Withdrawal Policy

BDEARS strives to provide persistent access to all deposited items. However, it may be necessary under some circumstances to withdraw items from BDEARS. Triggers for withdrawal may include discovery of a copyright violation or publication of an article with a publisher that does not allow previous versions to be available. Withdrawals may be initiated by the depositor or, in the case of a copyright violation, an internal or external entity.

All withdrawal requests must go through [email protected]. These will be reviewed by Library Collections Management staff. BDEARS staff may contact the person making the request for more information.

If a withdrawal is requested due to a copyright violation, BDEARS will notify the depositor and withdraw the item. BDEARS is not responsible for resolving copyright disputes, but will refer Busitema University community members to the Directorate of Legal Affairs. If it is found that copyright was not violated, the withdrawn item will be reinstated.

Items may not be withdrawn because the depositor or author is moving to another institution. The depositor has the right to give additional copies to other institutions under the non-exclusive agreement.

When an item is withdrawn from BDEARS a copy will remain in an inaccessible archive (as specified in the deposit agreement). Since any item that has existed within BDEARS may have been cited via its persistent URL, BDEARS will always supply a "tombstone" when the item is requested. Withdrawn items will not be available for harvesting or indexing by search engines.

To avoid loss of the historical record, the withdrawal transaction will be traced via a provenance statement. The content of the note will include who requested the withdrawal and the reason for the withdrawal. Library Collections Management staff will alert a requester when a withdrawal is complete, or, if a withdrawal request is refused, will provide the requester with the reason why it was not accepted.

Preservation actions beyond back-ups will not be performed on withdrawn items.

It is also possible to restrict access to material within BDEARS, but withdrawal and access restriction should not be confused. Withdrawal of items should be considered a permanent action to remove access to an item in BDEARS, while items under restricted access are either accessible to a limited number of users or under embargo, i.e. completely restricted for a limited period of time. See the BDEARS Access Restriction Policy for more information.