About The ScholarShip

Interested in depositing your work to The ScholarShip?

The ScholarShip offers several convenient features for distributing work across the Internet. The deposit process is very simple, about the same as loading a file onto a website. As a permanent repository, The ScholarShip maintains your file indefinitely with no further work on your part. The ScholarShip provides you with a stable URL for your work.

Who can participate?

East Carolina University (ECU) students, staff members, or faculty may contribute works to The ScholarShip. Existing communities are based on the structure of ECU colleges, departments, and programs. Other communities will be considered on request. Contact The ScholarShip staff with these requests.

Whose materials can be included in the repository?

Only items authored or created by an East Carolina University faculty member, staff member, or student may be deposited. (Co-authors need not be at ECU). Authors may deposit their own works, or designate someone else at ECU to deposit them on their behalf.

What types of materials are accepted into the repository?

The ScholarShip currently accepts a variety of materials, including theses and dissertations, articles, chapters, presentations, proceedings, artworks, performances, reports, working papers, and selected collections of undergraduate works. See the FAQ's or contact The ScholarShip staff with specific questions about your materials.

Deposited items should be considered finished works. Items we do not accept at this time include course-related works (syllabi, course notes, etc.).

Requesting a remediated accessible copy of a file in the repository

The library strives to make resources in our collections as accessible as possible. The ScholarShip includes a wide variety of file formats submitted before April 2026, including digitized materials that may be difficult to use with adaptive technology. If you would like to request an accessible version of a file, please submit a request to the ScholarShip staff. Please include the link, document title, and the preferred format (i.e. transcript, accessible pdf, closed captioning). If we are unable to make an accessible version of the file, we will contact you about other options.

Persistent Access (and migration)

Our primary goal is to make all deposits freely available across the web (access will not be limited by location). However, some items may have access limited to ECU affiliates or have access embargoed for a specific time period.

As a repository, deposited files will be maintained indefinitely at the minimal level of maintaining file integrity. However, migration to preserve functionality is not guaranteed. See our current list of acceptable file types for more details

Copyright

Deposit to The ScholarShip does not change any copyright agreement.

  • IF YOU RETAIN COPYRIGHT: you may submit your item. If you share copyright with others check with them first to be sure they also approve of the work being archived and made available in The ScholarShip.
  • IF YOU DID NOT RETAIN COPYRIGHT OR ARE NOT SURE: check the publisher's copyright policies to determine what is allowed for submission to an institutional repository. To find out more about determining your rights and contacting publishers, see our Author Rights and Copyright pages.

Removing an item

Authors may request that The ScholarShip administrator remove an item from the repository. Exceptions to this include dissertations and theses. If an item is removed, the record for the item will be preserved with a note indicating the reason for withdrawal.

Requesting an Extension of an Embargo

Authors of dissertations, theses, and other final program papers produced at East Carolina University can request that the embargo period they selected when they submitted their work be extended. The request for an extension should be made no less than one and no more than two months before the embargo period is scheduled to expire. Contact The ScholarShip staff to request an extension, along with a brief justification.

Metadata Harvesting via OAI-PMH

The ScholarShip supports the Open Archives Initiative's Protocol for Metadata Harvesting (OAI-PMH) v2.0 as a data provider. The base URL is https://thescholarship.ecu.edu/server/oai/ Ex.
https://thescholarship.ecu.edu/server/oai/request?verb=Identify

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