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KiltHub Repository: Deposit Your Work

Getting Started with a KiltHub Deposit: A Quick Guide

Logging In: Any current CMU faculty, staff, or student can deposit scholarly materials into KiltHub with their andrew credentials. Log in by clicking the "Log in" link at the upper right corner on the KiltHub homepage. This will take you to you KiltHub account page, called "My Data" Your account page will hold all items you deposit into KiltHub. You can start a record, save it, and come back to edit it later, without publishing it.

Depositing: Click on the "Create a new item" button. This will open a new window where you can add descriptive metadata and upload your files. More detailed instructions are available in the Deposit Guide below

Organize your research products as you would want them to be cited. If you have research with multiple files, you can create a single item with many files or several items with a few related files. How you choose to group these should depend on how similar the files are and if you wish to apply the same metadata and licenses. 

Users can deposit a variety of scholarly outputs into KiltHub, including articles, white papers, conference presentations, and research data. KiltHub accounts have 20GB storage by default, if you need more, contact the KiltHub team.

Review and Acceptance: Once you submit an item for deposit, it may take several days to complete the review process. A KiltHub administrator will check your submission to verify it is complete and fits within the scope of the repository. We will not review the content of your submission. At this time your item may be published and available immediately or we will contact you for additional information.

Updates and Amendments: After your KiltHub record is published, you are able to add files and metadata to the existing record. Saving and republishing the record will send it back to the curation process where it will be rereviewed by a repository administrator. Changing a file, the title, or authors will create a new version of the record.

Help: The KiltHub team is available to answer any of your questions about the deposit process. Email us at kilthub@andrew.cmu.edu

Guidelines for Specific KiltHub Item Types

Publications in KiltHub

  • Many publishers allow authors to deposit a version of their published articles into an institutional repository like KiltHub. This is often the post-print--the accepted version of the article after peer review but before formatting and copyediting
  • Check your publisher's policies with SHERPA/RoMEO, an online database that aggregates publisher open access information. A similar (publisher sponsored) resource is How Can I Share It?
  • Other types of text-based documents, such as tech reports and preprints (aka "grey literature",) can be uploaded into KiltHub without any policy statement

Datasets in KiltHub

  • When you deposit a dataset into KiltHub, we ask that you also upload a README.txt file with your content to more fully document your research and provide support for researchers who want to reuse or cite your data. It's a little extra work, but we have provided a TEMPLATE and SAMPLE (see below) to help guide you through the process
  • Through the KiltHub web interface you will be able to upload up to 5GB of files. If you deposit is larger than that, please contact CMU Libraries Data Services, who can provide you with guidance on other methods of transfer or compressing your files.
  • For complex hierarchical data you can upload zipped or compressed files to preserve the file structure. The file names within these compressed files will preview in the KiltHub interface, but not the files themselves. We recommend grouping data into compressed files of less than 10GB to facilitate downloading

For additional help with managing your data, see the Libraries' Data Management for Research Guide, or contact the Libraries Data Services team

 

Theses and Dissertations in KiltHub

  • Depositing your thesis or dissertation into KiltHub is a process that goes through your department or program's graduate coordinator. Each program may have its own requirements and workflow. Your coordinator will ask you to fill out the KiltHub Thesis and Dissertation Submission Form (see below) and return it to them. They will submit your thesis and the form to the Libraries for inclusion to the library catalog and to KiltHub
  • You may have questions about submitting your thesis to ProQuest in addition to, or instead of, KiltHub. You'll want to discuss this with your graduate coordinator as well. Both platforms provide many of the same services, but have a major difference:
    • KiltHub is a free open access service sponsored by the University Libraries
    • ProQuest is a commercial database that will publish your dissertation online for a fee
  • More information about depositing your thesis or dissertation can be found in the Libraries' Thesis & Dissertation Guide

Software and Code in KiltHub

  • Similar to a submission of research data, you can submit and describe your software and code in KiltHub
  • KiltHub provides Apache, GPL, and MIT licenses
  • You can integrate your GitHub account with your KiltHub account
    • Configuring the auto-sync settings to ON will update your KiltHub record for each release (not each commit)
    • To push files directly from GitHub into KiltHub, you can use the Figshare upload GitHub Action
  • When you deposit software or code, we ask that you also upload a README.txt file with your content to more fully document your project and to provide support for researchers who want to reuse or cite your code. If you do not already have a README template, you can use the example below: 

Presentations and Posters in KiltHub

If you've presented at a conference, you can upload your slide deck or poster file to KiltHub

  • You can link a paper or supporting data to your presentation either within or outside of KiltHub
  • If you have a script or notes that better describes your slides or poster, you can upload that file along with the main file.

