ScholarWorks at WMU is the scholarly portion of the institutional repository administered and maintained by Western Michigan University Libraries. The purpose of ScholarWorks at WMU is to provide open access publication and research dissemination services for members of the WMU community. Materials in ScholarWorks at WMU may be viewed by anyone.

The goals of ScholarWorks  at WMU are to:

• increase the visibility and access to WMU’s intellectual output worldwide
• bring together Western Michigan University’s research, educational and creative scholarship under one umbrella
• preserve and provide long term access with a static url to these materials

All materials must meet the following guidelines to be included in the repository of ScholarWorks@WMU. In consultation with the ScholarWork @WMU administrator, sponsoring departments and units assume responsibility for setting and administering any additional requirements and guidelines deemed appropriate for a particular collection or series within ScholarWorks.

• The work must be produced, submitted or sponsored by WMU faculty, researchers, students or staff.
• The author/copyright owner must be willing and able to grant Western Michigan University the non-exclusive right to preserve and distribute the work through ScholarWorks at WMU.
• Article co-authors are responsible for obtaining written permission from co-authors before content is posted in ScholarWorks at WMU.
• Works that are co-authored with non-WMU authors may be included.
• The content must be scholarly, research-oriented, educational  or creative works that support the intellectual life of the University.
• The work should not be ephemeral; contributions are intended to be a permanent part of the repository. 
• Bibliographic citations alone are not acceptable. (These may be showcased through SelectedWorks instead.)
• The work must be in digital form (or convertible to digital) and ready for public dissemination. If parts of a work require different file formats, ideally all the digital elements are provided as a set.
• If material is not in digital format, but warrants submission, material can be digitized, but funding sources must be found.
• If different delivery methods are required (e.g. streaming video), please contact the ScholarWorks team - wmu-scholarworks@wmich.edu

ScholarWorks at WMU is using the Digital Commons platform from Berkeley Electronic Press or bepress. It is built on their journal publishing software, so lends itself well to authors submitting papers, conference proposals, etc. and provides all the tools for publishing an online journal. (See the journals tab for details.) The Digital Commons platform is being used by about 200 institutions for institutional repositories. You can see how other institutions are implementing their repositories on the Digital Commons site.

Digital Commons provides us with server space, back-ups, and migration to new formats. They have a great technical support team that trains us in the use of  ScholarWorks and answers our questions, so we do not have to bother any IT folks on campus.