AUrora: FAQs

AUrora is Auburn University's scholarly repository. Its purpose is to showcase research materials — that is, published and unpublished articles, conference presentations, performances, creative works, data sets, etc. — produced by Auburn University scholars and make them more accessible to Alabama residents and the general public.

Depends on whom you ask. Some of the designers favor "Auburn University Repository of Research Assets". Others prefer "Activities". Use whatever works for you — or just call it AUrora.

No. Participation in AUrora is voluntary. It's up to individual faculty members and/or their departments to decide whether they want to participate, and what kinds of materials they'll submit

There are a number of reasons to participate in AUrora. First, AUrora is a good way to make your work more visible—to other scholars, to acquisitions editors and reviewers, and to the general public. AUrora is indexed by Google and Google Scholar, which means that your research is more likely to reach a broad audience. Second, participating in AUrora contributes to the university's research and outreach missions—a point you might want to emphasize in your promotion and tenure (P&T) dossier. Third, it helps you satisfy a growing number of federal requirements concerning the dissemination and preservation of research that has been conducted with public money (federal grants). Finally, it's safer than keeping copies of your work on a collection of thumb drives.

AUrora welcomes submissions from people who are formally associated with the University. This includes faculty (tenured, tenure-track, clinical, instructors, lecturers, and adjuncts), as well as graduate students, academic professionals, and staff. Each department may also choose to include other categories of users, such as undergraduate students.

Any scholarly output is welcome in AUrora. Each department may determine whether a type of work is appropriate to be included in its collection. The most commonly accepted types of content are pre- or post-prints of journal articles or books; conference papers, presentations, or poster sessions; technical reports or working papers; learning objects or lesson plans; and data sets.

When posting published works to AUrora, authors should verify that this is allowed in their publication agreements. Many journal publishers allow authors to post the final, refereed version of their works to institutional repositories as long as authors include links to the journal website and place an embargo (typically six months to a year) on the version uploaded to a repository. If you have questions, your subject librarian may be able to help you find information about a journal's publication agreement. You can also check the SHERPA-RoMEO database of publisher copyright policies and self-archiving guidelines.

Yes, there are. Examples include anything you would like to submit for publication elsewhere in roughly the same form; items that contain copyrighted material by other people (e.g. photographs, sound tracks, video clips); and fully formatted versions of journal articles or book chapters, unless permitted by the publisher. If you have doubts about whether an item should be submitted to AUrora, check with your college or departmental liaison or your subject librarian first.

Finally, there's another category of things you shouldn't submit to AUrora: other people's work, including work by students. AUrora is intended to help you publish and archive your own work. If you want to upload a jointly authored work, it's a good idea (and good professional etiquette) to get an okay from your co-authors first.

First, go to https://aurora.auburn.edu/. Look for the login box on the right-hand side of the page. Enter your Auburn University login and password (the same credentials you use to login to your office computer). Click "Submissions", then follow the prompts. You will be asked to fill out a work form describing the item or items you're submitting. The AUrora work form is closely modeled on the "Scholarly Contributions" work forms in Digital Measures, for familiarity's sake and to enable eventual cross-walking between the two systems. When you've finished describing your item and uploading attachments, click on the "Submit" button. The AUrora liaison person for your department or the subject librarian for your discipline will be notified of the submission, review it for completeness, and clear it for publication in the repository. It should then become publicly available.

AUrora is meant to be a permanent record of Auburn University's scholarly output. Once an item has been deposited to AUrora, a citation to that item will always remain. Authors should keep this in mind when deciding what they would like to submit to AUrora.

Not really. Digital Measures is a database of faculty profiles, and its primary focus is internal. AUrora is a database of faculty research, and its primary focus is external. There is some overlap between the two systems, but they serve different purposes and different constituencies.

Your subject librarian is a good source of information about AUrora. He/she can also help you fill out the AUrora form. The AUrora liaison person for your college or department can also help. You can find a complete list of subject librarians and AUrora liaison people at the top of the AUrora Web page.