your UBC e-mail staff address when creating your account. Most databases have a “frequency” setting for search alerts. This will set up e-mail alerts for any new results on a query at a specific time. It is recommended you set the frequency alerts to once per week.

	Tip: Revisit this step every 3 to 6 months. Tweak the searches and databases. Have an up-to-date search string and search fields to help you manage your workload and improve search result content.

Saving Citations

Search alerts may be sent to your Inbox or Citation Management Tool according to your preference for reviewing and identifying eligible articles.

Citations for eligible articles and the status of requested materials are recorded by COVID-19 Research Content Recruiters in the cIRcle COVID-19 Research Recruitment and Submissions Spreadsheet. This is a shared spreadsheet with set columns and a colour key. Recommend/requested changes to the format of the spreadsheet should be reviewed and approved by all COVID-19 Research Recruiters and in consultation with the Project Lead as needed and appropriate. Proposed changes/refinements may be communicated via email or in the monthly project meeting. When updating the spreadsheet, please review the following best practices:

COVID-19 Research Recruitment Tracking Sheet Citation Fields

IMPORTANT! DO NOT EDIT A FILTERED SPREADSHEET. Ensure you turn off any viewing filters you've applied before adding or revising any content in the spreadsheet.
Order of entry: Entries in the tracking spreadsheet are arranged from A-Z by first author's last name (refer to the Author column). Follow this alphabetical order when adding new rows for article entries.
Status: Refer to the COVID19 Colour Code tab to indicate the status of each entry. Use the appropriate status term to ensure accurate metrics. Do not record any notes in this column.
Author: If you want to use the spreadsheet to copy/paste into DSpace item records, you can enter all the author names ensuring the first one is entered as Last Name, First Name. Otherwise, you can list it as Last Name, First Name, et al.
Contact Information: Include the name of the UBC author (first name, last name) and e-mail address. If the corresponding author is not a UBC affiliate, include them as well. The corresponding author is often identified on the publisher's site--use the DOI to navigate to the published article.
Title: Enter the item title. You will use this to draft your request email.
Citation: APA style is most frequently used within this spreadsheet but there are no citation style guidelines for cIRcle. Submitters should ensure the citation itself is accurate so it can be pasted into a DSpace item record.
Publisher DOI: Enter the DOI for the publisher's version of the article. Submitters can use this to copy/paste into a DSpace item record.
Initials: As there are multiple Content Recruiters with overlapping subject areas, please record your initials to note resonsibility for each entry.
Additional Notes: If you come across content that better fits another's portfolio, you can add a note e.g. "Suggested to [name] by [name]".

Once you begin working on an eligible citation, refer to the Recording Self-Archiving Details and Permission Requests in the Tracking Spreadsheet section for data entry instructions on next steps.

Checking Copyright Permissions

Authors typically sign copyright over to publishers in exchange publication in their journal. In many cases, those journal publishers grant rights back to the author that dictate how, when, and where an author may share their article. The practice of adding an article to an institutional repository is known as "self-archiving". Once you've identified an article that meets the eligibility criteria for recruitment, the next step is identifying whether the journal permits self-archiving and, if yes, under what conditions.

Self-archiving Policies

Jisc Open Policy Finder (formerly SHERPA/RoMEO is the first stop for discovering and understanding publisher self-archiving policies. The Adding Faculty Publications to cIRcle wiki provides detailed instructions on how to identify and interpret these policies. You can also consult the user guide for more information on how to interpret OA pathway policies from their database. Other permissions checking tools which you may be interested in exploring but which are not required for this project include unpaywall.org and shareyourpaper.org. Brief overviews of this tools in practice are provided below.

If the journal's Open Policy Finder entry indicates the article may be self-archived, the next step is to identify the conditions for deposit:

Permitted Version: Which version does the publisher allow to be deposited in a repository? Most publishers will permit the authors' accepted manuscript (aka postprint) version to be deposited in a repository. Publisher versions are rarely permitted. Pre-prints may be eligible but are not considered for this project. See Understanding Article Versions for definitions.
Version Statement: Does the publisher require the item to have a version statement? If yes, what is it? This statement must be added to the article before deposit. In most cases, the Recruiter will do this on the author's behalf to increase the chances of a successful recruitment.
Embargo: An embargo is a period of time after an article's publication in which the publisher restricts the article's access to paying individuals or institutions. Is there an embargo period for this article? When will it expire? Has it already expired?
Other?: Are there other conditions of which we need to be aware? Does this publisher have requirements regarding third party/Creative Commons license?

