Deposit Agreement

1. Who can deposit to Prism?

To deposit a record into Prism you must be at least 18 years of age and you need to have an authorized Northwestern University account to access Prism.

2. Who can approve this Deposit Agreement?

To approve this Deposit Agreement, ONE of the following must be true:

• You are the copyright owner of the deposit and have permission from any other owners to make the deposit.
• The deposit is your original work, though you may no longer hold all or any of the copyright, but you do have the right or permission to make the deposit into an institutional repository.
• You are working on behalf of the copyright owner(s) and they have agreed to the deposit agreement and you have their permission to make the deposit.
• You have the permissions to make the deposit (such as through creative commons licensing) into an institutional repository.
• The deposit consists of metadata only, which is not subject to copyright restrictions. Note descriptions or abstracts are subject to copyright.
• The deposit is in the public domain or otherwise not subject to copyright restrictions.

Need help communicating with copyright owners? See our guide on communications.

3. Review the deposit for copyright issues

For any deposit to Prism, you must agree to ALL of the following:

• The deposit does not, to the best of your knowledge, infringe upon anyone's copyright.
• Any third-party owned material included in the deposit, such as graphs, images, photos, music, etc., is clearly identified and acknowledged as such.
• The deposit has no right which has been sold, mortgaged, or otherwise disposed of, and all rights are free from exclusive claims.
• Note, if the deposit has been previously published with an Open Access or creative commons license elsewhere, a similar license should be used in Prism.

Need help understanding third-party material? See our guide on copyright.

4. Review deposit for appropriate content

• Deposit does not violate laws or privacy. The deposit does not violate federal, state and local laws (e.g. HIPAA, FERPA, ITAR, Export Controls, Personal Information Protection Act of Illinois). The deposit may not contain:
  • information that could lead to the direct or indirect identification of human subjects in research projects,
  • information that could lead to the direct or indirect identification of students,
  • classified or sensitive information relevant to national security,
  • information that invades the privacy of any person or third-party
• Deposit does not violate institutional policies.
  • Northwestern’s policy on Human Research Protection Program Compliance
  • Northwestern’s Copyright Policy
  • Northwestern’s Privacy Policy (FERPA)
  • Northwestern’s Research Data: Retention, Ownership, Access
  • Northwestern’s policy on Export Controls
  • Other Northwestern policies.
• Deposit does not contain inappropriate content. The deposit may not contain:
  • information that is abusive, pornographic, discriminatory, or harassing
  • information that contains defamatory or libelous statements about any person or third-party
  • exceptions may be made for records related to the history of medicine, and cultural or intellectual heritage (please contact prism@northwestern.edu for questions)
• Fulfill requirements made by other organizations. Any obligation required by a contract or agreement with a sponsoring or supporting person or agency must be fulfilled by the depositor, such as the use of an embargo or the use of particular metadata like a publisher’s DOI.

Need help with an embargo for your deposit? See our guide on visibility and embargoes.

5. Understand Visibility of Submission

You have three options to choose from about the degree of visibility on the Web for your deposit once you decide to publish your record in Prism.

• Public Record and Public Files: This option allows anyone in the world to view the metadata for your deposit (such as the title, creators, etc.) and to view the files associated with your deposit.
• Public Record and Restricted Files: This option allows anyone in the world to view the metadata for your deposit (such as the title, creators, etc.) but the files associated with your deposit can ONLY be viewed by system administrators, users you share a link with, and if you submit your record to a community, any community administrators and members. NOTE: Even restricted metadata is made publicly available on https://commons.datacite.org/ as a requirement for assigning a DOI to a record. You may also decide if you want to apply an embargo to change the status for the files from restricted to public on a certain date.
• Restricted Record and Restricted Files: This option allows the metadata for your deposit (such as the title, creators, etc.) and the files associated with your deposit to be viewed ONLY by system administrators, users you share a link with, and if you submit your record to a community, any community administrators and members. NOTE: Even restricted metadata is made publicly available on https://commons.datacite.org/ as a requirement for assigning a DOI to a record. You may also decide if you want to apply an embargo to change the status for the metadata and the files from restricted to public on certain date.

When does the visibility go into effect?

The visibility option you choose will go into effect once you publish your record. If your record (the metadata and/or the associated files) has been published as public, any files associated with it will be viewed and used by anyone who finds them on the web.

When can you change the visibility of a record?

The person making the deposit can change the visibility of the record at any time, regardless of the record status as a draft or published. In addition, any system administrator, any person you give a link to with edit privileges, and if you submit your record to a community, any community administrator, can edit the record or change the visibility of the record.

How does visibility impact student-submitted work?

Students submitting their work (such as a thesis, dissertation, or course-related projects) to Prism waive any privacy rights granted by FERPA or privacy rights granted by any other law, policy, or regulation.

