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SOAR at Wichita State University Libraries > Quick Guide

Quick Guide

SOAR, Shocker Open Access Repository, is Wichita State University’s permanent and accessible platform to archive and preserve scholarly works, educational materials and a variety of digital documents. SOAR is a service of Wichita State University Libraries.

Members who are affiliated with Wichita State University, including faculty, staff and students are encouraged to deposit their works in SOAR.

Getting Started: Guide to submitting Files to SOAR

1. Preparing for your submission

(1) What to submit:

a. Types of Materials SOAR Accepts

Scholarly, artistic, educational and administrative materials in digital form, such as:

eBooks
Articles
Theses
Proceedings
Audio files
Images
Movies
Teaching materials
Research data
References (e.g. directories, bibliographic records, abstracts and bibliographies)
Documents (e.g. plans, annual reports), and other digital materials

For more information, go to FAQ

b. Formats SOAR Supports

SOAR can accept a variety of file formats, including Adobe PDF (.pdf), Microsoft Powerpoint (.ppt), Microsoft Excel (.xls), JPEG (.jpeg, jpg), RealAudio (.ra, ram) etc.

For a complete list of supported formats, please refer to DSpace Supported Formats. If your format is not listed on the list, it will be marked as “unknown”. Please contact the library if you have questions about a particular format.

(2) Where to submit:

a. Find a Community to Deposit

SOAR is organized by communities, within which multiple collections can be established depending on the communities’ needs. Under collections, you can deposit either single file articles, or a dataset made of several files.

The hierarchy to organize content in SOAR is shown below:

Communities (contain collections)
Collections (contain items)
Items (contain files)
Files

Digital documents normally are deposited to the community you are affiliated with. The library has created some communities and collection for demonstration purpose in the initial stage.

If you are a faculty member and would like to modify a current community and collection, or create a new community and collection to deposit your work, please contact SOAR.

If you see a community that is appropriate to archive your work, you can deposit them in two ways: Mediated Deposit or Self Deposit.

b. How to Create a SOAR Community

2. The submitting process

(1) Mediated Deposit

If you would like the library to deposit your work for you, download the submission form (it can be downloaded at SOAR homepage too). Fill out the form and provide the following information:

Your basic information: your Name (required), the department you are affiliated with (required), your status (faculty, staff or student);
The community you would like to deposit your work, and the collection you would like to contribute to;
Some document information: author (required), title (required), issue/publication date, Series, Citation, Keyword/Phrases, Note, Abstract.

Email SOAR coordinator Susan Matveyeva your filled submission form and your attached documents, and the library staff will deposit your work for you.

(2) Self Deposit (self-archiving via SOAR):

a. Register with SOAR

Click "My SOAR" on the left side of SOAR homepage, and it will bring you “Log in to SOAR” page;
If you are a new user, follow the top link to register, fill in your email address as required, and an email notification will be sent to your emailbox;
Log in your emailbox, activate your registration as instructed in the email.

b. Authorized to deposit in a community and collection

After registration, you need to get authorization to be able to deposit works in a community or a collection. Send an email to SOAR, with description of your files and the community and collection you would like to deposit your work.
Library staff will check your information and add your name to the appropriate community and collection you have requested.

c. Deposit your files

After receiving authorization confirmation from the library via email, go to "My SOAR" on the left side of the SOAR homepage;
Log in to "My SOAR" and click on the top left bar “Start a New Submission”;
Select the collection from the drop-down list, click “next”, and you will go through the submitting process as guided:

Describe your documents:

Fill in some basic information about your documents:

Authors
Title (required)
Series/report no. (if any)

And select from the drop-down list for:

Identifiers (ISSN, ISBN etc.)
Type (Animation, Article, Book, Book chapter, Dataset, Learing object etc.)
Language.

Provide further information about your documents:

Subject keywords
Abstract
Sponsors
Description (or comments)

Upload files;
Verify your information;
Grant DSpace Distribution License.

Complete submitting.