How Digital Commons @ CIIS Relates to the Digital Commons Network

Updated

Digital Commons @ CIIS is a repository hosted on the Elsevier Digital Commons platform, and its collections are part of the broader Digital Commons Network. That relationship has three practical effects: CIIS content is discoverable alongside scholarship from other institutions, the Network organizes that content by discipline, and search can be run either within the CIIS repository alone or across all repositories on the platform.

What the relationship means in practice

The CIIS repository page states directly that its collection "is part of the Digital Commons Network." The Network is a discipline-based layer that sits over participating repositories, grouping scholarship into broad fields rather than by institution.

The Network disciplines listed on the site are:

  • Architecture
  • Arts and Humanities
  • Business
  • Education
  • Engineering
  • Law
  • Life Sciences
  • Medicine and Health Sciences
  • Physical Sciences and Mathematics
  • Social and Behavioral Sciences

For a CIIS reader, this means a paper deposited by a CIIS department can be reached through a subject path in the Network, not only through the CIIS repository's own browse pages.

How the layers fit together

Layer What it covers How you reach it
Digital Commons @ CIIS Research selected and deposited by CIIS departments and centers; the repository is a service of the California Institute of Integral Studies libraries The CIIS repository site: browse by research unit, center, or department; browse collections, disciplines, or authors
Digital Commons Network Discipline-grouped scholarship across participating repositories Discipline links from the CIIS repository page, or the Network itself
Platform-wide search All repositories on the Digital Commons platform The search box's "across all repositories" context option

The platform itself is identified on the page as Elsevier – Digital Commons, which is also where the author-side functions (such as the Author FAQ and Submit Research) live.

Searching within CIIS versus across the Network

The repository's search box lets you enter terms and then choose a context: in this repository or across all repositories. An Advanced Search option is also available.

  • Use in this repository when you want only CIIS-deposited work — for example, locating a specific CIIS center's output or a known author.
  • Use across all repositories when your topic may be covered elsewhere and you want the Network's wider pool; results will include other institutions' repositories, so check the source of each item.
  • Use the discipline links when you want to browse a field rather than search a phrase.

One consequence worth planning for: a cross-repository search returns more, but less of it is CIIS material, so filter by repository or by author affiliation if your question is specifically about CIIS scholarship.

Where the Network shows up on the CIIS site

Beyond the discipline list, the repository surfaces Network-connected entry points:

  • At a Glance — Top 10 Downloads, all-time downloads, recent additions (20 most recent), and activity by year, useful for seeing what is being deposited and read.
  • Paper of the Day — a rotating featured item; the page's current example is Path to Utopia by Leila Kincaid.
  • Browse — by collections, disciplines, and authors, plus an Author Corner with an Author FAQ and Submit Research link.
  • Notify me via email or RSS — for following new additions without re-checking the site.

A concrete example

Suppose you are looking for work on integral and transpersonal psychology themes. Starting from the CIIS repository, you could open the Social and Behavioral Sciences discipline in the Network to see relevant scholarship across participating repositories, then return to the CIIS repository and repeat the search "in this repository" to isolate CIIS-deposited items. The first pass widens your view; the second narrows it to the institution. The same two-step pattern works for arts and humanities or education topics.

What this relationship does not tell you

The repository page does not state access or pricing terms for individual items, nor does it describe submission eligibility rules beyond pointing to the Author FAQ and Submit Research pages. If you need those details — for example, whether a given paper is open access or what a department requires before deposit — check the item page or the Author FAQ rather than assuming from the Network membership.