Information for Contributors

About EliScholar

EliScholar is a digital publishing platform for the scholarly output of members of the Yale University community. Administered by the Yale Library, EliScholar contains materials selected by participating departments, schools, centers, and institutes at Yale. Users have access to materials in EliScholar free of charge.

EliScholar staff can be reached at .

EliScholar Policies

The purpose of EliScholar is to publicize, freely disseminate, and preserve the work of Yale scholars as part of the university’s mission to improve the world today and for future generations through outstanding research and scholarship, education, preservation, and practice. Yale Library aims to provide access to the scholarship as broadly as possible and for as long as possible.

Who Can Participate

Any Yale University research unit, department, lab, center, institute, or organization is eligible to participate. Student organizations are eligible with faculty sponsorship. If you represent a Yale unit and wish to feature your faculty or student scholarship here, please contact us at elischolar@yale.edu.

Whose Papers Can Be Included in EliScholar

Each participating unit will determine content appropriate for inclusion in its part of EliScholar (for instance, journal articles, preprints, postprints, conference papers, presentations, technical reports, working papers, lecture series, senior design papers, simulations, programs, and so forth).

While content need not be authored by Yale faculty, staff, or students for inclusion in EliScholar, there must be some Yale affiliation. Examples might be a paper from a conference sponsored by a participating unit which included both Yale-affiliated and other authors; a report collaboratively produced by Yale-affiliated and other authors; or other materials that a sponsoring Yale unit decides is appropriate for inclusion in EliScholar. Participating units can consult with Library staff to develop policies appropriate for their areas.

Appropriate Submissions

Each unit will work with the Yale Library to review guidelines on content and set policy for its part of EliScholar. Applicable copyright policies, technical feasibility (for example, content can be posted using supported format types and by referring to the file format and conversion guide), and the decision of a participating unit that the work is appropriate, are all basic criteria. EliScholar may not be used to store or transmit files that contain Social Security numbers, Protected Health Information, or information governed by federal export-control laws. Please note that Yale Library staff will not perform any editorial services or make judgements on the merits of the content. This is the responsibility of the participating unit.

Unit Agreements

Participating units agree to disseminate information about procedures and policies for EliScholar publication—including author responsibilities regarding copyright—as set forth by the Library and communicated through written documents, correspondence, and training sessions.

Removing or Updating a Work

EliScholar is a permanent scholarly repository. Once a paper is deposited, at minimum a citation to the paper will remain permanently accessible. Under special circumstances, authors may request removal of a paper, or a specific version of a paper. Authors may also provide an updated version for posting. Updates need not replace originally-posted papers. Posting updated versions alongside original versions is one way that authors can show the progress of their research, which in some fields can have pedagogical or intellectual value.

Persistent Access and Migration

The Library will provide persistent access to EliScholar content but cannot guarantee the persistent functionality of technological tools through which content is currently posted, maintained, and accessed. At its own discretion, depending on changes in the technological environment in which researchers, users, and the Library all function, tools may be replaced. The Library expects to preserve the content of EliScholar by migrating it to new technological platforms when and if the obsolescence of current technologies make it necessary to do so.

Types of Collections Supported by EliScholar

Dissertations and Theses

EliScholar acts as an access point and preservation platform for student scholarship, particularly dissertations and theses that represent the successful completion of an academic program. By housing materials in EliScholar, academic units create a complete record of student success, and student authors obtain a permalink to their works which can be shared or embedded in a CV, website, or other professional outlet.

Temporary, short-term embargoes (1-3 years) can be enabled in EliScholar at the request of the school or program who administers a collection. Embargoes allow authors to delay the public release of their thesis while they publish their research in a journal or monograph, or complete other personal projects. If a department needs to grant exceptions to the limited term embargo this must be discussed with and approved by EliScholar staff before implementation.

Peer-Reviewed Series and Journals

EliScholar can support publication of peer-reviewed series and journals, including student publications. EliScholar offers enhanced features in support of these publications, including the ability to mint DOIs, assign editors and peer reviewers to submitted content, and design custom homepages.

Conferences and Symposia

EliScholar can support publication and management of conference and symposia proceedings.

Monographs

EliScholar can host full monographs in PDF format.

Faculty Scholarship

Faculty can post preprints of their research articles and book chapters in EliScholar to fulfil policy requirements or to create broader access to their scholarship.

Copyright Policy

EliScholar contributors are responsible for adhering to the copyright policies of Yale University, which include adherence to federal copyright law (see Copyright Basics). In general, we will assume good faith on the part of repository contributors, educate our contributors on their rights and responsibilities with respect to copyright, and act quickly to remedy copyright problems if they come up.