Understanding Article Versions

Copyrighted versions of scholarly articles are generally divided into three categories: the version of record, the author's accepted manuscript, and the submitted manuscript. Terminology for version types may differ--see below for the most common terms.

Version of Record (i.e. Publisher's version) : The version of an article that has undergone final text correction and layout and is published in the journal and typically assigned a DOI. This is the version most authors will attempt to send you in error as they are generally not permitted for self-archiving in most cases.
Authors' Accepted Manuscript (i.e. Post-prints or AM) : This is the final peer-reviewed version that has been accepted for publication but has not yet undergone the publisher's final correction and layout. Significantly, these versions have passed the peer-review phase and have been edited by the author to reflect reviewers' commentary. This is the minimum version required by Tri-Agency Grant Funding Agency Policy on Publications and is the version prioritized for cIRcle deposit.
Submitted Manuscript (i.e. Pre-print or Author's Original Manuscript (AOM) is the original version initially sent to the journal for consideration. These versions have not been subject to peer review and are generally not considered eligible for this project.

For more detailed information on article versions, refer to Adding Faculty Publications to cIRcle wiki or the Author's Guide to Self-Archiving

Making Decisions Based on Copyright Permissions

Most academic journals only permit the archiving of an accepted manuscript or submitted version of the article. These versions must be acquired from the author. If the author is submitting in order to comply with the Tri-Agency Open Access Policy on Publications, only publisher version and accepted manuscript copies are acceptable. The majority of the articles you will be requesting will be accepted manuscripts and, if they were published within the last year, they will likely be under an embargo.

An embargo is a period of time after an article's publication in which the publisher restricts the article's access to paying individuals or institutions. If an article is currently under embargo, it can still be archived to cIRcle, but access to the article on the repository will be restricted until the embargo end date. Interested parties must make a special request to cIRcle in order to access the embargoed article.

Using shareyourpaper.org

Although it is not required for this project, some Recruiters like to begin their permissions search for single or bulk items using DOI in shareyourpaper.org. This tool harvests permissions metadata from various sources including cross-ref, unpaywall.org and Microsoft Academic, publisher-self-archiving policies and institutional open access policies (this information is updated daily). The web application version also indicates which format version can be archived as per the publisher/institution policy. It's primary use is for researchers to deposit in Zenodo, the repository developed by OpenAire. Though not required, this tool is a great resource for immediately identifying whether (and where) an article is already openly available before investigating specific-terms in the Jisc Open Policy Finder.

You can do one at a time manual queries or upload the bulk checker. The bulk checker operates from a Google spreadsheet and requires a Google Account. It is recommended that you use your UBC email for this account.

Register your email in the Google spreadsheet once you're set up to receive updates and get your feedback. You will need to indicate UBC as the institution, so that they can take our institutional policy into account when searching for the author. UBC's ROR ID is https://ror.org/03rmrcq20." To find permissions info for (many) individual articles, go to 'Article Permissions Checker' and put whatever you're searching for in column 'A'. Once you've generated results, copy them all and paste as values. This will stop them regenerating periodically (including when you open the sheet)." (from: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1zoNyndkJ7sXy-MvjKyLRmjo2-q7lmCyhjDZvvqam3C0/copy)

Using unpaywall.org

Although it is not required, you may consider using Unpaywall for permissions checking. Unpaywall is a service which harvests links to full-text open-access academic articles from a comprehensive variety of sources world-wide. This may include institutional repositories from universities, academic associations and government websites. Some of the open content includes author-archived open access (usually post or pre-prints) as well as articles indexed in the DOAJ, Directory of Open Access Journals. There is a Firefox browser extension that notifies users when an article is open access and freely available.

Unpaywall sourced open access articles now appear in UBC Summon as "OpenVersion". This means that any user group (UBC, UBC alumni & community users) may access the article without a CWL (Campus Wide Login). Because of OA permissions for manuscript versions the linked version may not be the final published version.

