About the Repository

The UConn Library's mission is to inspire groundbreaking research and advance learning, teaching, and entrepreneurial thinking at our flagship university and beyond. To fulfill this mission, the UConn Library provides open access to the diverse ideas, research, and creativity through DigitalCommons@UConn. By sharing UConn's scholarly, educational and creative output through our institutional repository, the UConn Library is part of the Open Access movement, a worldwide undertaking that aspires to make information freely accessible to all members of society. By embracing this movement and philosophy, the UConn Library aims to become the Inspirational Hub and Scholarly Engine for the University of Connecticut.

DigitalCommons@UConn is the institutional repository (IR) of the University of Connecticut's intellectual output of their faculty, staff, and students. It can accommodate virtually any publication, presentation, or production in electronic format. DigitalCommons@UConn represents a way for the UConn community to organize, store, preserve and share their research in a single unified location. Individual faculty and students, as well as, Departments, Institutes and Centers can share their working papers, conference papers, presentations, Open Educational Resources (OER), copies of published articles (through self-archiving their pre- or post-prints or Open Access (OA) articles), and many other works.

Furthermore, DigitalCommons@UConn supports the publication of peer-reviewed OA journals through bepress' Digital Commons software platform. If you are interested to learn more about this service, please email . Visit our Featured Publications to access our current two titles, The Journal for Evidence-based Practice in Correctional Health and The Quiet Corner Interdisciplinary Journal.

The UConn Library is committed to offering a space where ideas, research, and resources can be shared in an open environment by being a Green OA repository. This service is made available through the Digital Commons software, licensed by the UConn Library and powered by the Berkeley Electronic Press (bepress). If you have questions about how to get started submitting your work at DigitalCommons@UConn, contact the administrator.

What is an Institutional Repository?

Institutional repositories, also known as Green OA, are a part of a larger open access movement, which aims to provide free access to research over the Internet. To learn more about the open access movement and scholarly communication issues visit the UConn Libraries' website on Scholary Communication.

What is Green OA?

Green Open Access repositories (or Green OA) refers to institutional repositories where pre-prints and post-prints can be self-archived and are made freely available. There are subject based Green OA such as arXiv or institutional like DigitalCommons@UConn. Visit Peter Suber wiki site to learn more about Open Access, Green and Gold OA.

What is Open Access?

As explained by SPARC, "Open Access is the free, immediate, online availability of research articles coupled with the rights to use these articles fully in the digital environment. Open Access ensures that anyone can access and use these results—to turn ideas into industries and breakthroughs into better lives." By sharing UConn's scholarly and educational output through our IR, the UConn Library is part of a worldwide movement that aspires to make information freely accessible to all members of society

What is Open Educational Resources?

Open Educational Resources are learning materials created by faculty worldwide who share them for free online through many repositories. The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation define OER this way: “Open Educational Resources are teaching, learning, and research resources that reside in the public domain or have been released under an intellectual property license that permits their free use and repurposing by others. OER include full courses, course materials, modules, textbooks, streaming videos, tests, software, and any other tools, materials, or techniques used to support access to knowledge.” OER provides more academic and pedagogical freedom to faculty; is flexible enough to match innovative teaching methods; and allows faculty the right to revise, adapt, and freely share learning materials. Learners everywhere access these materials for low or no cost for as long as they need them through the generous sharing of knowledge.

Copyright Information

Any author publishing work in DigitalCommons@UConn must either have copyright for the work or the permission of the copyright holder to publish in the IR. Authors retain copyright for submissions, assuming they own it. Check our Copyright Guidelines on our FAQ page. To learn more about copyright issues you can visit the UConn Library's Copyright Page.

For more information on institutional repositories and adding material, contact your library subject liaison.

To view a list of other institutional repositories using bepress technology, please visit http://digitalcommons.bepress.com/institutions.html.