digitalcommons.ciis.edu

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

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.

Digital Commons @ CIIS is the institutional repository of the California Institute of Integral Studies libraries, and its homepage provides two author-facing entry points: a Submit Research link and an Author Corner section containing an Author FAQ. The repository describes its content as "selected and deposited by the individual university departments and centers on campus," so submission is not necessarily a self-service flow open to any author. Before submitting, check the Author FAQ and confirm with your department or center whether your work is being deposited through that unit.

What the Repository Says About How Content Gets There

The homepage states that research and scholarly output in the repository "has been selected and deposited by the individual university departments and centers on campus." That sentence is the key mechanism to understand: deposit is organized at the department or center level rather than described as an open, individual upload process.

This means an author's practical first step is usually internal — asking the relevant department or center whether the work is being collected for deposit — rather than starting from the public site alone.

Step-by-Step: Finding Submission Guidance

1. Open the repository homepage at digitalcommons.ciis.edu.
2. Locate the Author Corner section in the browse area of the page. It contains an Author FAQ link.
3. Read the Author FAQ for author-facing guidance before doing anything else. This is the repository's own stated source of author information.
4. Find the Submit Research link, also listed in the page's browse/links area, and follow it to see what submission options the repository presents.
5. Check your department or center. Because content is selected and deposited by campus units, ask your department or center whether your work is included in their deposit activity and what they need from you.
6. Contact the CIIS libraries with any remaining repository questions. The repository is described as a service of the CIIS libraries, which makes them the appropriate contact for process questions.

Expected result: after steps 1–4 you will know what the repository itself publishes about author submission; after steps 5–6 you will know whether your specific work is being deposited through your unit and who to ask about next steps.

What to Prepare Before You Ask

The homepage does not list required file formats, metadata fields, or a submission checklist, so avoid assuming specifics. Instead, prepare the information a department or library contact would typically need to route your question:

• Your name and affiliation within CIIS
• The department or center your work belongs to
• The title and type of work (for example, a paper, report, or other scholarly output)
• Whether the work has already been published elsewhere and where

Use these as the content of your inquiry; the repository page itself does not confirm which of these it requires.

Common Sticking Points

• Treating "Submit Research" as an open public upload. The page presents it as a link, but the repository's own description of deposit through departments and centers means you should confirm eligibility rather than assume it.
• Skipping the Author FAQ. It is the repository's designated author guidance and is listed before you need to contact anyone.
• Contacting the wrong office. Repository questions belong with the CIIS libraries, which operate the repository as a service.
• Assuming a timeline or review process. The homepage does not describe review steps or turnaround, so ask rather than plan around an assumed schedule.

Quick Reference

If your goal is simply to read the repository's author guidance, the Author FAQ and Submit Research links are enough. If your goal is to get a specific piece of work deposited, start with your department or center, since that is how the repository describes its content arriving.

Digital Commons @ CIIS is the institutional repository of the California Institute of Integral Studies libraries, and you can find material in it in two main ways: type terms into the search box on the homepage, or browse by research unit, collection, discipline, or author. Use search when you already have a topic, title, or name in mind; use browsing when you want to see what a department or center has deposited. The repository notes that its content is "selected and deposited by the individual university departments and centers on campus," so coverage reflects what those units have chosen to submit rather than a complete record of everything produced at CIIS.

Search the repository

The homepage includes a search area with the prompt "Enter search terms" and a context selector offering two choices: in this repository or across all repositories.

1. Enter your terms in the search box.
2. Choose in this repository if you want results only from Digital Commons @ CIIS. Choose across all repositories if you want to search the broader Digital Commons Network, which includes other institutions' repositories.
3. Run the search and review the results.

The expected result is a results list drawn from the context you selected. A common pitfall is leaving the context on "across all repositories" and then wondering why results include papers from other universities — switch back to "in this repository" to limit the scope.

For more precise queries, the page links to Advanced Search, which lets you combine multiple search fields instead of relying on a single box. Use it when a plain keyword search returns too much or too little.

Browse by structure

If you don't have a specific search term, the repository organizes content so you can navigate it directly. The homepage's "Browse Research and Scholarship" area and the browse links let you move through:

• Research unit, center, or department — see what a specific campus unit has deposited.
• Collections — view the repository's grouped collections.
• Disciplines — browse by field. The repository is part of the Digital Commons Network, whose discipline list covers Architecture; Arts and Humanities; Business; Education; Engineering; Law; Life Sciences; Medicine and Health Sciences; Physical Sciences and Mathematics; and Social and Behavioral Sciences.
• Authors — find researchers by name, with an Author Corner and Author FAQ for author-related information.

This structure suits tasks like "show me recent work from a particular center" better than keyword search, because it relies on how the depositing unit organized its material.

See what's new or most viewed

The homepage's At a Glance section surfaces activity in the repository:

• Top 10 Downloads and All time download figures
• Recent Additions — the 20 most recent additions
• Activity by year
• Paper of the Day — a daily featured item (for example, Path to Utopia by Leila Kincaid appeared as the featured paper on the page captured)

Use these when you want a quick sense of the repository's current output rather than a targeted lookup.

Stay notified

The homepage offers Notify me via email or RSS, so you can follow new content without rechecking the site. This is useful if you're tracking a department's deposits over time. The exact subscription options are set on the notification page itself.