Unpaywall is integrated into Web of Science, Dimensions and Scopus (UBC doesn't currently subscribe to) as a means to enhance discoverability. Web of Science only links to peer-reviewed versions from open repositories and prefers links to publisher's version but if not available to accepted versions.

The unpaywall.org Simple Query Tool can check on the open access status of 10,000 DOIs at once. This browser tool, will email a CSV file of the results ; however, you may need to consult the schema to interpret the results. Caveat is that the article titles and authors are not necessarily captured in the CSV/Excel file. From the website" The best OA Location Object we could find for this DOI. The "best" location is determined using an algorithm that prioritizes publisher-hosted content first (eg Hybrid or Gold), then prioritizes versions closer to the version of record (PublishedVersion over AcceptedVersion), then more authoritative repositories (PubMed Central over CiteSeerX)."

Recording Self-Archiving Details and Permission Requests in the Tracking Spreadsheet

Status: Update this column as needed.
Embargo: Record whether or not the article has an embargo date with "Y" or "N." (Record as "Y" even if the embargo date has passed.) In parentheses, note the end date of the embargo. This can usually be determined by adding the embargo time period to the article's published date (For example, if an article was published on August 13, 2020 and had a 6-month embargo, the embargo end date would be February 13, 2021).
Permitted Version: Record which version is eligible for self-archiving. Most commonly this will be the author's accepted manuscript (aka postprint).
Date Contacted: Record the date you first contacted the author using DD/MM/YYYY format.
Communication Notes: Record a very brief summary of your correspondence status, along with a date. Update this as your correspondence progresses. (NB. CTRL+Enter makes a new line inside the cell.) Include any other notes for your personal reference in this section as needed.
License Received : Record receipt status of license from the author a "Y" or "N". Use "Y" for openly licensed material.
Content Received: Record receipt status of content.
Additional Notes: Use with the colour code RED to note attention is needed. Record specific question or needs in the Additional Notes field and alert the Project Lead as needed.
Initial: Update as needed to claim an entry.
Date Added: Record the date the article was added to the spreadsheet.

Requesting Author Permissions

Once you've identified articles to request, you can start crafting your email message(s). An overview of recommended elements is provided below as well as an email template. Please send any suggestions or questions regarding communications to the cIRcle Project Lead:

Crafting Your Email

Email templates are provided below. In some cases you will need to refine the email template to suit the specific author or request you are making. A list of the recommended elements including in an email are listed below:

Provide Context for the Request

Give your e-mail a descriptive subject line. Begin your request by briefly describing the initiative and what cIRcle aims to do. Once you've given the recipient some context, move on to the article request.

Corresponding Author

The Corresponding Author is typically the person who has a copy of the permitted self-archiving version. The corresponding author is usually easily identified via the DOI on the publisher's version of record via a small letter icon or other indicator. If the corresponding author is not a UBC author, ensure you CC them on the email. If there are multiple UBC authors, cc the non-corresponding UBC authors as well.

At least one co-author must fill out the license form for the article to be uploaded to the repository so it is recommended you address one person as the primary contact and include their name in the pre-populated PDF of the license to avoid confusion.

The author who fills out the form assumes license permissions responsibility on behalf of all co-authors. While the author signing the cIRcle License should make co-authors aware of their agreement to archive the article in cIRcle as per the terms of the license, this task is left to the discretion of the authors to perform and is not monitored or enforced by us.

Bundling Your Request

If you are requesting more than one article from the same author, it may be best to send only one e-mail with a numbered list of all the relevant articles (aim for 5 or less per email). For each article, include a full citation and a description of the publisher's stipulations for archiving the article (e.g. the permitted version, embargo period, date of embargo expiry if applicable).

Instructions

After listing the articles, provide the author with clear instructions on how to proceed. Attach the pre-populated PDF cIRcle License and provide instructions for completing the form and sending it to you. Use the following file naming convention for the attached License files:

LastName_FirstInitial_1-2Identifying_words_from_title_cIRcleLicense_YYYY
Multiple authors: LastName_FirstInitial_et_al_cIRcleLicense_1-2_Identifying_words_from_title_YYYY

Review the cIRcle File Naming Conventions for instructions on file name format elements.

