About W&M ScholarWorks

W&M ScholarWorksis an open-access repository and online publishing platform for W&M’s academic, and creative communities. Its purpose is to provide global, stable access to the work of or sponsored by W&M faculty, staff and students. Content hosted by W&M ScholarWorks will be widely searchable and accessible, enhancing the visibility and reach of William & Mary’s intellectual output. W&M Libraries administer W&M ScholarWorks .

Who can post to W&M ScholarWorks?
Current and retired faculty, researchers and practitioners of W&M
W&M research centers and lab groups
Current students (honors theses or articles co-authored with faculty)
Current graduate students at W&M (theses and dissertations or articles co-authored with faculty)

What can be submitted to W&M ScholarWorks? W&M ScholarWorks accepts a wide range of materials for inclusion in the repository. Content is considered suitable for W&M ScholarWorks if it represents the intellectual life of the university and has enduring value.

Content held in W&M ScholarWorks can include but is not limited to:
  • Published or otherwise publicly presented research, including:
    • Conference papers and proceedings
    • Presentations, research posters, technical reports, and working papers
    • Books and book chapters
    • Peer-reviewed journals and other series
  • Unpublished scholarly work
  • Final grant reports
  • Data sets
  • Graduate theses and dissertations
  • Undergraduate students’ honors theses
  • Creative works and performances
  • Multimedia
  • Open Education Resources
Associated Files Related files can be published as supplements with W&M ScholarWorks submissions. Viewers must have the necessary software to open your files as it isn't provided. Authors must ensure that there are no permissions issues related to use of the associated material. (Read more below under Copyright Considerations.) When possible, images, charts, tables and other items 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 as associated files. Contact the W&M ScholarWorks administrator at scholarworks@wm.edu if you have any questions or would like to propose a new submission category.

What about Copyright?
Authors must own the copyright for or have permission to post work submitted to W&M ScholarWorks. Upon submission, authors grant William &Mary a non-exclusive, perpetual right to preserve and provide access to the work digitally. Because we do not require copyright transfer to post content to W&M ScholarWorks, authors who have retained their copyright are free to reuse their posted content elsewhere. Read more about copyright and open access at W&M via our Copyright and Scholarly Communications pages Journal publishers vary in their permissions for posting reprints. If it would not violate those terms to post the reprint on the repository site, you're welcome to do so. Permissions will be indicated on your author agreement, or generally speaking may be found by searching the Sherpa/RoMEO database.

What Formats are Supported?
The following formats are recommended to increase the likelihood of future accessibility:
Images: JPEG, PNG, GIF, TIFF
Audio: MP3, WAV
Video: MP4
Data: XML, Comma-separated values, non-proprietary software files
Text: PDF, TXT (Word and RTF files are converted to PDF upon submission)

In some instances, other formats may be used for associated materials, but these are less likely to be stable through inevitable technology changes. Contact scholarworks@wm.edu to discuss possible accommodations for alternate file formats.

I’m Faculty. How do I Submit Materials to W&M ScholarWorks? Faculty and staff who would like to have their publications, presentations, and other scholarship deposited into W&M ScholarWorks can get started by sending a CV to the W&M ScholarWorks team . Non-VIMS faculty or staff may upload their works via the Submit Research page. This will allow us to begin reviewing publisher’s policies and obtain permissions where necessary to include your work on the site. Upon receipt of your CV, the W&M Libraries will work with you to collect relevant files, deposit them into the repository, and help you start a faculty SelectedWorks page.

Graduate student electronic theses and dissertations (ETDs) will be posted by W&M Libraries to W&M ScholarWorks as part of the submission through Proquest. For help with embargoes, consult Theses & Dissertations Submission

Undergraduate students must submit their Honors Thesis to W&M ScholarWorks to meet requirements to graduate with Honors.

Withdrawal or Suppression of Materials
W&M ScholarWorks is a part of the scholarly record. Once an item is deposited, a citation will always remain. Under special circumstances (e.g., proven copyright violations or legal proceedings), public access to materials may be withdrawn. Make requests to withdraw materials to scholarworks@wm.edu. No material will be withdrawn from W&M ScholarWorks without notifying the author(s) and/or submitter.

W&M ScholarWorks is optimized for open access to content. While embargoes are supported for some content for delayed release, as may be required by a publisher, the vast majority of submissions are expected to be publicly available. W&M ScholarWorks is not intended for extensive dark archiving capabilities.

If a contributor leaves the university, the material will remain; upon request, new contact information will be added to files on record. Authors may submit updated versions of posted works. An update will not replace the original posted paper. Posting updated versions alongside original versions within W&M ScholarWorks allows authors to show the progress of their research.

Digitization of Materials
Scanning printed pages is a great way to create PDF files for inclusion in the repository. W&M Libraries have public use scanners which can be used to create digital copies of your physical works. You can work with the W&M ScholarWorks team to ensure any documents are scanned using OCR (Optical Character Recognition), which is a best practice. Many software applications allow for the OCR capture of image scans. When documents are scanned this way, users see the image scan and can also search the full-text of the document. This is the preferred method for scanning documents for the repository. At this time, W&M Libraries cannot offer digitization services for all collections.

For More Information
To learn more about contributing to W&M ScholarWorks, contact us at scholarworks@wm.edu or through our library subject liaisons.