Strategies for gaining and maintaining academic support for…

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Strategies for gaining and maintaining academic support for the institutional open access repository :

“The impact of research can be measured by use or citation count. The more widely available that research outputs are; the more likely they are to be used, and the higher the impact. Making the author-manuscript version of research outputs freely available via the institutional repository greatly increases the availability of research outputs and can increase the impact.
QUT ePrints, the open access institutional repository of research outputs at Queensland University of Technology (QUT), Australia, was established in 2003 and is managed by the QUT Library. The repository now contains over 39,000 records. More than 21,000 of these records have full-text copies attached as result of continuous effort to maintain momentum and encourage academic engagement. The full-text deposit rate has continued to increase over time and, in 2012 (August, at the time of writing), 88% of the records for works published in 2012 provide access to a full-text copy.
Achieving success has required a long term approach to collaboration, open access advocacy, repository promotion, support for the deposit process, and ongoing system development. This paper discusses the various approaches adopted by QUT Library, in collaboration with other areas of the University, to achieve success.
Approaches include mainstreaming the repository via having it report to the University Research and Innovation Committee; regular provision of deposit rate data to faculties; championing key academic supporters; and holding promotional competitions and events such as during Open Access Week.
Support and training is provided via regular deposit workshops with academics and faculty research support groups and via the provision of online self-help information. Recent system developments have included the integration of citation data (from Scopus and Web of Science) and the development of a statistical reporting system which incentivise engagement.”

URL : http://eprints.qut.edu.au/59212/

Opening access to agricultural information in Ghana Kenya…

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Opening access to agricultural information in Ghana, Kenya and Zambia :

“Agricultural innovation systems in Africa need to have access to both local and global agricultural sciences and technical information if they are to have an impact on agriculture and food security initiatives on the continent. While access to global agricultural information resources and innovations is relatively easy, local agricultural content is generally not visible and easily accessible. Providing access these important resources, through institutional repositories of metadata records and associated full-text documents, is one pathway of ensuring that the content generated locally is easily accessible within the country, region and around the globe. This paper highlights three initiatives implemented by national research institutes in Ghana, Kenya and Zambia aimed at opening access to agricultural information and knowledge resources. It also presents the major challenges faced in the implementation of the initiatives and the key lessons learned that could be useful when implementing similar initiatives.”

URL : http://eprints.rclis.org/18921/

Institutional Repositories and Open Access Initiatives in Bangladesh…

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Institutional Repositories and Open Access Initiatives in Bangladesh: A New Paradigm of Scholarly Communication :

“Nowadays, open access (OA) in its diverse forms constitutes the most interesting and promising model for the research output of an academic or research institution. The purpose of the present study is to discuss the situation of OA in the developing world, with a focus on Bangladesh. The study also addresses why OA is important for developing countries and which initiatives have been taken in Bangladesh. Finally, we discuss some challenging issues of OA and suggestions on how to overcome these issues. It is rather obvious that developing countries have always faced a lack of research information and were unable to afford sufficient subscriptions to journals. The other side of the picture is the poor dissemination of the research outcome in the developing world. In Bangladesh, only three organizations have their institutional repository and have a reasonable number of local OA journals. We will identify some problems that impede the process of building open access IR, or more generally an OA environment in Bangladesh. We are convinced, however, that we will witness in the near future a sustainable growth of open access initiatives, with more open access literature and digital repositories.”

URL : http://liber.library.uu.nl/index.php/lq/article/view/8245

Fulfilling an Institutional and Public Good Mission A…

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Fulfilling an Institutional and Public Good Mission: A Case Study of Access :

“Access to higher education has been and remains a critical issue, yet research typically focuses on students and programs which may overlook the role of the faculty. Through an in-depth case study, the perspectives of tenured and tenure-track faculty at a predominately White, Midwestern land-grant, research institution are described as they relate to issues of student access to higher education. The context of the case was instrumental in understanding faculty perspectives of access and centered on the fundamental notion of education as public good and its association with institutional history and mission. The findings suggest that faculty members uphold the belief of higher education serving a greater purpose, or public good. However, faculty participants rarely saw themselves as actors in the issue of access.
The faculty held many expectations for students, some of which were reflected in the access literature and models, such as academic preparation and ability to navigate the university. Other expectations are absent in the access literature. Faculty members expect students to demonstrate a certain cultural capital and rewards students who demonstrate these skills, behaviors and knowledge. These expectations are often implicit and hidden from students. These finding suggests that some students or groups of students, especially those that face the biggest barriers to higher education, have the potential to be overlooked without advocacy and faculty buy-in. This study also advances the emerging theory of Academic Capital Formation (St. John et al., 2011) by presenting the faculty’s view of access.”