Self-archiving Versions

Many authors need coaching on identifying the permitted self-archiving version; they frequently assume you are asking for the published version and permitted version terminology serves to add to that confusion. For this reason, you may want to include a brief description and example of the version you are asking for: "...the accepted post-peer review version without publisher formatting (i.e. Author's Accepted Manuscript)." For more information and examples regarding identifying and communicating version types, see the Adding Faculty Publications to cIRcle wiki. However you try to explain it, this process is not intuitive so we aim to use our expertise to assist authors navigating publisher requirements. You can always cc the cIRcle Project Lead on these communications for additional help or oversight.

Version Statement

Ideally there is some indication on the document of the version type. In many cases, publishers, (e.g. Wiley, Elsevier, and Taylor & Francis) will require a version statement to be included on the title page. The most common ones are included in the Adding Faculty Publications to cIRcle wiki.

Best practice is to add a version statement on behalf of authors even if a publisher doesn't require it. If you know the author or have reason to believe the extra step will not deter them from submitting, you can suggest the authors add the text themselves.

Where a publisher has not specified a version statement, use the following template:

"This is the [preprint/postprint] peer reviewed version of the following article: [FULL CITE], which has been published in final form at [Link to final article using the DOI]."

Style Guide

For consistency, please use Canadian spelling. You may also choose to use Calibri font, size 11.

Signature

Please ensure you use a modified signature for this project. This should include your name, position title, the email address you use to correspond for this project, a referral to the cIRcle website and the cIRcle Office email address circle.repository]at]ubc.ca for assistance in your absence. If you wish to maintain certain elements of your current signature, please ensure you incorporate some method of cIRcle referral for the purposes of this project to ensure contacts have continuity of service should you be absent, or discontinue working on this project.

Author Permission Request E-Mail Template

Dear [Honorific, Last Name] [et al],
I am writing on behalf of the University of British Columbia Library to request permission to deposit the author's accepted manuscript (AM) version one of your research articles in cIRcle, UBC’s institutional repository.
Since 2020, cIRcle has been actively collecting articles on COVID-19 featuring UBC authors. This item was selected from your bibliography because our search indicated it was not free to access without an online subscription to a journal or academic journal database. [Depositing in cIRcle fulfills the open access requirements of the Tri-Agency Open Access Policy on Publications for grant recipients and ensures your work is openly accessible to anyone regardless of institutional affiliation]. [Depositing your work in cIRcle under a Creative Commons License helps anyone access and share your work in an centralized open access repository regardless of institutional affilation.]
If you are interested in adding the following item to the repository, please follow the instructions below.

Requested Article
[Citation with DOI]
[Journal Name] permits archival of an article's Accepted Manuscript (AM) version in an institutional repository after a [# month] embargo] . [Your article's embargo lapsed/will lapse on YYYY-MM-DD.]

Instructions for Adding Materials to cIRcle

Step 1. Sign the cIRcle License. I have attached a pre-populated cIRcle non-Exclusive Distribution License form for the article listed below [Include the requested article in the attached license form].

Step 2. Find the author’s accepted manuscript (AAM) version of this article. This is the post-peer review version accepted for publication but prior to receiving publisher branding. View an example in cIRcle or let me know if you have any questions about identifying the correct version.

Step 3: Reply to this email. Attach the PDF license and author’s accepted manuscript version of this article and send it to me at [email address].

Step 4: cIRcle archives the article. Once I receive the license and permitted version, I will deposit it to cIRcle on your behalf. In 5-7 business days I will send you a persistent link (URI and DOI) to this item which you can use to openly share your work.

If you have any questions about this request or if there additional articles you'd like to deposit, you can respond to this email or contact the cIRcle office at circle.repository@ubc.ca
Thank you in advance for considering this request.
[Closing or sign-off e.g. Best, OR Kind Regards]
[Signature]

	Tip: If the author does not properly complete the license or sends an incorrect version, you will need to follow up and provide clearer instructions. If an author uses the Item Submission form for an embargoed article, please notify the cIRcle office immediately to request the file be deleted.

Following Up With Authors

Responses from authors can vary widely. Select scenarios with response templates are included below but it's important to always tailor your response to the specific email. Consult with the Project Lead if you have any questions about how to proceed.

Responds with Incorrect Version

Many authors find it challenging to understand or identify permitted self-archiving versions and will frequently attach the publisher's version by mistake. In this case, some coaching with additional resources is required.

Dear [Honorific, Last Name] [et al],,
Thank you very much for your response. The article version you attached appears to be the published version which is not permitted for deposit in an institutional repository without an additional fee [include link to publisher self-archiving policy].
The permitted version is the post-peer review version accepted for publication but prior to publisher formatting. See an example of the author's accepted manuscript version in cIRcle or refer to the following guide: Versions of Manuscripts.
The permitted version may be available in your publisher's submission platform:
[Insert appropriate instructions from Direct2AAM]
Once you have located the accepted manuscript version:
1. Sign the attached cIRcle non-Exclusive Distribution License form
2. E-mail a copy of the appropriate version of your article to circle.assistant@ubc.ca
Please let me know if you have any further questions/concerns. Thank you in advance for helping to make your research more visible to the world via cIRcle.
[Closing or sign-off e.g. Best, OR Kind Regards]
[Signature]

Does Not Have/Cannot Access Permitted Version

Keeping a copy of the author's accepted manuscript is not a widespread practice among authors, particularly if they are not the corresponding author. The Direct2AAM resource from OA Works provides instructions for obtaining author's accepted manuscripts (AAM) from publisher submission platforms.

Identify the correct publisher to ensure you are using the relevant instructions and be sure to adapt any language or formatting from the template to suit your particular use case. If they suggest you contact another author, for example, you can adapt the template text and Direct2AAM instructions accordingly.

Dear [Honorific, Last Name] [et al],
Thank you very much for your response. The permitted version may be available in your publisher's submission platform:
[Insert appropriate instructions from Direct2AAM]
Once you have located the accepted manuscript version:
1. Sign the attached cIRcle non-Exclusive Distribution License form
2. E-mail a copy of the appropriate version of your article to circle.assistant@ubc.ca
Please let me know if you have any further questions/concerns. Thank you in advance for helping to make your research more visible to the world via cIRcle.
[Closing or sign-off e.g. Best, OR Kind Regards]
[Signature]

No Response

If the author does not respond to the initial e-mail after 2-3 weeks, the Content Recruiter should follow up the request with a brief check-in. Reply to your own initial request with a follow-up e-mail:

Dear [Honorific, Last Name] [et al],

Dear [researcher name],
Hello again, my name is [name] from UBC Library. I am writing to follow up on my prior request to archive your article in cIRcle.
[copy citation again]
Putting the accepted manuscript version of this article (post-peer review but pre-publisher formatting) in cIRcle enables us to make your research openly available to everyone regardless of institutional affiliation.
If you are interested in archiving your articles into cIRcle:
1. Sign the attached cIRcle non-Exclusive Distribution License form
2. E-mail a copy of the appropriate version of your article to circle.assistant@ubc.ca
Please let me know if you have any further questions/concerns. Thank you in advance for helping to make your research more visible to the world via cIRcle.
Best,
[signature]

If the author does not respond to the follow-up within another 2-4 weeks, mark the item(s) as Unsuccessful in the Status column of the Tracking Sheet and make a note in Communication Notes that the Content Recruiter received no response.

Archived Submission Notification to Authors

Dear [UBC Author]
The following submission has been archived in cIRcle and assigned a persistent link:
Title : [Submission Title]
Link: [Always use the cIRcle handle e.g. http://hdl.handle.net/2429/76222]
New links take 24 hours to resolve.
Usage statistics are available by scrolling to the bottom of the item page.
Thank you for sharing your work openly in cIRcle. Reply to this email or contact the cIRcle Office at circle.repository[at]ubc.ca for assistance.
Best,
[Signature should include your position title and UBC contact information. If you are not a member of the cIRcle Office, please use a modified signature which refers back to the cIRcle website and Office for continuity]

Submission Confirmation Email Template to Outreach Only Content Recruiters

Dear [COVID-19 Content Recruiter], I'm writing to confirm that [title(s)] by [author name] has/have been archived and is/are available in cIRcle via Open Collections:[URI Link].[Please note that an embargo period has been applied in accordance with the publisher's self-archiving policies.]Please let me know if you have any questions. Thank you, [Signature]

Submitting Content to cIRcle

The Submission Process (Outreach Only)

Check that the relevant metadata is captured in the body of the cIRcle License (where applicable) (e.g., citation, publisher DOI, embargo dates, content version, etc.).
Ensure you have the publisher permitted version and any rights statements are included on the file (See for example Wiley's version statement)
Email the content and a completed cIRcle License or Creative Commons License terms to the cIRcle list serve circle.repository[at]ubc.ca . Sending the submission to the cIRcle list serve ensures the submission is tracked in the cIRcle JIRA ticketing system and ensures that any member of the cIRcle office will see the request in the event project leads are absent.
The cIRcle Specialist or assigned Submitter submits the content according to the cIRcle Submitter Guidelines (internal documentation) and the cIRcle Metadata Manual.
The cIRcle Specialist or assigned Submitter notifies the COVID-19 Content Recruiter by e-mail once the content is available in cIRcle (see template message above for reference).

Notify the content creator that the work is available in cIRcle and include the persistent link(s) (URI) as per the Archived Submission Notification to Authors
Update the article tracking spreadsheet.

Consult the checklist at the bottom of this page to ensure you've completed all the steps in the workflow.

The Submission Process (Outreach and Submitter)

Check that the relevant metadata is captured in the body of the cIRcle License (where applicable) (e.g., citation, publisher DOI, embargo dates, content version, etc.).
Ensure you have the publisher permitted version and any rights statements are included on the file (See for example Wiley's version statement)
Deposit the item(s) to the relevant collection, typically the Faculty Research & Publications collection. If you have any questions about to which collection the item should be deposited, please ask a member of the cIRcle Office.
Notify the content provider that the item(s) has/have been archived and include the relevant URI. See email template : Archived Submission Notification to Authors
Email licensing details to circle.repository[at]ubc.ca along with the URI for the archived item(s) with the following subject line: License details for archiving for [author name and/or title(s)]. Where applicable list the existing Creative Commons licensing terms or include a copy of the completed cIRcle License. The cIRcle Specialist will take the corresponding JIRA ticket and resolve the task.
Update the article tracking spreadsheet.

Consult the checklist at the bottom of this page to ensure you've completed all the steps in the workflow.

Updating the Tracking Spreadsheet: Workflow Complete

Once the URI has been received, the COVID-19 Content Recruiter updates the tracking spreadsheet:

Change the article's Status to "Archived."
In the Communication Notes field include a final dated entry confirming the article has been archived in cIRcle.
Copy and paste the cIRcle URI.

	Tip: Faculty, Researcher and Postdoctoral articles are added to the Faculty Research and Publications collection. In special cases where a work by a Non UBC affiliate has been recruited, the article is added to the UBC Community, Partners, and Alumni Publications collection.

Checklist

Checklist
Yes/No	Does the article meet the project's recruitment criteria?
	Which version of the article is permissible to submit?
Yes/No	Does the article version require any special permissions?
	If yes, what are they? (hint: Does it have an embargo? Does it need to include a specific version statement?)
Yes/No	Do you have a copy of the cIRcle Non-Exclusive Distribution License form completed by the author or have you confirmed the CC License?
Yes/No	Have you forwarded copies of the license(s) and/or article(s) to the cIRcle Specialist at circle.repository[at]ubc.ca in accordance with your assigned role?
Yes/No	If the article has been archived, have you notified the author and updated the cIRcle COVID-19 Research Recruitment and Submissions tracking spreadsheet?

Assessment Criteria

Each month, update the COVID-19 Research Recruitment Tracking spreadsheet with your own Assessment tab. Please include the following:

Number of authors contacted
Number of articles requested
Number of articles archived
Number of follow-up/interaction emails (includes all post initial request communications)

Measures of success for this project:

Rate of return: Number of articles deposited
Usage Statistics: Amount of view/download traffic for articles deposited
Relationship-building: Authors submit other work; provide positive feedback
Scalability: Other Library units participate and successfully execute the workflow