Getting help with depositing

Depositing into a repository can be complicated: interpreting the requested descriptive information and knowing the rights/obligations of the scholarship to be deposited. Sometimes, these concepts are difficult to navigate. MSpace is a preservation vehicle for UM scholarship that also provides public access and/or discovery. It is the role of the repository staff to try to ensure quality descriptive information is in each record that improves discovery and aids in copyright and license compliance and transparency.

Research publications

Thesis and practicum

Prior to deposit

During deposit (either in Active Submission or Review Period)

MSpace Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Research publication FAQ

Once I deposit the item in MSpace, can I deposit elsewhere?

If you have rights to deposit and make it available then there should be no restrictions to deposit in other repositories and/or engage in other methods of distribution. If the work has been previously published and/or subject to conditions, always ensure that these modes of distribution are permitted.

After I deposit and it is officially open, and then I choose to enter a commercial publisher contract with content that is contained in that deposit, can I apply a retrospective embargo to the deposited work?

Each case is unique but in general, only in exceptional circumstances will the MSpace staff be willing to apply a retrospective embargo. It is advised that the author negotiate with the publisher for author rights or grant allowance for the deposit.

What happens if I am a co-author of a work, and my colleague, who was the depositor of the work, submitted without my permission and I do not want the work deposited/available in MSpace?

Each case is unique but, if possible, we will contact the depositor to inform them of the request. Then the MSpace Admin will follow the Takedown policy and procedure.

I think the previous publisher of the work has made some citation stipulations that need to either be in the record or on the item itself. How do I do that?

If citation and/or referring information needs to be added to the item itself, contact your respective liaison librarian or the Research Publication deposit contact. If the information needs to be in the record, enter the citation information which is part of the deposit process.

By depositing in MSpace will I be in compliance with the open access policy of my funder?

As a general rule, yes, so long as you obtained the appropriate permissions and conditions of the publisher agreement. If you are unsure please contact the relevant staff listed in the depositing help section of this page.

I notice that there are only permanent URLs available in MSpace. Can I have a DOI applied to the record?

This is available upon request until auto-assigning of DOIs to deposits has been activated. Contact Main MSpace Inquiries to request.

I am not sure about the Date of Availability to set the embargo on the item being deposited. Where do I go for that information?

See the terms of publication set by the publisher; but it is usually the first day after the day of publication plus the duration of the embargo. 

Thesis/practicum FAQ

I have just submitted my thesis/practicum to MSpace. How long will it take for it to be approved?

The time it takes for a thesis submission to be checked and approved by the Faculty of Graduate Studies varies, depending on the volume of submissions currently being processed. The respective FGS Student Program Assistant (SPA) is responsible for reviewing submissions for the programs they support.  It can take up to several weeks. 

If you have questions about your submission after you have submitted it for review, please contact your respective SPA.

I checked on the status of my submitted thesis in My MSpace and it states ‘waiting for controller’. What does this mean?

The status ‘waiting for controller’ means that your thesis is currently in the MSpace collection editor pool, waiting for the respective Faculty of Graduate Studies Student Program Assistant (SPA) to claim it for review. Once it has been claimed by the SPA, the status condition will change to "workflow". Until the SPA has reviewed the submission and either rejected the submission for changes or approved it for acceptance or final review, the submitter will NOT receive email communication from the system. For resources on how to submit your thesis, see Thesis Deposit: Step by Step.

It has been several weeks, and my thesis has still not been approved. What does this mean?

If you have made your initial submission before the deadline, you are still eligible for graduation. Contact your respective FGS Student Program Assistant for the review status of your thesis or if approval timelines are conflicting with other requirements (ex. work permits).

I made a mistake in my thesis submission. What do I do?

Please contact your respective FGS Student Program Assistant. If they have not yet claimed your submission in the review pool, they will do so, then 'reject' it so that it returns to Your Submission space of My MSpace so that you may make the desired changes and resubmit. If it has been approved already, you will require permission from the Faculty of Graduate Studies to amend the thesis and your SPA can guide you. 

My thesis is now in MSpace. Can I make some further changes to it?

It is the policy of the Faculty of Graduate Studies that no changes be made to a thesis once the record has been made publicly available in the MSpace collection. If you have further questions about this contact either the Dean of the Faculty of Graduate Studies or your Student Program Assistant.

I am interested in obtaining a printed and bound copy of my thesis. Is there a procedure for requesting a printed copy of the thesis?

The University, including Media and Libraries, does not have printing/binding services to create a hard copy version of your thesis. Some commercial printing services will do this for you. We will not endorse/recommend particular services. 

I can't tell if my thesis has been successfully submitted. Do I get an email confirmation?

No, you will not get an email confirmation from the system telling you have successfully submitted. You should see a green message box after submission that briefly appears that states something like "Congratulations! You have successfully submitted". You can see what your status is on a particular submission in Your Submissions section of My MSpace. After the editor has review your submission, you will get an email at that point either to make changes (as it has been rejected) or that it has been approved.

Definitions of status conditions:
'Waiting for controller' = in the Collection's editorial pool, waiting to be claimed
'Workflow' = has been claimed by a designated collection editor (i.e. FGS Student Program Assistant) and in their workflow for review
'Archived'= the submission has been formally accepted into the repository

I am having difficulties saving my submission or depositing my thesis. What am I doing wrong?

  1. Use the browser Mozilla Firefox. Other browsers (ex. Chrome, Safari) can cause problems.
  2. If you are seeing 'caution' signs in certain sections, make sure the appropriate data has been entered into the required fields (those marked with an asterisk).
  3. If you haven't checked the License box (at the bottom of the input form), it won't let you proceed to Deposit so ensure this requirement is checked.

If you are still having problems after going through this checklist, submit your concern using the MSpace Request form.

