Cornerstone: A Collection of Scholarly and Creative Works

What platform does Cornerstone use?

Cornerstone is built using Digital Commons™ from bepress/Elsevier B.V.  In 2014, Library Services Digitization Taskforce selected Digital Commons™ as a hosted solution to showcase the research and creative activities of the university.  Library Services purchased Digital Commons™ for its software as a service model.  Digital Commons™ offered the library a professional grade publishing platform for journals, books, conference presentations, open educational resources, open access articles, and more.  

How do I submit works to Cornerstone?

To learn how to submit to Cornerstone, see our Submission Information page. 

Can a work be withdrawn from Cornerstone?

Cornerstone is a permanent repository.  Once a work has been added, it will not be withdrawn unless removal is required by law, by written request of the copyright holder for a specific reason, due to a violation of university or MinnState policies, or for other legal concerns. 

Can I add an embargo to a work in Cornerstone? 

As the copyright holder to a work, you can request that a work have an embargo added for a specific period of time.  This means that the full-text of the work will not be visible to anyone to view or download until the embargo is lifted.  Metrics tracked in Cornerstone will not include any download counts and will be less impactful if the full-text is not visible.  In support of the open access movement, we encourage you to think about sharing your work more openly to a wider audience to allow for more readers, collaborators, citations and recognition.   Additionally, in some cases, a grant funder or granting agency may determine or place a requirement on making works accessible after a period of time.  Cornerstone can store your work and automatically make it open after the designated embargo expires. 

I already submitted my work to a journal publisher.  Can I add the work to Cornerstone?

It depends on the type of journal, the version of the article, and the agreement that you signed with the publisher.  Here are some questions to consider: 

• Does your agreement prohibit you to post a copy in an institutional repository like Cornerstone or in a discipline specific open access repository?  This is sometimes referred to self-archiving or green open access.
• If you can post a copy to Cornerstone, what version can you post?  The publishers PDF?  Your own version?  Publishers often make distinctions between three primary versions of an article when referring to the self-archiving or deposit rights retained by authors.  Make sure you know which version you can use and what your publisher/agreement says. 

• Is there an embargo period from when the article is published to the time that you can post a version in Cornerstone or another repository?

Talk to your publisher to see what rights you have to share your work.  In addition to checking on a journal's homepage, you can also look up a journal's open access or self-archiving policies using the Sherpa Romeo tool.