General Embargo Policy
Electronic Theses and Dissertations Embargo Policy

General Embargo Policy

Embargoes will be generally be defined (and practiced) in the IUScholarWorks repository as a publicly available item record with restrictions on access to the bitstream (file) itself. Embargoes may be set for any time period, up to five years beyond the date of deposit. Renewal of embargoes beyond five years will not be possible-all work deposited will, at some point, become Open Access.

IUScholarWorks was originally conceived of as an Open Access repository, and we encourage researchers to consider making their publications Open Access and their data Open Data. However, we acknowledge that in some cases researchers may need to restrict access to their work. There are many reasons why some might want to embargo their deposits, which include but are not strictly limited to:

• Plans to file a patent based on research and/or data
• Plans for future publication based on research and/or data
• Research and/or data is subject to review by sponsor or grantor prior to publication
• Plans to publish research based on research and/or data and publisher has indicated that data release counts as "prior publication"
• Copyright options are still under consideration

Any research deposited with the IUScholarWorks repository must be stripped of all personally-identifiable information, in accordance with patient privacy laws and IRB restrictions. Data sensitivity is not an acceptable reason for embargo.

Any embargoed item in the repository must contain contact information for the corresponding creator/principal investigator (NOT the depositor), so that end users who wish to gain access may request it.

Metadata/citation information will be visible for embargoed items. Since search engines will be able to find these citations that do not yet include the full-text content, a note regarding who to contact shall be placed on the record. This should alleviate any frustration encountered by the public when locating these records.

IUScholarWorks is an Open Access repository, and we encourage researchers to consider making their dissertations Open Access. However, we acknowledge that in some cases researchers may need to restrict access to (or embargo) their work for a certain time period. There are a few reasons why some might want to embargo their deposits, such as plans to file a patent based on research, and/or plans for future publication based on the work.

Our embargo options are aligned with the choices available from Proquest, the company used by the University Graduate School for dissertations.

Embargo length options are:

• 6 months
• 1 year
• 2 years

The maximum embargo length is 2 years beyond the date of deposit. Extension or renewal of embargoes will not be possible-all work will, at some point, become Open Access.

For dissertations and theses collections in IUScholarWorks, when an item is embargoed, none of the associated metadata (title, author, abstract, date, etc.) will be shown. The record and item will remain completely hidden from search results until the embargo expires.

For more information on ETD embargoes, please contact iuswetd@indiana.edu.