DigitalCommons@WOU User's Guide

Digital Commons is the library's institutional repository — a website that holds and displays student and faculty scholarship. The library works with your program to make your thesis or action research project (hereafter "your project") accessible online via Digital Commons.

This document will show you how to upload your project to the site. Everything in this document takes place as the final step of completing your project, after you have had it approved by your advisors.

1. Go to http://digitalcommons.wou.edu

2. Click submit research on the left-hand side

3. Choose the collection you are submitting to. Relevant options are:

Master's of Arts in Interpreting Studies (MAIS) Theses
Master's of Arts in Interpreting Studies (MAIS) Action Research
Master's of Arts in Teaching (MAT) Action Research

4. If you already have a Digital Commons account, log in using your e-mail and password. If this is your first time using Digital Commons, you will need to create an account with the button at the bottom of the screen before submitting your project.

Once you have logged in, you will see the project submission form.

Fill in as much information as possible, but don't worry if you're missing some. The form can be updated and revised at any time, and some fields are filled out by the library.

For a thesis or action research project, you will need to complete the following fields (listed below in the order they appear on the form):

• Title - The title of your project
• Author - After you are signed in, this should auto-fill
• Abstract - A brief summary of your project
• Exit Requirement - Select either "Thesis" or "Action Research"
• Date of Award - Enter your expected date of graduation
• Degree Name - Select the relevant option
• Department - Select "Education" for MAT, and "Deaf Studies / Professional Studies" for MAIS
• Committee Chair - Enter the first and last name of your committee chair
• Committee Member - For each additional committee member, enter the first and last name
• Embargo Period - If you have discussed an embargo with your project advisor, enter it here. Otherwise, select "No embargo"
• Keywords (optional) - Enter up to six keywords that describe your project, separated by commas
• Subject Categories - Select "Education" for MAT. For MAIS, click "Arts and Humanities," and select both "Sign Languages" and "Language Interpretation and Translation" from this menu
• Upload Full Text - Click this to upload the file for your project (DOCX format preferred)

Once you have entered all your information, click submit. You may get an automatically-generated e-mail notifying you that the file you uploaded has been converted to PDF. If you receive this e-mail, you can safely ignore it.

If you have additional files (such as an accompanying video, standalone versions of appendices, etc.) select the "Additional files" box. You will be directed to a page to upload these files after clicking submit.

When you need to revise your project, go to http://digitalcommons.wou.edu and click My DC in the top right corner.

At the bottom of this page, you will see a section with the name of the collection you submitted to and your project listed below.

Click the title of your project and then click "revise " to make changes to the record or to upload a new draft.

If you need to upload a new draft of your project, scroll to the bottom of the revision form and select Choose File under the Upload Full Text header.

You may receive an e-mail letting you know changes are needed to your project before it can be published. Do not be alarmed if you receive a notice saying major revisions are required — this is just the way the system describes revisions.

Revision e-mails should contain either a description of necessary changes or a link you can use to log in to Digital Commons and access a document with that description.

Once you have revised your project, you can upload a revision to Digital Commons using the same procedure as the "Uploading Drafts" section above.

When your project has been processed by the Graduate Studies Office and the Library, you will receive an email from the system asking you to confirm that no further changes are needed. Please respond to this email in a timely manner, so we can post your thesis or project on the live site.

It may take up to one month after the end of your final term for your project to be processed and available online.

If you have questions about the process, please email digitalcommons@wou.edu

After processing is complete, your project will appear as a downloadable PDF at http://digitalcommons.wou.edu/. You should receive an e-mail with a direct link to your thesis when it is available.

People from around the world will also be able to find your research, either in Google or other search engines, or via the Digital Commons Network. By logging into your Digital Commons @ WOU account, you will be able to access a dashboard which lists the number, date, and location of downloads for your thesis.