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YorkSpace Procedures

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Introduction to YorkSpace's Procedures

The following procedures provide information and guidance on submitting your scholarly works to YorkSpace, accepted file types, accessibility in YorkSpace, procedures regarding withdrawals and modifications to the repository, and YorkSpace's open educational resources collections.

YorkSpace Resources

YorkSpace primarily preserves and provides access to scholarly works of the York University community. We may accept submissions authored by all members of the York University community, and from outside scholars who have projects that are closely tied to York University.  

This includes: 

  • Faculty, Emeritus, and Post Docs 
  • Visiting scholars or Outside scholars affiliated with a lab, project, or event within York University 
  • Staff 
  • Graduate  
  • Undergraduate Students

YorkSpace may accept deposits by delegates on behalf of these users. Delegates may include academic units or publishers.  

In general, York University Libraries (YUL) currently will not include research to YorkSpace from the following groups: 

  • Scholars with no affiliation to York University  
  • Former York faculty or researcher work created outside of York University 
  • Former York University Staff members 
  • Alumni 

However works from these groups may be accepted at the library’s discretion if the work is deemed to: 

  • Be of scholarly merit; 
  • Have a geographic, cultural, or historical connection to York University;
  • Align with the values and strategic priorities of YUL or York University; and
  • Not be a candidate for any other repository or preservation platform.  

Faculty, Emeritus, and PostDoc

All members under this party may submit works that adhere to the Submission Criteria using the YorkSpace Deposit Form. If you wish to submit 5 or more documents to YorkSpace, please review the YorkSpace Submission Requirements section of this webpage and schedule a consultation with YorkSpace staff members at diginit@yorku.ca.

Visiting scholars or Outside scholars affiliated with a lab or project within York University

Visiting or outside scholars affiliated with a lab, project, or event within York University should only submit work that is produced within the context of their York-affiliated lab or project. Please submit these documents, along with your York Affiliation, via the YorkSpace Deposit Form.

Staff

All members in this category may submit works related to research, academic, or work related activities. Examples include presentations, yearly reports, and/or strategic plans. If you wish to submit 5 or more documents to YorkSpace, please schedule a consultation with YorkSpace staff members at diginit@yorku.ca. 

Graduate Students

Graduate students may deposit published, peer-reviewed works without faculty sponsorship or unpublished exemplary works of scholarship with the sponsorship of a faculty member. For unpublished scholarship, please ask your faculty sponsor to email diginit@yorku.ca with a sponsorship statement along with a copy of the item you wish to deposit. All submitted items must adhere to the YorkSpace Submission Requirements section of this webpage.

Graduate Student Research Project Deposits

Your department may have a program in place to deposit Major Research Papers to YorkSpace. Please contact your Graduate Program Director for more information. 

Theses and Dissertations are automatically added to YorkSpace. Please view submission details via the eTheses and Dissertations webpage.

Undergraduate Students

Undergraduate students may deposit exemplary works of scholarship with the sponsorship of a faculty member. Please ask your faculty sponsor to email diginit@yorku.ca with a sponsorship statement along with a copy of the item you wish to deposit. Please ensure that all submitted items adhere to the YorkSpace Submission Requirements section of this webpage.

Deposit (Self-Archiving) Information and Resources

See the YorkSpace Help Resources webpage for step-by-step guidance on self archiving your work in YorkSpace.

Library Support for Depositing  

We offer a service called Mediated Deposit, which allows authors to request deposit assistance from York University Libraries for up to five articles per submission. Eligible York University community members must use the YorkSpace Mediated Deposit Service if they have one to five articles that they would like to submit to YorkSpace. Please use the YorkSpace Deposit Form for your submission. 

Please note that the Libraries can deposit more than five documents on behalf of an author; however, we will require a consultation prior to depositing these works to YorkSpace. Contact diginit@yorku.ca to request a consultation. 

Self Depositing to YorkSpace 

York University community members may request submitter access to YorkSpace, should they have more than 5 files to deposit. These files may be submitted by the author or on behalf of the author with relevant permissions. Please contact diginit@yorku.ca for submitter access. 

York University community members are defined as individuals who are affiliated with York University, as outlined above in the Submitter Criteria section of this webpage. 

In order to receive submitter access to YorkSpace, potential submitters will be required to: 

  • Attend a YorkSpace submitter training session 
  • Read the YorkSpace Procedures webpage 
  • Have their first five deposits checked by YorkSpace staff 

The Libraries have the right to revoke submitter access if materials deposited are either restricted by copyright or if the submitter has not received relevant permissions from publishers and/or copyright holders to make works openly accessible. Submitters will be required to retake YorkSpace training prior to regaining submission access.

Please email diginit@yorku.ca when you no longer require submitter access.

Submission Criteria 

  • Works submitted to YorkSpace must be either completed works of scholarship or Open Educational Resources. 
    • Some examples include: Author Accepted Manuscripts for Research Articles, Research Articles, Book Chapters, Presentation/Lecture Slides, Podcast Episodes, Artworks, Exhibition Materials, Performances, Compositions, etc. 
  • Works are accessible according to the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA) standards. Submitters are responsible for ensuring that their works are accessible. Please see the Accessibility in YorkSpace section of this webpage and the following resources to learn more about accessible formatting: 
  • All items submitted to YorkSpace adhere to copyright law and observe copyright restrictions. This means that authors must own the copyright to their own works or adhere to their publisher's self-archiving policy. 
  • All scholarly works submitted to YorkSpace have been produced while being a York University community member or a project affiliated with a lab or organized research unit at York University. YorkSpace does not accept works created while under the employment of another institution. 

Communities, Subcommunities, and Collections 

YorkSpace is structured in three separate hierarchical layers: 

  • Communities 
  • Sub-Communities 
  • Collections  

Below are the terms in which York University Libraries will create Communities, Sub-Communities, and Collections for York University community members.

Communities are the primary storage levels that house sub-communities and collections.

  • Communities are created at the Faculty level, Academic Units (i.e. Teaching Commons, York University Libraries), and for Organized Research Units. 
  • As of July 2023, Communities will no longer be created for departments, individual events or conferences, and for individual faculty members.  

Sub-Communities are secondary storage levels that are housed under Communities. 

  • Sub-Communities are created at the faculty departmental level and may also be created for conferences and/or events that are organized and hosted on a yearly basis at York University. 
  • As of July 2023, Sub-communities will no longer be created for one-off conferences hosted by York and for individual faculty members. However, the Libraries will create collections (see below) for one-off conferences. 

Collections are nested within Communities or Sub-Communities, and house digital objects.  

  • As of July 2023, the Libraries will no longer be creating collections for individual faculty members.  

Discoverability & YorkSpace's Hierarchical Structure

Please note that the hierarchical structure will not affect the discoverability of digital objects. Most items are discovered via search engines, Google Scholar, and the York University Library Catalogue. The hierarchical layers of YorkSpace act as an organizational tool for the site, rather than as a tool for discoverability.

Required Fields 

Metadata refers to the descriptive information associated with an article, such as the article title, date, and authors. 

All submissions to YorkSpace should adhere to the following descriptive standards and include the following information: 

  • Title  
    • For accessibility best practices, please ensure that the title of your submission is not in all capital letters. 
    • Incorrect: HOW TO BUILD A STRUCTURE 
    • Correct: How to build a structure; How to Build a Structure 
  • Year of Creation/Publication 
  • Author(s)

Additional Descriptive Information

Additional information may be required if you are self-archiving an author accepted manuscript to YorkSpace. Please review the self-archiving section of your copyright agreement with your publisher to determine if any additional information is required. 
 
If your submission is not in English, and you would like to include an English title, and other descriptive metadata in English (e.g., abstract, keywords), please include the translated metadata alongside your submission. 

Keywords

Keywords are optional, but highly recommended to improve discoverability of your scholarship. If you wish to include keywords, please adhere to the following rules. 

  • Ensure that the first letter of each keyword is capitalized. Do not use all capitals or all lower case letters. 
    • Incorrect: STRUCTURAL RACISM, structural racism, Structural Racism 
    • Correct: Structural racism 
  • Include a maximum of ten keywords 

Other Recommended Descriptors 

The following is a list of additional descriptive information that can be included in a YorkSpace record and may improve the discoverability of your work:   

  • an abstract or a description of the item 
  • sponsorship information 
  • International Standard Serial Number (ISSN) or International Standard Book Number (ISBN) 
  • identifiers such as a Digital Object Identifier (DOI)  

File Naming Recommendations 

The following is a set of recommendations designed to support users in creating descriptive file names.  

  • Create short but meaningful file names that reference file content 
  • To facilitate file sorting, use one of the suggested date formats: YYYY_MM_DD, YYYY-MM-DD, or  YYYYMMDD 
  • Use underscores, dashes, or “camel case” to separate terms (e.g., this_is_the_file_name; this-is-the-file-name; ThisIsTheFileName)  
  • When depositing multiple files, include file number (e.g., for three files, start with 1) 
  • When creating an updated version of a file, include a version number, date, or code to the file name (e.g., v2, v2_YYY-MM-DD) 
  • Do not use spaces and special characters (e.g., ~ ! # & @ ( ) { } [ ] ‘ “ | % $ ; ^) 

The above File Naming Recommendations section was adapted from the File Naming & Organization webpage by the University of Iowa Libraries, which is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International licence. 

YorkSpace allows users to download a variety of file types. YorkSpace, as with all other digital preservation tools provided by York University Libraries, follows guidance outlined in our Digital Preservation Policy. As per the policy, we recommend all YorkSpace users submit the recommended file types as listed below:

Document TypeRecommended File Type Recommended File Type 
Textual Documents and Theses PDF Preservation Action Plan - Theses 
Audio WAV or FLACPreservation Action Plan - Audio 
ImagesUncompressed TIF file Preservation Action Plan - Images
VideoAVI or MOVPreservation Action Plan - Video 

Please note that we still accept MP3 and MP4 files; however, we can only preserve these materials at a Bit-Stream Preservation Level. For more information on Digital Preservation best practices, see York University Libraries' Digital Preservation Policy.

Journal Article Submissions

Unsure about which article version to deposit to YorkSpace? See our YorkSpace Self-Archiving Support webpage for more information. 

Accessibility Tips for Files

York University Libraries cannot guarantee that all files available in YorkSpace are accessible for individuals with print disabilities. If you are experiencing barriers accessing a document in YorkSpace, please see the instructions below:  

Students & Faculty with Registered Accommodations  

  1. If you are a student registered with Student Accessibility Services to receive alternate formats for a print disability at York University, please contact Library Accessibility Services directly at lashelp@yorku.ca for support.   
  1. If you are a York University faculty member with registered accommodations, please contact lashelp@yorku.ca for support.  

Individuals without Registered Accommodations  

  1. If you are not registered with Student Accessibility Services or a York University faculty member without a registered accommodation, please contact diginit@yorku.ca for support.   
  1. You are not required to provide any health-related documentation to access this service.   
  1. Please note that our team can only provide accessible formats for items which are not under embargo.  

All York community members submitting works to YorkSpace are asked to format their submission in an accessible manner. Please visit the resources on Web Accessibility in Mind (WebAIM) site, including those on Word, PowerPoint, PDF, and Multimedia, as well as the University of British Columbia's, OER Accessibility Toolkit, to learn more about formatting items in an accessible manner.

Although YorkSpace is designed to be a site of long term access and preservation, York University Libraries understands that errors may occur during the YorkSpace deposit process. Please see the procedures below if you require modification or the withdrawal of your deposited YorkSpace item. 

  • Modification: To modify a YorkSpace record means to make minor changes to the item information and file type. 
  • Withdrawal: To withdraw an item from YorkSpace means to remove the item from public view. The item will not be accessible or downloadable as a result. 

Modifications 

  • Item Information: Please contact diginit@yorku.ca to request changes to the descriptive information associated with your YorkSpace record.  
  • File Modifications: Minor revisions to an item’s file to correct spelling mistakes or minor errors are allowed. However, if there are major revisions to your file, including the addition of any new content, an updated version of the file must be submitted. This updated version will be uploaded alongside the original file. The author of the item and/or the submitter must contact diginit@yorku.ca to request file modifications.  

Please note that these file modification requirements do not apply to Theses and Dissertations. See the Modifications and Withdrawals of Theses and Dissertations section of this webpage for more information.  

Withdrawals 

YorkSpace is a permanent site of preservation for scholarly works created by York University community members. Therefore, items are not normally removed from YorkSpace. York University Libraries recognizes that there may be a few instances in which withdrawal and/or complete removal of materials may be necessary. These requests will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. 

York University Libraries reserves the right to withdraw items without author notification for the following reasons: 

  • suspected violation of the terms of the YorkSpace Non-Exclusive Distribution License 
  • copyright infringement and/or plagiarism 
  • published items that have been retracted or deemed fraudulent by the original publisher 
  • verified takedown notice for a specific item has been submitted to York University Libraries 
  • item is a national, provincial, local, or individual security risk
  • item results in an invasion of privacy or reveals personal information without consent from appropriate parties 
  • item does not align with the mandate of the institutional repository (e.g., temporary questions/files for course examination, meeting agendas, etc.)   