I need to add an embargo/access delay to my thesis. How do I do this?

Before an embargo can be added, permission from the Faculty of Graduate Studies must be granted. To apply for embargo permission, see the Embargo Request form from the Programs section of Graduate Studies forms. Follow the instructions in the form; both the Advisor and the Dept Head/Graduate Chair must sign off before submission to the Dean. See also article 7.c of MSpace Digital Repository Mandate and Policy 

Once permission is granted, ideally the embargo is applied during/prior to submission. To do this, click the pencil-page icon in the Upload section of the input form:

  1. Add the reason for the embargo in the Description section
  2. Select 'embargo' from the access drop-down menu.
  3. The date field when the item becomes available is open for entry: add the date when the thesis is accessible. For example, if you received permission for a 1 year embargo, the date available is that date + 1 day.
  4. Click save.

If the embargo is to be applied very soon after thesis has been archived in MSpace, the FGS Student Program Assistant (SPA) needs to contact MSpace staff. Contact your respective SPA if this is your situation.

Searching MSpace

These instructions provide syntax and other strategies to build search queries in MSpace.

Basic Search

The default will search across all collections and fields for any (OR expression) instance.

Instructions:

  • Enter a single word into search textbox and click Search.
  • Note that if a compound word is entered, each word will be searched separately as an OR expression (see also Multiple Term Search or Specifying Terms)

Advanced Search


To access the filters or search particular collection, open the Search Results page: click Search or perform a Basic Search. For any search, if you get unexpected or zero results, clear all search terms and/or adjust the filters that have been applied.

To search a particular collection, click the “All of MSpace” button and select from Collections list.

Specifying Terms

A query to the standard query parser is broken up into terms and operators. There are two types of terms: single terms and phrases.

  • A single term is a single word such as "test" or "computer"
  • A phrase is a group of words surrounded by double quotes such as "computer program"

Multiple terms can be combined together with Boolean operators – see Multiple Term Search.

Filter/Limit

Any of the filters can be searched on their own or is automatically added to what is in the search box at the top of the page. Use the filters to search the following fields:

  • Author
    • Open the plus sign in Author
    • Either select from given list of authors or enter author’s name and wait for author name list below and then select it
  • Subject 
  • The subject listing is not a controlled vocabulary but terms assigned as subjects by authors. If the word you are looking for does not appear here, try a keyword search.
    • Open the plus sign in Subject
    • Either select from given list of subjects or enter subject word and wait for word to list below and then select it
  • Date 
    • Open the plus sign in Date
    • Either: Enter custom date range in Start and End text boxes; or use the date slider to pick desired date range

Multiple Term Search

AND 

  • Requires that both terms on either side of this operator be present for a match
  • Must be in UPPER CASE 
  • e.g.  engineering AND bridges

NOT

  • Requires that the term following the operator be excluded from a match
  • Must be in UPPER CASE 
  • e.g. cost NOT benefit

Field Search

Data in MSpace is organized in fields which have a combination of schemas such as OpenAIRE and qualified Dublin Core. Searching using fields can add precision to search queries. By searching by field, it allows you to specify a field (from text which is the default field) or a combination of fields in a search expression.

To specify a field, type the field name followed by the punctuation colon and then the term you are searching for contained within quotation marks.

Example:
dc.contributor.supervisor:"Wilkins, Olivia" AND title:”BNIP3” 
 

Field List

The following is a select list of fields in MSpace that can be used to create precise searches. Some of these fields are specific to the content it describes.

  • dc.degree.discipline     e.g. dc.degree.discipline:"City Planning"  
    • The Program of Study in which the thesis was conducted. Note that the description of program of study can change over time
  • dc.degree.level   e.g. dc.degree.level:”M.Sc.”
    • The type of degree for which the thesis was done. The value in this field includes the discipline name together with the title. Unless you are looking for a particular type of degree, see dc.type
  • dc.contributor.supervisor  e.g. dc.contributor.supervisor:"Wilkins, Olivia*" 
    • The person that directly oversaw the graduate student’s research (author of thesis). Full name should be expressed “lastname, firstname” and it is recommended to add the wildcard * at the end to account for older metadata entries.
  • dc.type    e.g. dc.type:"review"
    • For a full list of types in MSpace, see resource types. Note that not every type is represented by the content in MSpace. Thesis types include: bachelor thesis, master thesis, doctoral thesis. 
  • dc.identifier.doi     e.g. dc.identifier.doi:"
    • To search by a specific Digital Object Identifier (DOI).
  • dc.identifier.uri     e.g. dc.identifier.uri:"10.1186/s12961-023-00967-x"
    • To search by either DOI as a URI (Uniform Resource Identifier) or a URL
  • project.funder.name     e.g. project.funder.name:”NSERC”
    • To search by a funder name
  • oaire.citation.title    e.g. oaire.citation.title:”BMC Genomics”
    • To search by a journal title (for those in the UM Scholarship collection with the material previously published elsewhere)

Proximity Search

A proximity search looks for terms that are within a specific distance from one another.
To perform a proximity search, add the tilde character ~ and a numeric value to the end of a search phrase. For example, to search for “SARS virus” within 5 words of each other in a document, use the search: “SARS virus” ~5

Wildcard Search

The following characters can be added to search for variants of a term or roots of terms. These characters can be applied to single terms but not phrases.

Single character variant - ?

  • Use to represent a single character in a word
  • e.g. te?t   (would match both test and text)

Multiple character variant - *

  • Use to represent multiple characters preceding, following, or within a term
  • e.g. tes*   (would match test, tests, testing, tester etc.)
  • e.g. *est  (would match test, pest)

 

Contact us

Research Services & Digital Strategies
Elizabeth Dafoe Library
University of Manitoba
Winnipeg, MB R3T 2N2 Canada