North Dakota State University Digital Commons Guidelines

Purpose:
Digital Commons is an institutional repository (IR) provided by the NDSU Libraries that collects, preserves, and distributes digital material (born or created) located at or produced by the NDSU community. The Repository provides long-time storage ensuring permanency of NDSU’s scholarly works. It is mostly open access, but allows for password protected sections. Using open-source software called DSpace created at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. For more information about the technology platform, visit: http://www.DSpace.org.

The library server hosts the Repository, however input of digital objects is the responsibility of the individual community; policies regarding community collections are to be created and implement by the community.

Content Guidelines

The primary criteria for item inclusion include:

• The work must be produced, submitted or sponsored by NDSU faculty.
• The work must be education or research oriented.
• The work must be in digital form.
• The work should be complete and ready for distribution.
• The author/owner must be willing and able to grant NDSU the right to preserve and distribute the work via DSpace.
• The item must not be transitory; deposits are intended to be permanent contributions with enduring value to users of the repository.
• All entries in NDSU IR must be accompanied by an item. Metadata only submissions are not accepted by the system.
• Open formats such as PDF are encouraged for sustainable access. Other formats may be accepted but may not be preservable.
• If the work is part of a series, other works in the series should also be contributed so that DSpace can offer as full a set as possible.

NDSU Libraries reserves the right to take actions to protect the resources

Structure and organization

DSpace software organizes contents by communities, sub-communities and collections, which are structured to reflect the organization of the University.

Generally, communities are administrative units that:

• Produce research
• Have defined leader
• Have long-term stability
• Can assume responsibility for setting community policies
• Individuals may not submit items without belonging to a community

Within each community there can be unlimited number of collections.
Communities agree to:

• Arrange for submission and description of content.
• Create policies regarding content to be submitted.
• Create policies regarding optional metadata for content to be submitted.
• Make decisions about community and collection definitions and membership.
• Clear copyright for items submitted when the copyright owner is other than the author or North Dakota State University.
• Decide upon submission work flows for each collection.

Collections are distinct groupings of items representative of the communities.
Examples include:

• Finding Aids
• Teaching materials
• Publications
• Research and Professional Contributions
• Doctoral Theses
• Master Theses

Items within a collection:

• The materials that populate collections
• Can appear in multiple collections/communities
• Contains a qualified Dublin Core metadata record

Metadata Requirements

Descriptive Metadata Best Practices provides direction for creating metadata records for digitized materials that have been reformatted from an existing physical resource, such as photographs, text, audio, video, etc. The Descriptive Metadata Best Practices define commonly used Dublin Core elements used in NDSU IR.

Application of theses best practices will result in standardized records that:

• Provide detailed descriptions to inform and educate users
• Enhance online search and retrieval accuracy
• Improve resource discovery capabilities
• Improve quality control of metadata records
• Facilitate inter-institutional interoperability for multiple partnership opportunities.

All digitized items will have a descriptive metadata record. This record will be the Dublin Core record stored in NDSU IR.

For additional information on Dublin Core, please visit the following website: http://dublincore.org/documents/usageguide/elements.shtml

To ensure success in a collaborative environment where consistent description of digital resources is critical for interoperability the following Dublin Core Elements have been identified as mandatory or mandatory if applicable.  Communities and collections may opt to require additional metadata.

Copyright

For each Community and Collection, the copyright text should read:

All materials in the NDSU Digital Commons are subject to Title 17 of the U.S. Code.

All rights reserved. Copyright and other rights apply as stated in individual communities, collections, documents, or contents of the NDSU Digital Commons. Note that in many cases, specific credits must be included with each item used. Commercial use, publication, or any use other than fair use under the 1976 Copyright Act requires prior written permission from NDSU.

Scanning Specifications

These scanning specifications should be used for the majority of the items that are scanned for a NDSU Institutional Repository Community project.

Text Documents
Clean, high-contrast documents with print type

• Image File Format: PDF
• Pixel Array: 400 pixels across the long dimension
• Resolution and Bit Depth: 8-bit grayscale or 24-bit color, 150-200 PPI
• Spatial Dimensions: 100% of original

Documents with poor legibility or diffuse characters (eg. Carbon copies, Thermofax/Verifax), handwritten annotations or other markings, low inherent contrast, staining, fading, halftone illustrations, or photographs

• Image File Format: PDF
• Pixel Array: 400 pixels across the long dimension
• Resolution and Bit Depth: 8-bit grayscale or 24-bit color, 150-200 PPI
• Spatial Dimensions: 100% of original

______________________
Graphic Illustrations/Artwork
Clean, high-contrast documents with printed type

• Image File Format: JPEG
• Pixel Array: 600 pixels across the long dimension
• Resolution and Bit Depth: 8-bit grayscale or 24-bit color, 200 PPI
• Spatial Dimensions: 100% of original

Documents with poor legibility or diffuse characters (eg. Carbon copies, Thermofax/Verifax), handwritten annotations or other markings, low inherent contrast, staining, fading, halftone illustrations, or photographs

• Image File Format: JPEG
• Pixel Array: 600 pixels across the long dimension
• Resolution and Bit Depth: 8-bit grayscale or 24-bit color, 200 PPI
• Spatial Dimensions: 100% of original

______________________
Photographs – Transmissive Original (Film, Slides, and Negatives)
35 mm and medium format, up to 4×5 in.

• Image File Format: JPEG
• Pixel Array: 600 pixels across the long dimension
• Resolution and Bit Depth: 8-bit grayscale or 24-bit color, 150-200 PPI
• Spatial Dimensions: 100% of original

Equal to or larger than 4×5 in. and up to 8×10 in.

• Image File Format: JPEG
• Pixel Array: 600 pixels across the long dimension
• Resolution and Bit Depth: 8-bit grayscale or 24-bit color, 150-200 PPI
• Spatial Dimensions: 100% of original

Equal to or larger than 8×10 in.

• Image File Format: JPEG
• Pixel Array: 600 pixels across the long dimension
• Resolution and Bit Depth: 8-bit grayscale or 24-bit color, 150-200 PPI
• Spatial Dimensions: 100% of original

______________________
Photographs – Reflective Originals (Prints)
8×10 in. or smaller

• Image File Format: JPEG
• Pixel Array: 600 pixels across the long dimension
• Resolution and Bit Depth: 8-bit grayscale or 24-bit color, 150-200 PPI
• Spatial Dimensions: 100% of original

Equal to or larger than 8×10 in and up to 11×14 in.

• Image File Format: JPEG
• Pixel Array: 600 pixels across the long dimension
• Resolution and Bit Depth: 8-bit grayscale or 24-bit color, 150-200 PPI
• Spatial Dimensions: 100% of original

Equal to or larger than 11×14 in.

• Image File Format: JPEG
• Pixel Array: 600 pixels across the long dimension
• Resolution and Bit Depth: 8-bit grayscale or 24-bit color, 150-200 PPI
• Spatial Dimensions: 100% of original

For photographic prints, size measurements for determining appropriate resolution are based on the size of the image area only, excluding any borders, frames or mounts. However, in order to show that the entire record has been captured, it is good practice to capture the border area in the master scan file. In cases where a small image is mounted on a large board (particularly where large files size may be an issue) it may be desirable to scan the image area only at the appropriate resolution for its size, and then scan the entire mount at a resolution that achieves 4000 pixels across the long dimension.
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Audio Files
Analog recording—cassette, reel to reel

• File Format: Wma, mp3, AAC, AIFF
• Compression: High quality
• Bit Rate: 16-bit
• Sample Rate: 44.1 kHz
• Volume: Best possible without distortion