IDEALS content is organized around units which generally correspond to administrative or research units of the University, such as colleges, departments, labs, and research centers. Units can be organized into parent- and child-units, often used for narrower organizational units that live within a parent-unit, or collections of materials. Like a unit, a child-unit can contain other child-units and collections. A collection can contain deposited items. A full list of units and collections is available to browse.

IDEALS allows scholarly or research units to manage their own units; for example, units can decide:

• The structure of their unit;

• Who can submit items;

• Whether there will be a review process for submitted items; and

• Whether there will be access restrictions on a specific collection.

Each unit has its own entry page displaying information, news and links reflecting the interests of that unit, as well as a descriptive list of child-units and collections within the unit. See the IDEALS Unit Policy page for more information on units.

To establish a unit and collections for your research group, department, or other formal/informal group, please see Starting a Unit or Collection.

There is also an open collection, Illinois Research and Scholarship (Open Unit), where individuals whose departments do not yet have an established presence within IDEALS can deposit their research.