Repository Policies

Policies

Metadata Policy

for information describing items in the repository

1. Anyone may access the metadata free of charge.
2. The metadata may be re-used in any medium without prior permission for not-for-profit purposes.

Data Policy

for full-text and other full data items

1. Anyone may access full items free of charge.
2. copies of full items generally can be:
   • reproduced, displayed, or performed, and given to third parties in any format or medium, for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-profit purposes without prior permission or charge.
   provided:
   • the authors, title, and full bibliographic details are given
   • hyperlink and/or URL are given for the original metadata page
   • the content is not changed in any way
3. Full items must not be harvested by robots except transiently for full-text indexing or citation analysis
4. Full items must not be sold commercially in any format or medium without formal permission of the copyright holders.

Content Policy

for types of document & data set held

1. This is an institutional repository.
2. BEAR holds several different types of material, including those pertinent to REF 2020.
3. Papers may include:
   • unpublished pre-prints (not peer-reviewed)
   • Final peer-reviewed drafts (post-prints: see below)
   • published versions
4. Papers are individually tagged with their peer-review and publication status.
5. Principal Languages: English

Submission Policy

concerning depositors, quality, & copyright

1. Items may only be deposited by accredited members of the organisation, or their delegated agents.
2. Authors may only submit their own work for archiving.
3. The administrator only vets items for the eligibility of authors/depositors, relevance to the scope of BEAR, valid layout & format, and the exclusion of spam
4. The validity and authenticity of the content of submissions is the sole responsibility of the depositor.
5. It is the depositor?s/author?s responsibility to check and manage any embargo period to make sure their work is made freely available according to the publisher?s conditions.
6. To be eligible for REF 2020, papers must be deposited in final accepted manuscript (i.e. the version after adjustments for peer-review comment have been made) within three months of the acceptance date. This applies to all papers published after 1 April 2016. Please note: this version is sometimes called the ?Post-Print version?, but it is not the published PDF; it is the version before the publishers? typesetting and styling.
7. Any copyright violations are entirely the responsibility of the authors/depositors.
8. If BEAR receives proof of copyright violation, the relevant item will be removed subject to investigation. If the investigation does not uphold the claim, the relevant item will be reinstated.

Preservation Policy

1. Items will be retained indefinitely.
2. BEAR will try to ensure continued readability and accessibility.
   • Items will be migrated to new file formats where necessary.
   • Where possible, software emulations will be provided to access un-migrated formats.
3. BEAR regularly backs up its files according to current best practice.
4. The original bit stream is retained for all items, in addition to any upgraded formats.
5. Items may not normally be removed from BEAR.
6. Acceptable reasons for withdrawal include:
   • Proven copyright violation or plagiarism
   • Legal requirements and proven violations
   • National Security
   • Falsified research
7. Withdrawn items are not deleted per se, but are removed from public view.
8. Withdrawn items' identifiers/URLs are retained indefinitely.
9. URLs will continue to point to 'tombstone' citations, to avoid broken links and to retain item histories.
10. Changes to deposited items are not permitted.
11. Errata and corrigenda lists may be included with the original record if required.
12. If necessary, an updated version may be deposited.
In the event of BEAR being closed down, the database will be transferred to another appropriate archive.