Authors, see our Author FAQ

and the author release form

Frequently Asked Questions


What is Digital Commons @ New Haven?

Digital Commons @ New Haven is designed to store, showcase and share works created by members of the University of New Haven community. Search or browse the collections to find articles or links to publications created by University of New Haven faculty. For more information, see About Digital Commons @ New Haven.

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How is Digital Commons @ New Haven organized?

Digital Commons @ New Haven is organized in a hierarchy. Faculty publication collections are divided by college, then department, then series. An example of a series is the Biology Faculty Articles. This series can be found in the path College of Liberal Arts & Sciences > Biology > Faculty Publications. There are also collections of theses and dissertations under Student Works.

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How can I find things in Digital Commons @ New Haven?

There are two ways to locate materials in the repository. You can browse the collections and see all the publications of one department. From the right riderbar menu, start with the Collections link under Browse. There, you can explore all categories until you find what you’d like to see. You can also use the search box to find items by author or keyword. Ask a librarian, if you would like assistance with searching Digital Commons @ New Haven..

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Are these publications protected by copyright?

Most items are protected by copyright. The Comments section of each record and the cover page of each article, will give you information about the item’s status. Read this information carefully before sharing an item. Items that appear in full-text have been cleared either because they have an open access status, or because of the publisher’s policy or permission which allows posting to the IR. This permission may only allow reading of the item, not distribution. But if you are not allowed to distribute or repost an item’s full-text, you may be able to link to it in your documents or through social media. Digital Commons provides links to Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google Plus and other resources so you can share links. Contact the Access Services Manager for help with this.

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What are the benefits of Digital Commons @ New Haven?

Digital Commons @ New Haven has many benefits for the University of New Haven community. First, we can easily find research published by our scholars. This saves many steps over searching databases and possibly hitting a paywall.

Second, the repository gives us a bird's-eye view of the work our scholars are doing. This will facilitate interdisciplinary collaboration as well as collaboration within departments.

Third, Digital Commons @ New Haven is a vehicle for open access, a movement in scholarly communication that promotes sharing documents peer-to-peer and with the public. Many funders, including U.S. government agencies, require the results of research they fund to be posted publicly. If you are doing research under a grant, check your contract to see if posting in your institutional repository fulfills this requirement.

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What kinds of materials are included?

Policies for Digital Commons @ New Haven have been devised by the Institutional Repository Advisory Board. The board comprises one faculty representative from each college, plus an administrator. Policies follow scholarly principles and University of New Haven practices. Currently, the repository posts faculty publications: books, book chapters and peer-reviewed articles. Later, other collections such as theses and dissertations can be added.

What formats can Digital Commons @ New Haven accommodate?

The Digital Commons platform can accommodate articles, book records, links, data sets, presentations, images, audio and video files, posters and conference proceedings. It also makes it possible to publish ejournals.

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Who else is using Digital Commons?

Fairfield University, Trinity College, Yale and several other Connecticut institutions are using Digital Commons. They have about 150 subscribers worldwide. You can see the list of customers and link to their repositories through the Digital Commons site at Digital Commons Subscriber Gallery.

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How can I learn more about Digital Commons, Open Access and related topics?

See About Digital Commons @ New Haven

Visit our Digital Commons guide

Visit the Digital Commons website

For assistance please contact:
Amber Montano, Access Services Manager, or (203) 479-4197
Whitney Roberts, Administrative Coordinator II,
Evelina Yim, Administrative Coordinator II,

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