Additional KiltHub Features

Create a KiltHub Profile

In addition to your KiltHub "My Data" page where you upload your content, you have a public-facing profile page, which can be edited by clicking on the round icon at the top right, and selecting "Profile" from the menu. On this page you can add: 

  • Your name and job title--your name will display as it's entered in the Workday system. If you publish under a different name, here's where you can correct that information in KiltHub
  • A photo
  • An ORCID ID
  • A biography and field of research interest
  • Social media links--Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn
  • Any other links to publications you'd like to include

Open Licensing

While you always retain copyright to your work in the repository, KiltHub requires researchers to choose an open license, such as Creative Commons when they submit their work to the repository. KiltHub offers these license options:

Creative Commons:
  • CC BY (Attribution)
  • CC BY-NC (Attribution Non-Commercial)
  • CC BY-ND (Attribution No Derivatives)
  • CC BY-SA (Attribution Share Alike)
  • CC BY-NC-ND (Attribution Non-Commercial No Derivatives)
  • CC BY-NC-SA (Attribution Non-Commercial Share Alike)
  • CC 0 (Public Domain)
Open Source:
  • Apache 2.0
  • GPL
  • GPL 2.0+
  • GPL 3.0+
  • MIT

If your submission falls under a publisher's copyright policy, or you do not wish to choose an open license, select "In Copyright" from the dropdown list.

If you have additional questions about licensing and copyright, see the LIbraries' Copyright Guide

DOIs

  • Your KiltHub records are allocated a DataCite DOI (Digital Object Identifier) upon publication. Prior to publication, you can reserve a DOI to use in a publication or other application. The reserved DOI will not be active until your record is published.
  • Because each KiltHub record gets a DOI, consider grouping as many related files together in one record as possible

Private Links

  • Prior to publication of your KiltHub records, you can share a link to your unpublished data with collaborators or peer reviewers, by selecting the "Generate Private Link" option on the metadata entry page. The recipient of the link can view the data without having to log in to KiltHub. Private links are anonymized and do not display authors or institutional branding. These links are temporary and do not provide access to the complete KiltHub record, and should NOT be published or cited in a publication.

Embargoes

An embargo is a specified time period to delay online access to research. An embargoed item in KiltHub will have some public metadata elements, including the author’s name, title of the work, and an abstract, but the actual files will not be accessible to the public until the embargo expires, a period that can range from 6 months to 5 years,

Typical cases for applying an embargo:
  • Non-disclosure agreement: If you have entered into a legal agreement to not share confidential or protected third-party materials for a specified period of time.
  • Patent applications or commercially valuable research: If the research is commercially viable, researchers may want to protect intellectual property rights while securing a patent. The embargo period should be used to obtain the patent not for conducting more research.  
  • Publisher requirements: Publishers may require an embargo on an article version before it can appear in a repository. Publishers may also require embargoes for dissertation content that has been or will be published as an article or book chapter.
If the following apply, do not submit your work to KiltHub:
  • The research is not complete or is poor quality. Conducting more research is not an appropriate cause for an embargo.
  • You as a researcher oppose having your work in a public, open access repository
  • The research can never become public because of privacy or confidentiality reasons

As of now, all work submitted to KiltHub will become public, even with an embargo applied. You do not have to submit work to KiltHub, and the Libraries can help you investigate other preservation strategies for your data if an open access repository is not an option.

When you log into your KiltHub account, you'll see Collections and Project tabs in addition to the My Data tab where you'll upload your content.

Collections

Collections in KiltHub allow you to group records together under a common theme. These can be your own records (e.g. data, poster, and paper on one topic, or all of the research funded by the same grant) or from other authors within KiltHub or figshare in general (e.g. dissertations about AI)  You'll add descriptive metadata for a collection, and it will receive its own DOI. See instructions for creating a collection below.

Projects

While the figshare platform does provide the space to collaborate on active projects within the system, the intention of the KiltHub repository is to collect and preserve the finished products of research. Please do not use the Project tab to archive your research output in KiltHub. For active projects, we recommend using Libraries-supported platforms such as Open Science Framework or LabArchives. Contact your liaison librarian for more guidance.

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We're Here to Help!

Have questions about KiltHub, data management, or research curation before you get started? Reach out to: