Sometimes an eScholarship site that was established for an academic department or research unit will later be found to have no active administrator. This situation may occur as a result of staff turnover in the department or unit.
When the eScholarship team learns that a unit’s administrator is no longer active, the site is temporarily disabled for direct submissions until a new administrator can be identified. (Note: departments that have opted to display an open access policy series will continue to receive new mirrored OA policy content as it is deposited.)
In some cases, however, eScholarship may be unaware that the site lacks an active administrator. If you have found an eScholarship site representing a department or unit you belong to and you are not sure if it is active, you can submit a ticket and ask us. We will be able to identify the original site administrator, and, in some circumstances, we may be able to provide additional information about the site’s history.
If a user with administrator privileges is still affiliated with the department, you can consult with them about what you would like to see changed or added to the site. Existing administrators can submit a ticket for us to add new administrators or new series for different types of publications at any time.
If the user with administrator privileges is not still affiliated with the department, you can submit a ticket and work with the eScholarship team to have the site temporarily closed to new submissions, and to begin the process of re-establishing the site and assigning new administrators.
Restart an academic department or research unit eScholarship site
Re-establishing your academic department or research unit’s eScholarship site follows a similar process to requesting a new unit:
- Complete a Terms of Service form: The agreement should be signed by the chair of the department or the director of the research unit, and submitted to eScholarship. Note that a new Terms of Service form is only required if the previously signed agreement is dated before 2019 – submit a ticket to learn if you need one.
- Register for eScholarship accounts: any new administrator or quarterly statistics recipient must create an eScholarship account.
- Fill out the new unit setup form: specify new content collections to add (if any), not initial content collections. If no new collections are needed, input “none.”