An attempt to contact authors will be made after the item is removed, if the author’s contact information is available to the Libraries.

Modifications and Withdrawals of Theses and Dissertations 

Theses and dissertations are official university records managed by the Faculty of Graduate Studies (FGS). FGS must be contacted directly to request changes to your YorkSpace record. Once approval from FGS is communicated to the Libraries, an edit or withdrawal can be made in YorkSpace.

Delaying Publication of Your Thesis or Dissertation

Use the Request for a Delay of Publication (Embargo) on a Thesis or Dissertation form if you would like to delay access to your thesis or dissertation.

How to Contact the Faculty of Graduate Studies

If your program is based out of the following faculties, email gradtd1@yorku.ca: 

  • School of Arts, Media, Performance & Design 
  • Faculty of Education 
  • Glendon 
  • Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies (all except Professional Programs) 
  • Electrical Engineering & Computer Science (EECS-Lassonde) 

If your program is based out of the following faculties, email gradtd2@yorku.ca: 

  • Faculty of Environmental & Urban Change 
  • Faculty of Health 
  • Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies (Professional Programs only) 
  • Lassonde School of Engineering (minus EECS) 
  • Osgoode Hall Law School 
  • Schulich School of Business 
  • Faculty of Science

Modifications and Withdrawals of Open Educational Resources (OER)

Please review the Open Educational Resources (OER) section of this webpage for specific withdrawal and modification requirements for OER.

What are open educational resources (OER)? 

OER are teaching, learning, and research resources that are created with the intention of being freely available to users anywhere in the world. They are created with open licenses (typically Creative Commons licenses) that allow others to freely reuse, remix, and share the content. To learn more about OER, consult the Libraries’ OER Guide. 

Open Licenses & OER  

To be deposited into YorkSpace’s OER collections, your project should use an open licence that facilitates reusing, remixing, and sharing of the content. For example, the following Creative Commons licences produce OER: 

Please ensure your project is using one of the above licences or is using another type of open licensing model that allows others to reuse, remix, and share your content. 

OER & YorkSpace 

OER may consist of a variety of file types. YorkSpace is well suited to hosting OER produced using the following formats:  

  • Open textbooks (i.e., YorkSpace record could contain a link to the textbook and/or editable files)  
  • Open text-based content (i.e., open syllabi, assignment outlines, case studies, worksheets, etc.) 
  • Open audio files with a transcript 
  • Links to externally hosted video and H5P content (i.e., YouTube, Vimeo, York University Digital Library, eCampusOntario’s H5P library, etc.) 

Do you have questions about depositing your OER to YorkSpace? Contact diginit@yorku.ca for more help. 

Academic Innovation Fund & Virtual Learning Strategy OER

Since 2020, YorkSpace has helped to preserve OER components of Academic Innovation Fund (AIF) and York-based eCampusOntario Virtual Learning Strategy (VLS) projects. Please contact diginit@yorku.ca if you are a project lead and your team is ready to deposit the openly-licensed component of your project to YorkSpace.  

Updating OER in YorkSpace 

YorkSpace staff recognize that OER are meant to be updated, revised, and remixed continuously; therefore, it may be valuable for some projects to have their YorkSpace records updated.  

The following describes some scenarios where YorkSpace staff will modify or make changes to an OER record: 

  • Open Textbook Scenario #1: If the original creator modifies up to 20% of the textbook, the Libraries can add a link to the record that takes users to the newest edition.  
  • Open Textbook Scenario #2: If the original creator creates a completely new edition of an open textbook, a new record can be added to YorkSpace. Staff can place a tag or link on the old record pointing users to the newest edition. 
  • Open Modular Content Scenario #1: If a newer version of the modular content has been produced, the Libraries can add a link to the record that takes users to the newest version of the content. 

Please note that in all cases, the previous versions of the OER work will continue to be linked to the item record.

Contact diginit@yorku.ca if you have questions about the above information. If your updated OER project does not fit into one of the above scenarios, please contact diginit@yorku.ca. YorkSpace staff are happy to review requests on a case-by-case basis.

This webpage, created by Priscilla Carmini and Stephanie Quail, is available under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International licence.