Quick reference

If you're looking for a specific paper and search comes up empty, try browsing the relevant department or collection instead — the repository's coverage depends on what each unit has deposited, so a paper may exist under a collection without matching your keywords.

Digital Commons @ CIIS is the online research repository of the California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS). It is a service of the CIIS libraries and hosts research and scholarly output that has been selected and deposited by individual university departments and centers on campus. You can use it to browse collections, disciplines, and authors, or to search the repository directly.

Who runs it and what it contains

The repository is operated as a library service of CIIS. Its content is not a general web archive; the materials included are chosen and deposited by the university's departments and centers. That means the scope reflects the research priorities of those units rather than a single central editorial team.

The site organizes material in several ways:

• Research unit, center, or department — browse by the campus unit that deposited the work
• Collections — grouped sets of scholarship
• Disciplines — subject-based browsing
• Authors — browse by contributor
• Featured Publications — highlighted selections

How it fits into the wider Digital Commons Network

The repository is part of the Digital Commons Network, a larger collection of institutional repositories. From the CIIS site you can move into the Network's discipline areas, which include:

This matters if your search at CIIS comes up thin: the same platform lets you widen the search across all repositories in the Network.

What you can do on the site

The homepage offers a few practical entry points:

• Search — enter terms and choose whether to search in this repository or across all repositories; an Advanced Search option is also available
• Browse — by collections, disciplines, or authors
• At a Glance — top 10 downloads, all-time downloads, recent additions, the 20 most recent additions, and activity by year
• Paper of the Day — a rotating featured item (for example, Path to Utopia by Leila Kincaid appears as a featured paper)
• Author Corner — an Author FAQ and a Submit Research link for contributors
• Notify me — email or RSS alerts for new content

Who it is for

• Researchers and students looking for CIIS-affiliated scholarship, or wanting to browse by discipline or author
• CIIS authors who want to deposit work; the Author Corner's Submit Research page is the starting point, and the Author FAQ covers common questions
• Visitors tracking new output who want email or RSS notifications

Practical notes

Search behavior depends on the context you select: searching "in this repository" limits results to CIIS deposits, while "across all repositories" draws on the broader Digital Commons Network. If a known CIIS paper does not appear, try the wider context before assuming it is absent. Access terms, login requirements, and any submission policies are not specified on the homepage, so check the About, FAQ, and Author FAQ pages for the current rules before relying on them.

Digital Commons @ CIIS is the institutional repository of the California Institute of Integral Studies libraries, and it holds research and scholarly output that individual CIIS departments and centers on campus have selected and deposited. In practice, that means you will find faculty and departmental scholarship, featured publications, and a rotating "Paper of the Day" highlight, all organized so you can browse by research unit, collection, discipline, or author, or search across the repository.

What the repository contains

The home page describes the repository as "a service of the California Institute of Integral Studies libraries," with content "selected and deposited by the individual university departments and centers on campus." That selection model matters: this is not a general web index or a publisher database, but a curated set of work that CIIS units have chosen to include.

The types of content you can expect to encounter include:

• Scholarly and research output deposited by CIIS departments and centers — the core of the repository.
• Featured Publications — a highlighted selection surfaced from the browse area.
• Paper of the Day — a single item promoted on the home page; the example shown is Path to Utopia by Leila Kincaid.
• Collections organized by research unit, center, or department, plus browsing by discipline and by author.

How the content is organized

The repository gives you several parallel ways to move through the same material, which is useful because you may know an author's name but not the department, or a topic but not the collection.

The repository is also part of the Digital Commons Network, so discipline links can carry you outward to scholarship in the same field from other institutions. The network's top-level disciplines listed on the page are Architecture; Arts and Humanities; Business; Education; Engineering; Law; Life Sciences; Medicine and Health Sciences; Physical Sciences and Mathematics; and Social and Behavioral Sciences.

How to find a specific item

1. Start with the search box. Enter your terms, then choose the search context: in this repository for CIIS-only results, or across all repositories to include the wider Digital Commons Network. An Advanced Search option is available for more precise queries.
2. Or browse a collection. If you know the department or center, use the research-unit browse list; if you know the field, use Disciplines.
3. Check Recent Additions or Activity by year when you want to see what is new rather than what is most downloaded.
4. Set up alerts if you want updates without rechecking — the page offers email or RSS notification.

A practical example: if you are looking for recent work from a particular CIIS center, browsing that unit's collection and then sorting your attention to the Recent Additions list is faster than a keyword search, because the collection already reflects the unit's own deposits.

What to keep in mind

• Coverage reflects departmental selection. Because items are chosen and deposited by campus units, the repository is not a complete record of everything produced at CIIS; absence of an item does not mean it does not exist.
• Search scope changes your results. Searching "across all repositories" will return work from other institutions, so use "in this repository" when you need CIIS material only.
• Accounts and submission. The site includes My Account, Author FAQ, and a Submit Research link, indicating that authors affiliated with the repository can deposit work; the page does not state access or eligibility terms, so check the Author Corner before planning a submission.
• Full-text availability varies by item. The home page does not describe licensing or download permissions for individual papers, so confirm access on the item's own page.