URL : http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cehsedaddiss/125/

Adding Value to Electronic Theses and Dissertations in…

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Adding Value to Electronic Theses and Dissertations in Institutional Repositories :

“Part of the grey literature, electronic theses and dissertations (ETDs) represent a growing segment of open, available content in institutional repositories (IR) where they contribute to the impact and ranking of their institution. More than half of all IRs listed in the Directory of Open Access Repositories contain ETDs. Most of these open access projects have similarities and common features, such as access to full text and compliance with the OAI metadata harvesting protocol. But more important are the differences, with regard to metadata, policy, access restrictions, representativeness, file format, status, quality and related services. In this paper, we investigate what can be done to improve the quality of content and service provision in an open environment, in order to increase impact, traffic and usage. Based on a review of 54 recent communications and articles on PhD theses in institutional repositories, this paper shows five ways in which institutions can add value to the deposit and dissemination of electronic theses and dissertations and describes two developments that are challenging institutional repositories.”

URL : http://www.dlib.org/dlib/march13/schopfel/03schopfel.html

Using Wikipedia to Enhance the Visibility of Digitized Archival Assets

As an increasing number of archival repositories, libraries, and cultural institutions build significant freely accessible digital collections, archivists and digital librarians must continue to develop digital outreach strategies that reflect the nature of searching and discovery in today’s information economy.

This case study examines the use of Wikipedia by the Ball State University Libraries as an opportunity to raise the visibility of digitized historic sheet music assets made available in the university’s Digital Media Repository. By adding links to specific items in this collection to relevant, existing Wikipedia articles, Ball State successfully and efficiently expanded the user base of this collection in the Digital Media Repository by vastly enhancing the discoverability of the collection’s assets.

URL : http://www.dlib.org/dlib/march13/szajewski/03szajewski.html

Synthèse sur les politiques institutionnelles de libre accès…

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Synthèse sur les politiques institutionnelles de libre accès à la recherche :

“En matière d’archives ouvertes, les politiques strictement incitatives se sont avérées relativement peu efficaces (environ 15% de dépôts plein texte volontaires). Par contraste, les mandats institutionnels, dont le principe est de rendre ce dépôt plus ou moins obligatoire, permettent d’augmenter significativement la participation des chercheurs. Diverses enquêtes ont d’ailleurs montré qu’une majorité d’auteurs seraient disposés à archiver leurs travaux si un tel mandat les y contraignait. Depuis 2003, les mandats essaiment à travers le monde, particulièrement aux États-Unis, mais également en Europe, où l’Université de Liège fait désormais figure de modèle. L’Union européenne, qui via son 8e PCRD (Horizon 2020) devrait rendre obligatoire le libre accès à toute recherche qu’elle finance, recommande l’adoption de mandats à ses États membres. De son côté, le Royaume-Uni semble privilégier la voie dorée, au détriment de la voie verte, avec pour conséquence probable l’envolée des coûts de publication, à la charge des universités. En France, les mandats, défendus par le CNRS et dont l’efficacité a été reconnue et approuvée à un niveau officiel, sont encore plutôt le fait d’organismes nationaux que d’universités. L’adoption et la mise en œuvre d’une politique institutionnelle est un processus de longue haleine : pour qu’elle soit comprise et acceptée par la communauté scientifique, il faut en méditer soigneusement la formulation, l’expliquer aux chercheurs de manière à éviter tout risque d’interprétation erronée, l’accompagner par des actions de soutien et de suivi, proposer des services à valeur ajoutée en rétribution aux efforts d’auto-archivage. Il peut s’avérer stratégiquement judicieux de limiter dans un premier temps l’application du mandat à des laboratoires-relais, dont l’exemple peut avoir un effet incitatif.”

URL : http://archivesic.ccsd.cnrs.fr/sic_00794497