6. Understand Metadata Requirements and Licensing

You are required to provide a minimum level of metadata:

• Resource Type
• Title
• Publication Date
• Creator(s)
• Visibility

Need help understanding metadata? See our guide on metadata definitions.

Need help understanding visibility? See our guide on visibility and embargoes.

Licenses for records: Though not required, it is highly recommended that you choose a license for your record, whether you have associated files or not. Typically this is a Creative Commons license (or other license if appropriate); the license tells others how the files associated with your record can be used. Most metadata – title, creator(s), publication date, etc. – is not subject to copyright protection. However, descriptions and their subtypes (abstracts, acknowledgement, methods, series information, table of contents, and technical information) are copyrightable, and you should consider a using a license to tell others how your description can be used.

By depositing to Prism, your metadata is publicly accessible and may be openly accessed and freely reused under the CC0 waiver (except for descriptions, abstracts, acknowledgement, methods, series information, table of contents, and technical information).

Need help choosing a license for files? See our guide on choosing a license.

Enhancement of metadata. System administrators from Northwestern University or community administrators (if you deposited your record with a community) may edit or enhance the metadata of your record to improve its description and discoverability (e.g. adding links to associated publications), regardless of the record status as a draft or published, or the visibility of a published record as public or restricted in any way.

7. Understand Use and Maintenance of Your Record

• Rejection or removal of records. Northwestern University may at its discretion reject your deposit or permanently delete your record, regardless of the record status as a draft or published, or the visibility of the record as public or restricted in any way. Northwestern University is not required to make contact with the depositor or others who have permission to view or edit the record prior to removal, but Northwestern University will make an effort to do so. In addition, if you have deposited your record with a community, the community administrators may reject your deposit, remove it from a community, or permanently delete your record from the repository without contacting you. Depositors are not able to permanently delete any records.
• Misuse of your deposit. You may not hold Northwestern University responsible for any use or misuse of your deposit by any person or third parties who access the record on the repository platform. Galter Library, Northwestern University staff are not able to undertake copyright investigations on behalf of Site users. If you believe your copyright has been violated, please notify Northwestern University’s Office of General Council which is a designated agent under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (see 17 U.S.C. §512(c)(3)).
• Transformation and copies. Northwestern University may migrate, transform, or convert the record (metadata and/or associated files) to any medium or format for the purpose of preservation and/or to maintain their accessibility on the repository platform. Northwestern University may keep more than one copy of the record for purposes of security, back-up, and preservation.
• Return of the deposit. You cannot require Northwestern University to delete or otherwise return your deposit, nor can you expect Northwestern University to make edits or changes to your record (metadata and/or associated files) on your behalf. However, you may edit your record and upload new versions of your files within the original record, you may give permission to other users to edit your record, or you may make your record restricted so that it is no longer publically available.

Need help creating a new version for your original record? See our guide on versioning.

8. Understand System Access and Maintenance

• Maintenance of unpublished records. In keeping with the purpose of the repository, Northwestern University reserves the right to permanently delete records with the status of draft (i.e. unpublished records) for which we cannot determine a contact, or that were deposited over one year ago and remain unpublished.
• Maintenance of published records. While Northwestern University endeavors to maintain persistent access to and integrity of published records on the repository platform for the foreseeable future, your published record will be maintained at least five years after publication.
• System access and maintenance. While Northwestern University endeavors to provide reliable 24 hour access to users of the repository, outages may occur and Northwestern University cannot promise complete reliability or be liable for unavailability.
• Issues with corruption of files. While Northwestern University does employ file integrity checking technology it is possible that the files associated with a record may become corrupted and Northwestern University cannot be liable for such corruption.

9. Agree to Use of Third-party Service providers

Northwestern University may use certain third-party service providers to support portions of the services provided by Prism. Such third-party service providers include, but are not necessarily limited to, the provider of the data management platform service for the repository.  You acknowledge and agree that Northwestern University’s ability to provide certain services is subject to and contingent upon Northwestern University receiving the relevant services from third-party service providers.

10. Agree to the Distribution License

In order for this repository to reproduce and distribute your deposit, a distribution license must accompany each submission. By agreeing to this license, you grant to Northwestern University the non-exclusive right to copy, display, reproduce (in the same or different formats), and distribute your deposit worldwide in any medium, including but not limited to audio or video in accordance with the visibility assigned to the record by the depositor, system administrator, community administrator (if you deposited your record with a community), or users you shared a link with. No copyright transfer is involved.  

Notice of Modifications to the Deposit Agreement

Northwestern University may modify this agreement from time to time without notice to you. Any modifications to the agreement shall become effective immediately upon posting. By making use of the Repository after such modification, you are agreeing to the modified agreement.

Questions? Contact prism@northwestern.edu