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About DSpace@MIT: Deposit your work

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Questions about DSpace@MIT? Want to set up a DSpace community at MIT?

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Establishing or Contributing to a DSpace@MIT Community

The MIT Libraries will work with MIT faculty, researchers, departments, labs, and centers to aid in adding their work to DSpace@MIT.  Our staff can provide assistance with collection setup, content description, digitization services, and upload.  

DSpace@MIT contains dozens of established communities to secure and disseminate the research and teaching output of MIT.

To inquire about establishing a new community or collection, or to become a contributor to an existing collection, please contact us through the Ask Us! form.

Adding updated versions of works

If you create updated versions of previously deposited works, you can use the Item Versioning feature to add the new versions to DSpace@MIT. Using this feature maintains the citations and bookmarks of users who read the previous version, makes the relationship between the versions clear to users, and reduces confusion about duplication.

Screenshot of an item page in DSpace@MIT for a book called A term of cummutative algebra. This page has a Notice statement at the top that links to an updated version of this work, as well as a Version History table at the bottom of the page that has links to all versions of the work with related information about each version.

Who can add new versions?

  • Original depositor of the work
  • Administrators for the collection the work is in

If you think you should be able to add a new version, but don’t see this option when you’re logged in, contact us for help at: dspace-lib@mit.edu.

What do multiple versions look like?

  • An item with multiple versions has a Version History table with links to all versions and related information.
  • Pages for older versions have a notice at the top with a link to the newest version.

Will new versions change access to old versions?

  • All versions of an item remain citable and available with the direct URL or via links in the Version History table.
  • Only most recent versions appear in DSpace@MIT search results and the list of items in each collection.

How do you add new versions?

  1. Log in - you need to be either the original depositor or an admin on collection the item is in.
  2. Navigate to the item page.
  3. From the sidebar menu Context section, choose Create version of this item.
  4. Enter a short summary of revisions or updates for the new version, then click Version button.
  5. Then click Resume to continue to forms for updating metadata and uploading new files.
  6. Continue through each page. The metadata and file upload pages will be prepopulated with values from the current item. Update them here if needed.
  7. To replace old version(s) of files, click checkbox(es) in Files Uploaded table, then click Remove selected files button.
  8. Use the File browser in the Upload File(s) section to upload the new file. Click Upload file & add another, if you need to upload multiple files. When finished, click next and finish the rest of the form.
  9. Click Complete Submission on the last page of the form and the new version is added. Note: If the collection has rules that admins must review submissions before they are public, this will also apply to new versions.

Should you keep old versions?

  • We encourage you to keep all versions publicly accessible. If readers cited previous versions of papers or used previous versions of datasets, it’s important for them to be able to continue accessing those versions, especially for reproducibility purposes.
  • If you do need to remove any previous versions from public view, use the Withdraw feature. This way a tombstone record remains, acknowledging that the previous version existed.

For more information about the Item Versioning Feature, check out the DSpace software documentation.