Frequently Asked Questions about SelectedWorks

A message from our co-founder:

For years, I've heard colleagues complain that their school-run faculty publication pages are unattractive, out-of-date and difficult to maintain. Website change requests can take weeks or even months to implement because tech support teams are overloaded. At the same time, Deans complain of the money they pour into their IT groups. Too many school websites have failed at their mission: to showcase faculty research. For this reason, we have developed SelectedWorks. SelectedWorks offers the highest level of web-publishing technology at a price any school can afford. It is attractive, easy to use, and fully customizable.

--Aaron Edlin, co-founder, The Berkeley Electronic Press

Institutions

Authors - General Questions

Authors - Using the Site

Download user guide (PDF)

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Institutions

What is included in an institutional account?
  • Individual sites for all faculty members in your department
  • Site branding
  • An Aggregation page to showcase all research in one location (For example: Chicago-Kent College of Law's Aggregation page)
  • The ability to monitor & remove content deemed inappropriate
  • Site building by bepress
  • Added functionality/ site flexibility
  • Customer outreach programs
What are the benefits of purchasing a SelectedWorks account?
With SelectedWorks, you can offer the highest level of web-publishing technology to your faculty, without investing huge amounts of resources in in-house engineering. In addition, each of your faculty members immediately becomes part of an international network of scholarship, which, in turn, helps research to be discovered. SelectedWorks will bring your faculty's research to a new level of exposure by distributing it through bepress' vast network of scholarly research. The 160,000 academic papers in our system have been downloaded over 6 million times in the last year alone. In addition, SelectedWorks content is automatically available via the Open Archives Initiative (OAI) to a broad array of scholarship distribution services.
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We already have faculty web pages, why should we consider SelectedWorks?
The reasons are too many to enumerate here. Please visit our comparison page for a detailed comparison of SelectedWorks and faculty web sites.
Who can purchase an institutional account?
Any department, organization, think tank, firm or school that has scholarly content that they wish to distribute.
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Authors - General Questions

I post papers on my website already. Why should I post them here?
A SelectedWorks site offers you more than just a well designed personal website. Our tools allow you to easily manage your work, upload new documents, generate readership reports, and send mailings. SelectedWorks papers will almost certainly rank higher in Google and other search results than papers posted on your personal site because sites are aggregated with all bepress content (160,000 papers strong!).
What URL will my SelectedWorks site have?
Your default URL will be http://works.bepress.com followed by your name. For example, if your name is Jane Smith it would be http://works.bepress.com/jane_smith. However, you may instead choose a customized directory name during the site building process. Please note, once you choose your URL, and the site is built, your URL is one of the only things on your site that you cannot change or edit at a later date.
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What is a URL?
A URL, or a "Uniform Resource Locater" is the actual internet address for your website (the address that someone would type into a browser to access your page). (For example: http://works.bepress.com/aaron_edlin/)
Can I customize my site if I don't know HTML?
Yes. The SelectedWorks What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get (W.Y.S.I.W.Y.G.) Editor was developed to give users the ability to make changes to their site quickly and easily without any technical experience.
What are the system requirements to use SelectedWorks?
SelectedWorks is a hosted service, which means that you can access your site from any computer with an internet connection. As such, all you need is a modern web browser with Javascript enabled (IE 6 or later, Firefox, Netscape, Opera, and Safari) and an internet connection.
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What type of editorial changes can I make to my site?
You can easily update your photo, personal information and decide how you want documents to appear on your site. You may also include an introductory paragraph about yourself and add links to your other sites. Furthermore, you may edit how your citations appear and revise and update metadata for your documents.
Will documents from my SelectedWorks site be indexed in the bepress system?
Yes. During the upload process you will be given the opportunity to choose a subject area for your document. Documents with subject areas will then be indexed and be browsable and searchable in ResearchNow under that subject area.
How else can users search for content?
In addition to searching all bepress content, users can search individual SelectedWorks sites, all sites at a given institution, or all SelectedWorks sites.
To search an individual SelectedWorks site:
  1. Find the individual's SelectedWorks site by visiting the SelectedWorks author page
  2. Find the search box within the right hand sidebar
  3. Enter your criteria in the search box
  4. Click search
  5. Refine your results by clicking “refine search”
To search for all content at a given institution:
  1. Find the institutional aggregation page by visiting the SelectedWorks network page
  2. Enter your search criteria in the full text box
  3. Click submit
  4. Refine your results by clicking refine search
To search ALL SelectedWorks sites:
  1. Go to the SelectedWorks network page
  2. Enter your search criteria in the Search Full Text box at the top of the page
  3. Click submit
  4. Refine your results by clicking refine search
Can I export my SelectedWorks content into a bibliographic software program?
Yes, you can export your SelectedWorks content in our Bibliography Export format. This will create a tagged text format that is suitable for exporting into a bibliographic software package, such as EndNote.

Run a search for the data you wish to export (see above question for directions on search). Click the refine search tab and choose Bibliography export in the drop down menu. Click search to run.
What types of documents can I post on my site?
The default document types for SelectedWorks are Articles, Books, Contributions to Books, Unpublished Papers, Popular Press, Presentations and Other. However, you will be able re-label any of these documents. For example, if you prefer to call Unpublished Papers "Working Papers" you can easily change this for your site.
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Who controls the copyright?
Posting online previously published works does not affect the copyright. The author or the party to whom the copyright has been passed to by the author controls the copyright. The Berkeley Electronic Press and SelectedWorks take no claim.
Am I allowed to post my Article if a publisher holds the copyright?
This will depend on the post-print policy of the publisher. Some publishers allow you to post any version of a paper on your personal site; others only allow certain versions, or do not allow any posting after publication.
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Can I use my site as a bibliography for all my work even if I cannot post all my papers due to copyright concerns?
Yes. Our system allows you to upload metadata and link directly to your paper on the publisher's site. Furthermore, in our advanced settings you can easily customize your citations so that they appear exactly how you want them to.
What kinds of statistics are available to me?
Once you create a site and upload content, you will be able to see how many times each of your articles has been read by accessing the full text download numbers on your reports page.
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Will my download statistics be viewable by others?
No. At this time download statistics are only available to authors.
Can I use my site to archive my papers?
Yes. We provide perpetual access to all content posted on SelectedWorks sites.
If I move to a new institution can I change my site so it has the look and feel of my new institution?
If your new institution has an institutional SelectedWorks account, changes to the look and feel will be implemented within 2 business days.
On the bepress legal repository, how are the most popular SelectedWorks sites determined?
In the bepress Legal Repository and in institutional aggregation pages (For example: USC Gould School of Law's Aggregation page) we feature the most popular sites within those collections in the sidebar. These sites are chosen based on the average number of full-text downloads that papers included in the site have received per day since they were posted.
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Authors - Using the Site

Download user guide (PDF)
How do I get my site to have the color and logo of my school site?
Institutional Branding is only available to institutions that have purchased a SelectedWorks license. For more information, visit the Institutional FAQ
I built a site, but now can't find it.
Go to works.bepress.com and click My account. Sign in using your bepress username and password (or request that your password be sent to you if you have forgotten it). Once you are on the My account page, scroll until you see the green banner and the blue SelectedWorks logo. Click Edit My site, which is the second choice under the banner. You are now on the Edit My Site page for SelectedWorks where you can upload content and customize your site.
I made changes to my site, but they are not visible yet.
You must click update site in order for your changes to be made live to the web. The update site button is located on your Edit My site page (to access this page see question above). After you click this button, a message is sent to bepress and your site is queued for update. Once update is complete, you will receive an email confirmation.
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Is my site ever updated for me?
Your site is updated automatically the moment it is first built and also anytime that you upload a new paper (or a new version of a paper). In addition, all SelectedWorks sites are updated nightly.
Can I withdraw or remove a document that I've already posted?
Yes. However, the URL remains, along with a citation saying the paper has been removed. To withdraw a paper, locate the paper on your Edit My Site page and click edit next to the title. Click withdraw once and then again on the next page.
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I uploaded a document, but it seems to have converted poorly. What can I do?
Just send an email to with a link to the problem paper. We will try to redistill the paper for you.
How do I edit a paper that I've already posted or upload a more recent version?
Navigate to your Edit My Site page and find the paper. Click Edit next to the title and click revise on the next page. Type in any changes on the revise form and click Save.
My paper has co-authors. Do they need to upload as well?
No. Your co-authors will be able to collect any papers that you have uploaded during the gratis paper population. If they choose to accept the paper during this step, the paper will automatically drop into their site.
I would like to add my email to my SelectedWorks contact information. Should I be concerned about spammers?
No. SelectedWorks cloaks all email addresses in order to restrict spammers' ability to scrape email addresses from our sites.
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How do I assign someone else to post my papers on my site for me?
Make sure you are logged into your SelectedWorks site. Click My Editors (found in the top navigational bar). Add the name and email address of the person that you would like to add and click Save Changes. Please note, your editors will be able to make any and all changes to your site (including uploading content and adding/revising personal information).
I have been added as an administrator to a site. How do I access it?
Go to works.bepress.com and click My account. Enter your email address, leave the password blank, and click Log in. Choose a password on the next page and click Sign up. An email confirming your account will be sent to you (follow the link within the email). Once you are on the My account page, scroll until you see the green banner and the blue SelectedWorks logo. Click Edit My site, which is the third choice under the banner. You are now on the Edit My Site page, where you can upload content and customize this site.
How can I delete my site?
Just send an email to and we would be happy to take it down for you.
Why isn't my site on the authors page?
It can take upwards of one day for your site to be included in this page because we vet sites carefully before adding them. In addition, we do not include sites that have low or no content.

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