Frequently Asked Questions


What are the benefits of submitting my work to FUSE?

There are many benefits to submitting your work to FUSE, including:

  • Increased visibility of your work. Because FUSE is open access, your work is available to a wide range of scholars. Additionally, FUSE uses Search Engine Optimization (SEO) features to increase discoverability of your work.
  • Better data on your research impact. FUSE has an author dashboard that provides you with information on citations and downloads of your work across the world, including a readership map. You can also get regular email updates on your readership from FUSE.
  • Obtaining a persistent URL. FUSE provides your work with a persistent URL to ensure stable access to your work now and in the future.
  • Promoting Franklin scholarship. FUSE allows us to showcase the great and varied intellectual output of the University community and share that with a global community of learners.

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Who can submit work to FUSE?

Contributors must be affiliated with Franklin University (referred to as the University) and should use their Franklin University email address for their FUSE account. Authorized contributors to FUSE include :

  • University faculty, adjuncts, and staff
  • Current graduate and undergraduate students depositing:
    • work from University publications or events that are (1) sponsored by faculty and (2) approved by FUSE; or
    • research or creative projects that are (1) sponsored by faculty and (2) approved by FUSE.
  • Doctoral students depositing their completed and approved dissertation.
  • DNP students depositing their completed and approved DNP scholarly project

Projects or archival collections affiliated with the University or sponsored by University faculty or staff as part of their employment, may also be included.

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How do I submit my work to FUSE?

Authors can submit work to FUSE online through our submission portal. Only works that satisfy all of the submission requirements will be published in FUSE. FUSE staff will contact contributors to let them know if their content was approved and published, approved pending additional information and/or edits from contributor, or does not meet FUSE standards. Submission Requirements include:

  • Submitting a signed FUSE Contributor Copyright Acknowledgement / License Agreement
  • Selecting the Creative Commons license which will apply to their material
  • Filling out all required descriptive fields
  • Providing appropriate file formats (see File Formats section)
These are the general submission requirements, but some collections may have different requirements which will be noted in the submission form.

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Who owns the copyright to materials in FUSE?

Works published in the repository will be available for free to the general public via the internet, pursuant to the terms of the Creative Commons license selected by the contributor. Authors must grant a non-exclusive License to the University in order to publish their work in FUSE. Because the license is non-exclusive, authors retain ownership of copyright in the work, and may continue to use and license the work without further obligation to the University.

For more information on copyright, see the Copyright & Licensing section on the Policies page of this website.

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What are the types of work that I can submit to FUSE?

The following content types are among those that may be accepted if scope and FUSE standards are met:

  • published scholarship (published version preferred but post-prints and pre-prints may be submitted when published version is not available)
  • publications produced by University faculty, students, and staff, such as peer-reviewed publications, publications hosted through FUSE, or campus-based or course-based publications
  • technical reports (a document submitted to project sponsor that details the results of a researcher’s project)
  • government reports
  • datasets (datasets must be complete and ready for use and must include a readme file. No classified/restricted/confidential data can be accepted.)
  • conference papers or presentations
  • academic events sponsored by the university, such as conferences, lectures, workshops, and proceedings
  • curricular materials
  • metadata records for research/scholarship that link to an openly accessible, full-text version hosted on another site
  • University records deemed appropriate by administration such as university publications, annual reports, and committee/council meetings minutes.
  • creative works that are tied to professional role, university sponsored publication, or collection

This is a non-exhaustive list. Contributors are welcome to contact FUSE staff to determine whether other content meets FUSE standards. Personal works or works not published under the auspices of a University unit, center, or department are not appropriate for the repository. Please contact FUSE (fuse@franklin.edu) with any questions.

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What file formats are accepted?

FUSE will work to recognize and support as many file formats as possible. All formats can be submitted, but contributors should consider submitting their items in formats that are open, sustainable, and well-used in their fields. The following formats are preferred for preservation reasons:

  • Textual: PDF/A, TXT, HTML, XML, CSV
  • Images: TIFF, JPEG 2000
  • Audio: WAVE, AIFF
  • Video: MOV, Motion JPEG 2000
  • Database/Spreadsheet: CSV, XML
FUSE is committed to making digital content accessible to all individuals. Individuals contributing content to FUSE must ensure that their files comply with federal accessibility guidelines. Guidelines for individual file types are available at hhs.gov (see Making Files Accessible).

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What if my work has been previously published?

Many publishers require an author to give the copyright to the publisher in return for having you’re an article published. However, each publisher has a different policy regarding institutional repositories.

For any published works submitted to FUSE, the publisher copyright policy will need to be checked to determine if, and in what form, a work may be submitted to FUSE. If you have a contract with your publisher, check to see what it permits. Otherwise, the Library recommends using SHERPA RoMEO to help check publisher policies. While this website covers many publishers, it does not cover all publishers. For this reason, it may be necessary to research the publisher's policies. These are usually found on the publisher's website, but it may be necessary to contact the publisher.

A number of publishers allow the post-print (the post-peer reviewed version of the article that is accepted by the publisher for final publication) or pre-print (the final version of an article before it has undergone peer-review) to be submitted to an institutional repository, but not the publisher’s PDF version.

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Can I revise my submission to FUSE or withdraw my work from FUSE?

Authors may revise their submissions through their FUSE accounts prior to those submissions being posted online by FUSE. After posting, submissions cannot be revised except in exceptional circumstances with the permission of FUSE administrators. All content posted in FUSE is considered permanent. Content may be removed in case of violation of submission agreement, copyright violation, or other exceptional circumstances, in which case only the record will remain with the following message: “This item was withdrawn by FUSE. If you have any questions, please contact FUSE staff (fuse@franklin.edu).”

If an author has submitted a prepublication version of their work, which is later published, the prepublication will not be removed. Upon notification of the publication, FUSE will add a note to the prepublication record indicating that this is a prepublication version with a link to the published version (where available).

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