Étiquette : open repositories

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Analyzing the Performance of an Institutional Scientific Repository…

Analyzing the Performance of an Institutional Scientific Repository – A Case Study :

« Scientific knowledge evolution is mainly based on an effective dissemination of research results. The concept of Open Access gives us the theoretical foundation of a model for accessing scientific knowledge, free from the constraints of traditional publishing and technologically supported by the Internet.

Institutional Repositories are information systems that allow preserving, storing and disseminating scientific knowledge produced in higher education and scientific research institutions.

They increase the visibility and the citation level of the documents. They also contribute to minimizing negative aspects like plagiarism of content because documents are exposed to peers in real time.

As an alternative way to the traditional system of publishing scientific research content, repositories are developed in a cultural climate of great visibility leading to an immediate critical evaluation by peers.

The Scientific Repository of the Polytechnic Institute of Castelo Branco – Portugal (RCIPCB) was created in 2009 but its official presentation took place in January 2010. Its main purposes are promoting Open Access (OA), and preserving and disseminating the scientific knowledge produced at the Polytechnic Institute of Castelo Branco (IPCB). Using DSpace as a technological platform, RCIPCB is an institutional project supported by the president of the IPCB.

Therefore, the present study was developed with the aim of analyzing the performance of RCIPCB considering the evolution and growth in terms of users, archiving and self-archiving, the number of published documents (scientific) versus deposited documents in 2010 and the heterogeneity among communities/collections and its causes.

Data were collected in RCIPCB, in the 2010 scientific publication list of the institute and through a questionnaire survey distributed among the members of the community with most documents deposited and those of the community with the fewest documents.

For data collected in RCIPCB and in the publication list, average, standard deviation and counts were calculated. Data collected from questionnaires were analyzed with SPSS.

The results show that RCIPCB indicates an asymmetric growing dynamics. Nevertheless, it reflects the institutional organization, in the sense that the communities related to the older schools possess more documents than the communities related to more recent schools. Communities having higher numbers of deposited documents seem to have also higher levels of searches and downloads. Therefore, it increases significantly the visibility of the institution and its researchers.

Concerning the 2010 scientific production when compared with the deposit level of the corresponding community, the results show that the number of documents deposited is much lower than the number of published documents.

Data obtained from the questionnaire answers from the communities The School of Agriculture (ESACB) and The School of Applied Arts (ESART) suggest that the strategy of communication used by RCIPCB is correct because everybody knows about the Repository. However, that is not related to the number of documents deposited. They also suggest that the strategy is not efficient and it needs some improvements in order to become effective.

Considering the results it is clear that RCIPCB needs to have a mandatory depositing policy that might also be extended to user registration. Those factors would minimize both the heterogeneity and the asymmetric growth of communities and collections. Moreover, it would also decrease the difference between scientific production and the corresponding deposit in RCIPCB. »

URL : http://www.rivista-incontri.nl/index.php/lq/article/view/8047/8436

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Digital repositories ten years on: what do scientific researchers think of them and how do they use them?

Digital repositories have been with us for more than a decade, and despite the considerable media and conference attention they engender, we know very little about their use by academics.

This paper sets out to address this by reporting on how well they are used, what they are used for, what researchers’ think of them, and where they thought they were going. Nearly 1,700 scientific researchers, mostly physical scientists, responded to an international survey of digital repositories, making it the largest survey of its kind.

High deposit rates were found and mandates appear to be working, especially with younger researchers. Repositories have made significant inroads in terms of impact and use despite, in the case of institutional repositories, the very limited resources deployed. S

ubject repositories, like arXiv and PubMed Central, have certainly come of age but institutional repositories probably have not come of age yet although there are drivers in place which, in theory anyway, are moving them towards early adulthood.

URL : http://ciber-research.eu/download/20120620-Digital_repositories_ten_years_on.pdf

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Establishment of Institutional Mechanism for Building National Repository…

Establishment of Institutional Mechanism for Building National Repository in Health Sciences :

« National consolidation of published and unpublished literature in the field of biomedical sciences can playa major role in scholarly communication to help the end users in providing research published in the country.Institutional repositories are a good approach for a cost-effective publishing with a cooperation and participationof each institution for capturing, preserving, managing, and nurturing the discussion. In turn, metadata can be harvested centrally to access the digital information of common interest whereas individual libraries shouldable to preserve digital assets. Institutionalisation mode has been recommended for building national digitalrepository system for the country. The public funding should be provided to apex body so as to formulatethe requisite policies for the spread of open access movement in the country and also formulate a long termsustainable model for building national level system in the country. »

URL : http://publications.drdo.gov.in/ojs/index.php/djlit/article/view/2386

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Does Tenure Matter Factors Influencing Faculty Contributions to…

Does Tenure Matter? Factors Influencing Faculty Contributions to Institutional Repositories :

« INTRODUCTION : Institutional repositories (IRs) provide colleges and universities a way to ensure stability of access to and dissemination of digital scholarly communications. Yet, many institutions report that faculty willingness to contribute to IRs is often limited. This study investigates faculty attitudes about IR contributions by tenure status and category of material.

IMETHODS: Two focus group interviews were conducted in the spring of 2009 among English department faculty at a large Midwestern university. One group consisted of tenured faculty and the other of tenure-track and adjunct faculty.

IRESULTS: Both groups recognize the benefit of open access to research materials but expressed concern about their intellectual property rights. Untenured faculty spoke more about nonprint research. Both groups also shared concerns about contributing instructional materials, primarily in regard to plagiarism and outdated materials. In regard to faculty service, the tenured group discussed many items they would contribute, while the untenured faculty mentioned very little.

IDISCUSSION: Some minor differences emerged related to experience and tenure status in regard to contributing research and instructional artifacts, but the major variation was the strong support tenured participants gave for contributing service items, compared to the untenured faculty, who did not view this category positively. Tenured faculty viewed the IR as a way to document their own service activities, investigate those of colleagues, and had fewer concerns about plagiarism or other negative effects in the service category.

CONCLUSION: Promoting faculty contribution of service-related items to an IR may be a way to encourage larger numbers to participate. »

URL : http://jlsc-pub.org/jlsc/vol1/iss1/8/

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Lasting Impact: Sustainability of Disciplinary Repositories

Librarians need to be familiar with the evolving aspects of scholarly communication and the changing scholarly record. One component of that is the role of repositories. It’s crucial for anyone working in a research library to understand the repository landscape, both to advise researchers on where to look for information and how to disseminate their own research articles.

Librarians should appreciate the nature of the leading disciplinary repositories and have a sense of their motivations, their scope, and how they operate. Before getting involved with a disciplinary repository, they should be familiar with the risks and opportunities in depending on the repository and, most importantly, they need to know if the repository has a sustainable model.

For a library considering starting a disciplinary repository or taking on the operation of an existing one, these considerations are essential.

URL : http://www.oclc.org/research/publications/library/2012/2012-03.pdf

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Usage and Impact of Controlled Vocabularies in a…

Usage and Impact of Controlled Vocabularies in a Subject Repository for Indexing and Retrieval :

« Since 2009, the German National Library for Economics (ZBW) supports both indexing and retrieval of Open Access scientific publications like working papers, postprint articles and conference papers by means of a terminology web service. This web service is based on concepts organized as a ‘Standard Thesaurus for Economics’ (STW), which is modelled and regularly published as Linked Open Data. Moreover, it is integrated into the institution’s subject repository for automatically suggesting appropriate key words while indexing and retrieving documents, and for automatically expanding search queries on demand to gain better search results. While this approach looks promising to augment ‘off the shelf’ repository software systems in a lightweight manner with a disciplinary profile, there is still significant uncertainty about the effective usage and impact of controlled terms in the realm of these systems. To cope with this, we analyze the repository’s logfiles to get evidence of search behaviour which is potentially influenced by auto suggestion and expansion of scientific terms derived from a discipline’s literature. »

URL : http://liber.library.uu.nl/publish/issues/2011-3_4/index.html?000555

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Fostering New Roles for Librarians Skills Set for…

Fostering New Roles for Librarians: Skills Set for Repository Managers — Results of a Survey in Italy :

« The open access movement in scholarly communication has grown considerably over the last ten years and it has driven an increase in the number of institutional repositories (IRs). New professional roles and skills had to be developed to secure effective IR management.

Collection developmente expertise and metadata curation are regarded as strategic roles for repositories and therefore it is only logical for the library and information community to take on the responsibility for managing these digital archives. However, it has become clear that traditional librarian skills do not suffice anymore to run successful repositories. A richer set of skills is needed, including management and communication skills, technical skills, and expertise with regard to access rights and preservation of digital content.

Referring to the work carried out by the SHERPA Project in the UK with regard to the skills set for repository staff, the authors performed a survey among repository managers in Italy to assess the educational and professional background of the repository managers and the skills set required to implement successful institutional repositories.

The survey findings show that the professional profile of the repository manager is a multiform and complex one. It requires cross-functional and highly specialised competencies. Italian repository managers are of the opinion that the skills required to promote the repository within the institution and those required to deal with copyright issues as the most essential skills repository managers should acquire and be trained for. Collection development and metadata expertise, familiarity with project management and expertise in repository workflow design are also highly rated. Technical skills are needed to deal with interoperability standards and protocols.

In Italy academic curricula do not meet the repository managers’ educational needs. Academic programmes should be developed to include communication, project management and team work skills and pay more attention to copyright issues. Until that time repository managers will have to spend a considerable part of their working lives on professional training and self-directed learning. »

URL : http://liber.library.uu.nl/publish/issues/2011-3_4/index.html?000553