Scholarly Communication

The Scholarly Communication division at Butler University Libraries helps scholars use, create, and publish scholarship in ways that promote open access, accessibility, and responsible dissemination of intellectual work. The Scholarly Communication division is here to help faculty, staff, and students with expertise during the traditional scholarly publishing cycle, with digital scholarship needs, or any other stages of the research timeline.

Open Access Policy

The Butler University Faculty Senate adopted an open access policy on April 28, 2020. This policy shows Butler University’s commitment to disseminating the fruits of research and scholarship as widely as possible. Open access policies increase authors’ rights, readership and citation rates for scholarly articles. The opt out provision ensures that all faculty authors have the freedom to publish in the journal of their choice.

Digital Scholarship

Interested in digital scholarship? Curious about how to incorporate technology in the classroom or in your own research? Are you in need of visualizing your data?

We’re excited to collaborate with you on your digital projects and to help you experiment with new kinds of research and learning.

Journal Hosting – Are you interested in creating a student- or faculty-run journal? We can connect you with hosting services, help with submissions, peer-review set-up, and publishing.
Exhibit Creation using Omeka
Conferences and Events – We can host conference publications, presentation materials, and provide a portal for post-conference archives.
Copyright Consultations – Working on a digital project involving many multimedia components and not sure which pieces can be shared or used because of copyright restrictions? We can explain how to use both copyrighted and Creative Commons licensed materials for your next project!
Author Rights – Our team can review your Copyright Transfer Agreement, and outline which rights are licensed back in your agreement. Want to look over your most recent contract? Maybe you’d like to reserve some rights that your journal doesn’t automatically give you?

Data Collection and Storage – We’re prepared to provide solutions for: identifying grant funder requirements, long term preservation of your data, ELN development, file formatting and metadata assignment, data publication and sharing.
Data Analysis and Visualization – Need help with choosing the right tool to visualize or analyze your data? We can help you make data more visual and easy to interpret.
Data Publication and Sharing – Did you know that there is a Butler hosted solution to sharing your data? Butler’s institutional repository is a flexible, secure, and FREE solution that will satisfy funding agency data sharing requirements!

Finding OERs – Want to start using OERs but not sure where to even look? Our office can point out useful repositories geared towards your subject area to help you find the right materials.
Choosing the right materials for your class – We can help you evaluate the efficacy of materials, how open the materials are, and how to apply them to your classroom.
Creating and remixing materials – Maybe you’re already used OERs in your classroom, but want to start creating materials in your subject area. By using software such as Pressbooks, our office can support you through the OER creation process, from start to an open, professional textbook.
PALSave Grant – (TBA)

Scanning services at the library – Interested in capturing analog and print materials in a digital format? The Library has the equipment to help you expand the use of these materials within your research or the classroom.
Project guidance – Have an idea of what you want to make digitally accessible? We can help you with the process of digitizing materials! Whether you need help with selection, cataloging, reformatting, or sharing, we can definitely help you with the steps it takes to share digital collections and items.

Digital Commons @ Butler

Increase Your Research Impact

The Digital Commons @ Butler University is a valuable way to extend the scholarly output of Butler University to include greater reach and increased circulation not only in Indiana, but throughout the country and beyond. This increased visibility, awareness, and stability benefits both content creators and Butler University as well.

Our services include:

Copyright consultations
Helping with Copyright and License Agreements from your publisher. We can help you retain the most rights possible
Checking publisher copyright permissions for your published articles
Helping identify open access journals in your field

Digital Commons ensures that a copy of your work is preserved, so you’ll never need to track down your manuscript again! Digital Commons will also provide monthly readership reports which include statistics on the number of views, downloads, and social media shares your scholarship has created!

If you would like to deposit your scholarship in Digital Commons, review our Digital Commons Checklist and email us at digitalscholarship@butler.edu. Our Scholarly Communications Team will contact you with more information and for copies of your author manuscripts.