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ScholarlyCommons

This guide will help you to become more familiar with Penn's institutional repository, ScholarlyCommons, and the various services provided by the ScholarlyCommons team.
Scholarly Commons is migrating to a new platform!  Please note that the repository will freeze on Tuesday, May 30, 2023, and the new site will go live in early July.  Content published on the repository before May 30th will still be available to view and download during the freeze but no new content, collections, or accounts will be added to the platform until the new site goes live. 

For updates and more information about what you can expect, please check our Migration Updates page.  If you have any questions, please feel free to email us at libraryrepository@upenn.edu.

For Individual Researchers

ScholarlyCommons contains a wide-range of collection types, each of which has its own posting policies or processes. The list below provides general guidance on how to submit research to specific collection types in the repository. Note that some collections do not allow authors to submit directly without approval. In these cases, you will be provided with an email form to contact the appropriate administrator for further instruction. For additional information about the submission process, visit our FAQs.

Please review the Instructions for Submitting page prior to submitting your work for step-by-step instructions on how to properly format your work in ScholarlyCommons.

If you would like to create a new collection in ScholarlyCommons, please review the Types of Materials page for examples and contact us to request a consultation.

Submitting Departmental Papers

  • For Penn-affiliated faculty, find the appropriate departmental papers collection from the Submit Research page and follow the instructions provided.

Submitting to Journals

  • Some journals in ScholarlyCommons accept outside submissions. To determine whether a journal is accepting submissions, select one from the Journals page and review its policies and submission instructions (normally found on the left-hand nav).

Submitting Theses, Dissertations, and Capstones

  • ScholarlyCommons houses a variety of theses, dissertations, and capstones for Penn undergraduate and graduate work. Based on departmental policy, students may be encouraged or required to submit their thesis or dissertation to ScholarlyCommons. For Penn students submitting their thesis or capstone, find the appropriate collection from the Submit Research page and follow the instructions provided.

  • For those submitting current PhD dissertations, you DO NOT need to submit directly to ScholarlyCommons. You will submit your dissertation through the ProQuest ETD administrator; ScholarlyCommons will upload dissertations as a batch every semester.

  • If you wrote a Penn PhD dissertation prior to December 2015 and would like your dissertation included in ScholarlyCommons, you may submit directly to the Publicly Accessible Penn Dissertations series, or contact us and we will do it for you.

Submitting Working Papers, Lab Reports, and Data

  • For Penn-affiliated researchers, find the appropriate working paper, lab report, or data collection from the Submit Research page and follow the instructions provided. If you have any questions or require assistance, please contact us.

For Departments, Centers, Labs, or Other Groups

If you are a department, center, lab, or other Penn group, we can set up a collection in ScholarlyCommons for your works.  Feel free to contact us with any questions. 

Image of keyboard with "share" button

Image courtesy Niklas Wikström via CC BY-NC 2.0 license.

 

Submit to ScholarlyCommons

Make your works discoverable through ScholarlyCommons, Penn's openly accessible institutional repository. Submit materials yourself, or set up a consultation to discuss your digital project. 

Contact Us

If you'd like more information about Scholarly Commons, please click on the button below to fill out a form.  We'd be happy to answer your questions or set up a consultation.

Note on Publisher Policies

Publishers often restrict what version of a paper researchers can submit to a repository like ScholarlyCommons. Some publishers, for instance, only allow posting of the preprint or postprint version of an article or book chapter, not the final published version.

  • If you are submitting to ScholarlyCommons on your own, please be mindful of your publisher's policies.

  • To get a sense of your journal publisher's policy on posting to a repository like ScholarlyCommons, search SHERPA/RoMEO, a public database of journal policies. Bear in mind that SHERPA/RoMEO is not a definitive resource on journal permissions or publisher policies. If you have questions about publisher policies, please contact us.

  • For faculty members who are new to ScholarlyCommons, we recommend starting off with assisted submission, as we will do the work of investigating publisher permissions on your behalf.

For additional information about sharing your work online and publisher policies, visit the [[Sharing Your Work guide]].