Frequently Asked Questions for Authors & Creators

What can be submitted to MavMatrix?

Many different items are appropriate to submit to the repository, as long as they relate to your work as a member of the UTA community and can be shared openly. If your item has already been published elsewhere open access and/or under a Creative Commons sharing license, you are ready to submit! You will need to provide the details of the CC license in your submission. For all others, authors and creators must submit their own work and attest that they retain the copyright to the item they are submitting, or that they have received permission from the publisher who now holds the copyright to submit to an institutional repository (please note that this must be documented). Many publishers today know that open access institutional repositories are important mechanisms to share scholarly outcomes, so they provide a variety of options such as giving authors who do not retain their copyright the permission to post a preprint (a.k.a working paper) or other version on an institutional repository. If you have questions about a specific publisher, the SHERPA RoMEO resource is a great place to search for the venue or publisher. Contact UTA Libraries Open Educational Resources & Digital Scholarship Department at library-open@listserv.uta.edu for support in determining the status of your work and its eligibility to include in the repository.

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I’m submitting my work into MavMatrix or creating an account, but I can’t find UTA in the list of institutions.

In the list of institutions, UTA can be found as “University of Texas at Arlington” without “The” in front of the name.

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I don't have electronic versions of old working papers (also known as preprints) that I'd like to include in the repository. Is it okay to scan the printed page to a PDF file?

Yes--scanning printed pages is a great way to create PDF files for inclusion in the repository. There are two ways to scan a page: using OCR (Optical Character Recognition) or scanning the page as an image. Making OCR scans requires careful proofreading and loses the original formatting of the documents. Image scans cannot be searched. The best solution takes advantage of both of these methods. Many software applications allow for the OCR capture of image scans. When documents are scanned this way, users see the image scan but search the full-text of the document. This is the preferred method for scanning documents for the repository.

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When I copy and paste abstracts into the Submit form, some formatted text reverts to plain text. What's going on?

When copying abstracts from a word processing file or a PDF file, and pasting the text into the submission form, you are taking text from an environment that supports fonts and text style changes. Because the abstract is intended to be presented on the web, text styles must be specified using HTML codes.

If submitting an abstract in HTML format, please be sure to select the corresponding option on the submission form.

The following HTML tags are recognized by the system and may be used to format an abstract (use lowercase tags):

  • <p> - paragraph
  • <br> - line break
  • <strong> - strong/bold
  • <em> - italics/emphasis
  • <sub> - subscript
  • <sup> - superscript

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How do I include accents and special characters in the abstracts and titles?

The repository software supports the worldwide character set (Unicode, utf-8). Accents, symbols, and other special characters may be copied and pasted into the abstract or title field from a word processing file or typed in directly. Windows users may also use the Character Map to insert these characters. Macintosh users may use the Character Palette (available via Edit > Special Characters in the Finder).

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How do I revise a submission?

To revise a submission that has been posted to the repository, contact the repository administrator with the new version.

If the submission has been submitted, but not yet posted, you may revise it via your My Account page:

  1. Locate the article on your My Account page, and click the title.
  2. Click Revise Submission from the list of options in the left sidebar.
  3. Enter your changes in the Revise Submission form, and click Submit at the bottom of the page to submit your changes. (You only need to modify the portion of the form that corresponds to the changes you wish to make.)

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How can I submit a multi-part file, such as multiple chapters for a book?

Combine all the sections together as one Microsoft Word file or PDF file and submit that.

To make one PDF file from multiple files, open the first PDF file, then choose Document>Insert Pages from Acrobat's menus to insert the second file (indicate it should go after the last page of the first file), and repeat for all documents. The result will be one compound PDF file which may then be submitted.

If you feel that the one large PDF file might be too large for some people to download, we suggest that you submit the consolidated file as the full text of the article, and then upload the separate chapters or sections of the document as Associated Files. These files will appear on the web page alongside the complete document. For more information about uploading associated files, see "Can I post related files..." below.

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Can I post related files (sound clips, data sets, etc.) alongside the published article?

Yes. The bepress system refers to these supplementary items as Associated Files. You will be prompted to submit Associated Files when you upload your submissions. The name of the files you upload will appear on the web site along with your short description of it. Viewers must have the necessary software to open your files; that is not provided by the bepress system.

Please be sure that there are no permissions issues related to use of the associated material. Sometimes, especially with images, you must write a letter seeking permission to use the material before it can be posted.

Also note that where possible, items such as images, charts and tables that are referenced in the document (or otherwise an integral part of the document) should be included directly in the article itself and not posted just as associated files.

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A working paper in our repository site has been published in a revised form in a journal. What should I do?

Many journals do not have any restrictions on working papers (also known as preprints) that preceded an article, especially if substantial revisions were made. You should check your author agreement with the journal to confirm that there is no problem with leaving the working paper on the site. The repository would constitute noncommercial use.

Assuming the working paper does remain posted in the repository, it is a good idea to include the citation to the published article on the cover page of the repository working paper. Please contact the repository administrator to request this change.

What email should I use to create a MavMatrix account?

Please use an email address that you will continue to have access to over time, and after graduation if you are a student. For example, don't use a UTA STAFF email address (ending in only uta.edu) unless you will continue your employment for a long period of time, or after graduation. Access to those emails terminates immediately upon leaving the organization or graduation. Student email addresses (ending in mavs.uta.edu) should have longer access periods but are not indefinite. We recommend using a personal, non-UTA email address to ensure continued access and communication.

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