Guidelines for submission to the Education-line database

Version 3.4: Expiry date: 30 June 2008 Additions since version 3 are indicated in green text.

Click here to see the Education-line: frequently asked questions page.

coverage | document formats | submitting documents | copyright | submitting comments | moderation

Coverage

Education-line will consider electronic texts in the following categories of literature:

grey literature: typically reports, working papers, conference documents, speeches or other items of literature, possibly but not necessarily intended for a small or immediate readership, often with a non-commercial producer;

pre-print literature: documents intended for publication in other media, whose early release in electronic form will improve the research community's ability to learn from, and contribute to, the work's development.

The database encourages electronic discussion about documents on the system and about general education and training issues.

In 1997 Education-lineadopted the acquisition policy suggested by the Education-line Advisory Committee. This can be read at http://www.leeds.ac.uk/educol/acpol.htm.

Education-line is a national UK collection. The acquisition policy includes the sentences "Documents are included where there is substantial reference or relevance to education and training in the United Kingdom. English is the required language."

Document formats

The database manager will accept digital documents in Microsoft Word for Windows (versions up to Word 2000 are preferred), Microsoft Word for Macintosh, or in Adobe portable document form (pdf). Please contact the Education-line office, by telephone or email, if you would like to use a different format.

All documents are checked for viruses on receipt. Authors can avoid difficulties by ensuring that no macros are attached to documents before they are sent.

To ensure accurate translation of tables authors are encouraged to use Word's table utility. The spaces, line break and tab characters that are often used to position text or numbers ready for printing do not convert well, and misalignment of columns can result. Where diagrams have been constructed from separate graphic elements (lines and boxes for example) it is recommended that these should be "grouped" to ensure safe transfer of the finished diagram.

Headings should be indicated by means of Word's style utility, rather than with individualised font formatting. This helps to maintain consistency in showing different levels of heading.

Authors are welcome to submit HTML versions of their document. The HTML should be compatible with the HTML 4.01. The specification for HTML 4.01 can be read on the world wide web at http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/

Authors who who would like to deposit their texts in Adobe portable document format should discuss the possibility with the Education-line office.

Submitting documents

Documents should be sent as attachments to email messages directed to:

education-line@leeds.ac.uk

The email message should have "Education-line document submission" as the subject and should include the following information if it is available, independent of the document:

Authors submitting documents will be notified by email of document receipt and of entry to the database by the Education-line office.

Copyright

It is assumed that authors have copyright to their documents, and that they want to retain the freedom to exploit their work in other media. All authors will be asked to sign a copyright declaration to the effect that they either have copyright to the material submitted, or that they have been given the appropriate permission from other copyright holders. Forms are available on-line at http://www.leeds.ac.uk/educol/cpright.htm, or can be obtained from the Education-line office. Please note that copyright declarations need to be signed by hand on real paper and posted to us. We regret that neither emails nor digitised documents are sufficient . In giving permission to Education-line to present their texts on-line authors do not give up any of their rights to the text. Third parties are not entitled to make further copies of documents appearing in Education-line, either on-line or on paper. Enquiries about citation or further use should be addressed to the authors.

Authors should take care to read the Education-line copyright declaration, publishers' copyright assignment forms and other documents connected with rights to their work. Independent advice should be sought. Established practice cannot be relied on in an environment that is subject to rapid change.

The SHERPA project, (SHERPA stands for Securing a Hybrid Environment for Research Preservation and Access) maintains a database of current information about publishers' policies on archiving scholarly work on-line by authors. The information in this database has been gathered by the ROMEO project (ROMEO stands for Rights Metadata for Open archiving). This database is very helpful in drawing attention to the detailed considerations involved, but should not be regarded as decisive in relation to Education-line submission.

Submitting comments about documents on the system

Comments about documents on the system can be typed and submitted for inclusion in the database. Pages displaying the document give you this option.

Moderation

All documents and comments submitted to the database will be read and moderated before addition to the database.