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Who can deposit materials into SAS-SPACE?

All members of the school, staff and students of the ten Institutes, Senate House library staff, independent scholars, members of the associated learned societies, and all who are associated with the research and research facilitation programmes of the Institutes. SAS-SPACE also houses a growing number of national and international research projects.

Individuals can deposit items – defined as individual files / documents or related groups of files – into collections, with the clearance of the relevant collection administrator and/or the SAS-SPACE Coordinator. It would be possible, for instance, for a member of an Institute giving a presentation at a conference to deposit the slides for that presentation, the data behind the corresponding research, audio and/or video clips supporting the research, a working paper about the research, and so on, all as one package to be identified with a single persistent URL to ensure reliable access.

Institutes will develop their own policies on the inclusion of excellent student work. The deposit of student work will require additional permissions from the student in accordance with University regulations.

To get started, contact your Institute’s collections administrator, or contact the SAS-SPACE Co-ordinator.

Can I restrict access to the item I deposited? If so, to whom, and for how long?

Yes, although we strongly prefer items in SAS-SPACE to be open access, we understand that situations exist (i.e. copyright reasons) whereby depositors will not be able to grant full access to materials. Items can be restricted to groups of registered users at the item, collection, or community level, with approval of the Community’s administrator.

Can I delete a file after depositing it?

Because SAS-SPACE is intended to provide a stable, well-managed, permanent archive for digital scholarly and research materials of enduring value, we strongly discourage removal of content from the system. However, individual Communities may set policies regarding the conditions under which files will be authorised for deletion, and there may be other circumstances in which it is necessary to remove an item. In such cases, please contact your collection administrator / the SAS-SPACE Co-ordinator who can assist with determining the best course of action to take.

The permanent URL of any withdrawn item will contain a record with the item’s metadata, and a note indicating that the item has been withdrawn from view (please note that the item will normally still exist in our database but will not be made available for viewing, downloading or searching). The item’s metadata will not be searchable, nor made available to search engines, but will be displayed when a citation elsewhere links directly to the item.

Can I deposit multiple related files into a single item record?

Yes, a single item can contain multiple files so that all related material can be bundled together.

Can I deposit the same item into multiple collections?

Items can exist in multiple collections, but your collection administrator must do this by mapping an item already existing in one collection to another. If there is an item that you think belongs in more than one collection, please contact your collection administrator or the SAS-SPACE Co-ordinator.

May I deposit copies of published articles?

Yes, but you must ensure that you have the correct permissions to do so. Please see Copyright for further information and guidance on previously published work.

What do I need to do to deposit work?

The first step is either to identify a collection to work with, or to create one. We encourage you to browse SAS-SPACE and then contact the SAS-SPACE Co-ordinator who can assist you with contacting the right collection administrators to gain permission to deposit your work. Alternatively, it may be possible to create a new collection if appropriate.

For more information about registering and submitting a file into the system, please see Registering and Deposit Guide.

What descriptive information (metadata) do I need to provide about the work when I deposit it?

Metadata is cataloguing information: title, author, citation information, subject keywords etc. SAS-SPACE creates a metadata record for every submission. These records are available to search engines, and are distributed to other libraries and research centres to add to their catalogues. SAS-SPACE uses a metadata format called the Dublin Core Library Application Profile (DC Lib). More information about Dublin Core is available from http://www.dublincore.org/.

To provide searchability beyond simply the full text, deposits must provide:

• Title
• Creator / Owner (typically this is also the author)
• Date of publication / creation / issue

We encourage you to describe the work as fully as possible by filling out as many fields on the deposit form as possible as this will aid the search and retrieval process.

If you would like to customise your collection’s interface so that you can ensure more than SAS-SPACE’s minimum metadata are required, please contact the SAS-SPACE Co-ordinator.

What file formats does SAS-SPACE accept?

SAS-SPACE will accept any digital file format. It cannot, however, commit to upgrading all file formats as technology changes. Generally, standard, well-documented, and/or non-proprietary formats (such as XML, HTML, PDF, and OpenDocument) will survive best. Proprietary, undocumented, or otherwise less-suitable formats can still be archived, but SAS-SPACE commits only to keeping the original file unchanged, undamaged, and accessible. Future software may not be able to open or understand that file.

For further information about format support please see Preservation?.

Is there a limit on file size?

In theory the system can handle any size file, but in practice there may be certain limitations affected by bandwidth and network limitations. Web based submission should be fine for files up to 250MB (such as very large data sets or audio video files), please contact the SAS-SPACE Co-ordinator for assistance with loading files separately.

Is there a total limit on number of files I may deposit, or the overall size of a collection?

No. There is no limit on the number of items an individual or Community can submit, and there are no limits on the size of communities or collections.

What information gets collected and stored automatically?

At the time of deposit SAS-SPACE automatically assigns

• Persistent URL for you and others to cite
• Deposit date
• Depositor's name
• File format (based on its extension)

This information is used to manage content over time. If you would like to further customise your collection interface to add more information automatically, please contact the SAS-SPACE Co-ordinator.