To prevent problems with allegations of copyright infringement involving EliScholar, we will:

• Educate our users about the requirements of copyright law, copyright consideration for materials previously or subsequently posted in scholarly journals and other forums, and fair use.
• Make it clear that submissions to EliScholar should comply with Yale’s policies on copyright and applicable copyright laws.
• Require submitters to EliScholar to affirm that their submissions do not infringe copyright. (This is part of the submission process.)

For more information, please see the Yale University Copyright Policy, and Copyright resources from the Yale University Office of the General Counsel. The federal Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998 (DMCA) places certain legal requirements on database providers when there is a question of copyright infringement.

If a party makes specific allegations of copyright infringement regarding material posted in EliScholar, with sufficient information to be substantially in compliance with the DMCA notification requirements, we will:

• Forward such correspondence to
  • Yale’s designated DMCA copyright agent
  • the administrative contact for the unit under which the allegedly infringing material was posted, and
  • the authors of the allegedly infringing material
• Remind authors and unit administrators of their rights and responsibilities concerning copyright and scholarly expression.

Upon the request of Yale’s copyright agent, the unit administrator, or the authors, we will:

• Disable access to the full text of the allegedly infringing item.
• Retain the item record and metadata (with a note that the full text is not available at present). At our discretion we may choose to publicize the correspondence alleging infringement.
• Ensure that the authors and unit administrators are notified of their counter-notification rights under the DMCA.
• Restore access to the full text if such counter-notification is given.

If we discover that specific material in EliScholar is posted in infringement of copyright, but we have not received actual notice from an interested party as described above, we will:

• Report our discovery, and the reasons for our judgment that the item is infringing, to
  • the administrative contact for the unit under which the allegedly infringing material was posted, and
  • the authors of the allegedly infringing material
• Remind authors and unit administrators of their rights and responsibilities concerning copyright and scholarly expression.
• Request a warrant confirming that the material is not infringing.
• If we do not receive one in a reasonable time period, at our discretion disable access to the full text as described above.

We should not presume that authors have not obtained special permission to use copyrighted material in their submissions. Nor should we presume that academic research publication violates anti-circumvention provisions of the DMCA.

In any of the events described above, we will retain all correspondence related to the alleged or apparent infringements.

Copyright Guidelines for Authors

To deposit a work in EliScholar, you must hold the copyright to that work, or have the approval of the copyright holder to do so. If the work is also being published by a traditional publisher, you may have transferred your copyright to them as part of the publication process. You should know the copyright ownership and status of any work you plan to submit to EliScholar. Please refer to the "Copyright for Authors & Creators" guide for more information on copyright licenses, transfers, and other relevant topics. You can also reach Yale Library staff for copyright and publishing questions at . If you are submitting an article for publication but have not yet entered an agreement, consider retaining rights to your article by attaching the SPARC Addendum to your publisher's contract.

PLEASE NOTE: This document can only provide guidelines and should not be relied upon for legal advice.

Terms of Deposit

Unless otherwise noted, documents posted on EliScholar are the property of their respective authors. Authors who deposit material in EliScholar agree to the following:

I hold the copyright to this document, or have been authorized by the copyright holder(s) to upload it for distribution, and agree to permit this document to be posted in [Name of EliScholar Collection], and made available to the public in any format in perpetuity. I warrant that the posting of the work does not infringe any copyright, nor violate any proprietary rights, nor contain any libelous matter, nor invade the privacy of any person or third party, nor otherwise violate EliScholar policies.

All permission requests should be directed to the individual authors or the stated copyright holders. The Yale University Library claims no rights over the content of EliScholar.

For EliScholar to reproduce, translate and distribute your submission worldwide your agreement to the following terms is necessary. Please take a moment to read the terms of this license.

By accessing and using EliScholar, you agree to the following:

By uploading your submission, including the abstract (collectively, “your submission”) onto EliScholar, you grant to Yale University and its licensees and assigns the non-exclusive, world-wide, royalty-free right to host, transfer, display, perform, reproduce, translate and adapt your submission into any electronic media format and distribute your submission through electronic media channels now known or hereafter developed for scholarly, noncommercial purposes.

You represent that the submission is your original work, and/or that you have the right to grant the rights contained in this license. You also represent that your submission does not, to the best of your knowledge, infringe upon anyone's copyright. If the submission contains material for which you do not hold copyright, you represent that you have obtained the unrestricted permission of the copyright owner to grant Yale University the rights required by this license, and that such third-party owned material is clearly identified and acknowledged within the text or content of the submission.

IF THE SUBMISSION IS BASED UPON WORK THAT HAS BEEN SPONSORED OR SUPPORTED BY AN AGENCY OR ORGANIZATION OTHER THAN YALE UNIVERSITY, YOU REPRESENT THAT YOU HAVE FULFILLED ANY RIGHT OF REVIEW OR OTHER OBLIGATIONS REQUIRED BY SUCH CONTRACT OR AGREEMENT.

Yale University will not make any alteration, other than as allowed by this license, to your submission.

Policy last updated 6/30/26.