KiltHub is an open access repository, meaning that anyone with an Internet connection can access and download the material at no cost. All bibliographic metadata in KiltHub is available open access. Open access to full-text work deposited in KiltHub can, if necessary, be delayed (embargoed) for six months, one year, two years, or five years or a specific term mandated by the publisher of the work. Full-text work not intended to be available open access eventually should not be deposited in the repository
Any original work by a CMU community member is eligible for inclusion in KiltHub. At least one author should be affiliated with Carnegie Mellon, except in the case of hosted journals and conference proceedings, in which case the supporting organization holds CMU affiliation. Work created by a current CMU affiliate while affiliated with another institution may also be included.
KiltHub collects bibliographic metadata and provides a link to the publisher record of the work (if applicable) for:
Whenever possible, the repository collects the full text described in the metadata and is available for download. For full text to be deposited in KiltHub:
Deposits of published articles must comply with publisher policy regarding the version deposited and the embargo on open access. Authors can search publisher policies in the JISC Open Policy Finder database.
Deposits of master’s theses, doctoral dissertations, and undergraduate student honors theses and capstone projects must be sponsored and vetted by CMU faculty.
Depositors are responsible for ensuring that all contents of their data package do not contain information that can be used alone, or in aggregate, to identify any individual.
KiltHub aims to protect human participants and maintain the integrity of the research data we publish – regardless of whether the data submitted is or will be openly available elsewhere. Depositors should have proper IRB permission to publicly share human subject datasets. Any human subject datasets should include the IRB protocol within the ReadME file.
If possible, the depositor should deposit their content in an open file format. The use of proprietary file types is discouraged, as it prohibits the reuse and accessibility of the items.
Depositors are responsible for the entirety of the content deposited. The KiltHub team does not curate or review the content in-depth, however if alerted, the KiltHub team will review any possible deposit violations and remove content as necessary. Depositors can also request curation support from the CMU Libraries for datasets, which may or may not be able to be fulfilled
Depositors are required to attach metadata elements to deposits at submission time. Additional metadata may be requested by the Repository Manager before the item can be made public. The required elements at submission time are: Author(s), title, description, license, categories, item type, and keywords. Before datasets can be published, all dataset deposits must have a ReadME.txt file based on a standardized template (provided on https://guides.library.cmu.edu/kilthub/deposit). A dataset deposit without a ReadME will remain in draft status
KiltHub is intended to provide permanent access to and preservation of content deposited in the repository. Authors depositing content in the repository are responsible for the accuracy of their work and management of the copyrights to their work.
If an author finds that a deposited work contains errors, they can submit a corrected PDF to the repository manager to replace the erroneous version. If a document is revised into a new work, for example, a technical report revised into a journal article, it should be submitted to the repository as a new item.
Full-text work may be removed from the repository for a compelling reason. Compelling reasons include, but are not limited to, violations of copyright or publisher policy, research misconduct (plagiarism, fabrication or falsification of data), legal requirements, and national security. When a work is withdrawn, it is removed from public view, but the bibliographic metadata remains in the repository. A statement of withdrawal is added to the Comment field in the metadata.
The CMU Libraries commits to hosting items in KiltHub at minimum of 7 years after the deposit publish or embargo** date (which aligns with federal data retention requirements). While it is not the CMU Libraries' intention to remove content from KiltHub, after 7 years the Libraries reserves the right to assess the retention of the item for a longer period of time. The KiltHub team will attempt to contact the researcher or research team before action is taken with the item.
If the item can no longer be hosted on KiltHub, the Carnegie Mellon University Archives reserves the right to retain a copy of the item in accordance with their collection policy.
The item’s metadata record will be hosted in perpetuity.
In the event that CMU discontinues agreement with FigShare repository platform, CMU commits a best faith effort to migrate items into the new repository
Items that remain in draft form on the repository platform for a period of 12 months may be deleted by the Repository Manager. The purpose of the repository is to host publicly available items. Item deposits that are initiated but not completed within 12 months may be deleted. Deletion will not take place without first contacting the depositor; if there is no response within 30 days of notifying the depositor items may be deleted. If a valid reason for the item remaining in draft form is provided (e.g., item has been submitted as part of a paper undergoing peer review), the 12 month limitation may be extended. If the depositor is not responsive, the draft items will be removed. A dataset deposit without a ReadME will remain in draft status.
Users are automatically provided 10 GB or storage and can request up to 1 TB of total storage at no cost to the research.
Individual users are automatically provided 10 GB of storage and can request up to 1 TB of total storage at no cost to the researcher.
Users can also create multiple “group projects” but are limited to a total of 2 TB across all such projects, in addition to 1 TB per user. In a “group” , submitters' individual quotas will not be used, storage allocation instead comes directly from the group’s quota. The default storage allocation for a “project” is from the individual. Users must select the “group” storage allocation option.
For larger projects or projects requiring a disciplinary repository, the CMU Libraries offers support in finding appropriate repositories.
The CMU Libraries commits to hosting items in KiltHub at minimum of 7 years after the deposit publish or embargo** date, per the hosting agreement.
Individual files are limited to 3.5 GB to ensure items are accessible and usable. Exceptions might be possible if files can not be compressed or split to meet this limit
Have questions about KiltHub, data management, or research curation before you get started? Reach out to: