Group Participation Policies

Group Defined

A group may be from any professional setting where nurses or nursing students* work or learn, such as schools of nursing, hospitals, other clinical settings, national/international nursing organizations, professional groups/consortia, or health-related businesses.

*Nurses and current nursing students must hold or currently be enrolled in an appropriately accredited BSN program or above.

Participation Steps

Read all the information below.
Decide what to submit. Use eligible submissions as a guideline.
Decide who will submit. The choice will be dictated by the copyright holder and setting (i.e., appointed staff, individual group members)
Select a liaison.
Determine if the submissions will undergo organizational evaluation or will be reputation-based.
Commit to establishing a collection homepage or using the Author Affiliation field, only. See the Group Representation section below.
Complete this form to begin the process: https://sigmanursing.formstack.com/forms/sr_groupparticipantinterest. Training and information sessions will be scheduled.

Submission Types

These are examples, only. Item types may be applicable to more than one group setting.

Schools of Nursing

Submission Types:

Student papers and projects
Faculty works (non-published)
Instructional Resources

Clinical Settings

Submission Types:

Quality/Process Improvements
Patient-centered outcomes
Research Studies
Nursing Interventions
Patient Education Materials
Continuing Education Materials

Nursing Organizations

Committee Reports
Research Studies
Best Practice Guidelines
Position Papers
Presentation Materials

For detailed information on acceptable content types visit:
Content

To share presentation materials (posters, podium/oral presentations) visit:
Event Materials

The Sigma Repository has devoted three collections to student works. One collection for general student works that includes capstone projects. Another collection is devoted to traditionally formatted master's level theses. The final collection is devoted to traditionally formatted doctoral level dissertations.

Copyright

Upon submission and posting of materials, copyright remains with the original copyright holder.
Only the original copyright holder may submit their material to the Sigma Repository.
In the United States, students and faculty are the copyright holders of the work they create during courses or as part of teaching, tenure, and promotion, respectively.
Copyright holders may assign someone the right to submit on their behalf by completing the repository's proxy form.
In most cases, a journal owns the copyright to the as-published article. So, published articles should not be submitted to the Sigma Repository unless they were published with a Creative Commons License.
Individual copyright holders (e.g., students, faculty, members, employees) cannot be compelled to submit their materials to the repository, only invited to submit.
Before a group begins submissions, they should have a critical conversation about copyright and copyright ownership!

Liaison

All groups must nominate a liaison that will serve as the point of contact for Sigma Repository staff. This person will facilitate a working relationship between the group and the Sigma Repository. The liaison will coordinate with the group members/personnel to provide and relay information, implement internal procedures to ensure participation success, and ensure a positive, thriving working relationship between the group, submitters/copyright holders, and the Sigma Repository.

Group Representation in the Sigma Repository

Group participation does not require a contract with Sigma. There are groups who have contracts with Sigma and participation in the Sigma Repository is a contractual term or condition.
Groups do not have ownership in, or a partnership with, the Sigma Repository.
Groups who have participated for 3 consecutive years with a minimum of 25 submissions per year, may request a collection homepage in the Sigma Repository, but it is not required.
Groups should request that all submitters place the group's name in the author Affiliation field during the submission process. This is how group submissions are tracked. The exception to this rule is student works (e.g., theses, dissertations, capstones). Those works are tracked by the Degree Grantor field.
Until such time as a collection is created for the group, submissions will be assigned to an appropriate topical or thematic collection.
Groups who have a collection homepage that does not receive submissions in a consecutive 12-month period will have their collection homepage deleted and the items placed in appropriate topical or thematic collections. Deletion will occur without notice to the group's liaison.

Evaluation

The Sigma Repository is not a journal and does not have a peer-review process in place.
Groups are permitted to have their own evaluation process for their materials. One person may serve as the evaluator. This person will be trained in the repository's workflow process. This is not required.
Alternatively, groups are permitted to have their own evaluation process outside of the repository's submission process and prior to the start of the submission.
Most group submissions fall under the category or reputation-based submissions and receive no further evaluation once submitted to the repository for processing and posting.
All evaluation methods can be found here: Item Acquisition and Review Types.

Collection Benefits:

Groups receive all benefits to individuals, plus:

Greater visibility within the repository.
The opportunity to brand their collection homepage with a logo and lead-in text specific to their mission and reason for repository involvement.
The ability to track global usage and download statistics for all items located in their collection.
The ability to track online references, citations, and mentions on multiple online platforms and websites via Altmetric©. The subscription to Altmetric© is paid for by the Sigma Repository and the cost is not passed along to participants.

Tip: Quantification of global impact is valuable when asking administrators and funders for support, and when providing statistics for promotion or tenure.

Tip: Group participation works best if the materials submitted to the repository are created as part of employment (i.e., works for hire) and copyright is held by the group as corporate author.