Challenges for Establishment of Institutional Repositories

2021 ◽  
pp. 139-159
Author(s):  
Mass Masona Tapfuma ◽  
Ruth G. Hoskins
Keyword(s):  
Mixed Methods ◽  
Open Access ◽  
Southern Africa ◽  
Public Universities ◽  
Research Output ◽  
Publication Output ◽  
Research Library ◽  
Library Directors ◽  
Wide Audience ◽  
Institutional Repositories

Concern has been raised over low research output from universities in Southern Africa and its poor visibility on the global sphere. However, public universities in Zimbabwe adopted open access (OA) institutional repositories (IR) to increase publication output, access, visibility, and reach to a wide audience. This chapter reports on a study that explored the challenges faced by academics and librarians in Zimbabwe's public universities in contributing to and managing the IRs. A mixed methods approach was adopted with eight participating universities where directors of research, library directors, faculty/IR librarians, and academics were purposely selected. The study identified several impediments to the success of the IRs and these include academics' fears and misconceptions regarding OA and IRs, libraries experienced difficulties convincing university managers about OA exacerbated by an absence of enabling conditions to promote IR development. The chapter recommends that OA education needs to be intensified OA/IR and the universities' policies should recognise publication in OA platforms and enforce deposit mandates.

scholarly journals Researchers' perspectives on open access scholarly communication in Tanzanian public universities

2009 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
F.W. Dulle ◽  
M.K. Minishi-Majanja
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Open Access ◽  
Public Universities ◽  
Research Output ◽  
Scholarly Communication ◽  
Open Access Publishing ◽  
Institutional Repositories ◽  
Recognition Quality ◽  
Dissemination Of Research ◽  
Research Findings

This research explored the awareness, usage and perspectives of Tanzanian researchers on open access as a mode of scholarly communication. A survey questionnaire targeted 544 respondents selected through stratified random sampling from a population of 1088 university researchers of the six public universities in Tanzania. With a response rate of 73%, the data were analysed using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences. The study reveals that the majority of the researchers were aware of and were positive towards open access. Findings further indicate that the majority of researchers in Tanzanian public universities used open access outlets more to access scholarly content than to disseminate their own research findings. It seems that most of these researchers would support open access publishing more if issues of recognition, quality and ownership were resolved. Thus many of them supported the idea of establishing institutional repositories at their respective universities as a way of improving the dissemination of local content. The study recommends that public universities and other research institutions in the country should consider establishing institutional repositories, with appropriate quality assurance measures, to improve the dissemination of research output emanating from these institutions.

Institutional repositories in Africa: Regaining direction

2021 ◽  
pp. 026666692110154
Author(s):  
Usman Ahmed Adam ◽  
Kiran Kaur
Keyword(s):  
Open Access ◽  
Research Output ◽  
Current Status ◽  
African Countries ◽  
Institutional Repositories ◽  
Widespread Implementation ◽  
Typical Performance ◽  
The Status ◽  
Global Access ◽  
And Cluster Analysis

Institutional repositories are powerful tools to facilitate global access to intellectual output by members of the institution, particularly in assisting them to preserve and maximize access to their research output globally. This exploratory study of the status of institutional repositories implementation in African countries using the global Directory of Open Access Repositories (OpenDOAR) and Transparent Ranking: All Repositories by Google Scholar, reports on the operational status and the performance of repositories. Factor analysis and cluster analysis are used to analyze the operational level of institutional repositories in African countries. The analysis showed that the typical performance of institutional repositories remains below average. The possibility of global open access to research results through institutional repositories in South Africa, Kenya, Nigeria, Algeria, Sudan, and Egypt appeared to be relatively more feasible than other African countries. This study concludes that many organizations, institutions, and societies spend great efforts in support of open access implementation in Africa, however, the widespread implementation of institutional repositories is still very slow paced, and the performance of the implemented repositories was below expectation. Suggestions for regaining the intended direction of African institutional repositories are given based on the current status.

Attitudes of Scholars towards Self-Archiving in Institutional Repositories of Zimbabwe's Public Universities

Mousaion ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 37 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Mass Masona Tapfuma ◽  
Ruth Geraldine Hoskins
Keyword(s):  
Quantitative Methods ◽  
Public Universities ◽  
Research Output ◽  
Scholarly Communication ◽  
Unified Theory ◽  
Institutional Repositories ◽  
Qualitative And Quantitative Methods ◽  
Use Of Technology ◽  
Convenience Sampling ◽  
And Training

The introduction of open-access institutional repositories in scholarly communication presents an opportunity for public universities in Zimbabwe to increase the visibility, reach and impact of their research output. However, this opportunity is missed because of the low utilisation of the repositories by scholars in the institutions. Guided by the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology model, the researchers investigated academics’ awareness levels of and attitudes, perceptions and concerns about institutional repositories with the aim of understanding academics’ deposit behaviour. Both qualitative and quantitative methods in the forms of a questionnaire and interviews were used to gather data from academics and library and research directors at eight universities and from policy documents and university websites. Stratified, systematic and convenience sampling techniques, including the complete enumeration method, were used. The findings revealed that academics lacked knowledge and awareness of institutional repositories and their value in scholarly communication. Therefore, marketing and training should be intensified to increase acceptance and usage of repositories.

Evolution of institutional repositories: Managing institutional research output to remove the gap of academic elitism

2021 ◽  
pp. 096100062110095
Author(s):  
Saimah Bashir ◽  
Sumeer Gul ◽  
Shazia Bashir ◽  
Nahida Tun Nisa ◽  
Shabir Ahmad Ganaie
Keyword(s):  
Open Access ◽  
Research Output ◽  
Scholarly Communication ◽  
Learning Objects ◽  
Academic Community ◽  
Open Access Publishing ◽  
Supplementary Information ◽  
Academic Publishing ◽  
Institutional Research ◽  
Institutional Repositories

The article tries to highlight the evolution and conceptual framework of institutional repositories and their impact on the academic and scholarly circles in terms of better visibility, wider audience and earlier communication of research. The characteristics associated with the institutional repositories are also highlighted, which makes them stand out from the crowd in the family of open access scholarly platforms. The study is based on the examination and evaluation of the articles published across various peer-reviewed journals showcasing numerous dimensions of institutional repositories, ranging from their evolution to open scholarly acceptance. A preliminary search on institutional repositories was carried through two well-renowned indexing/abstracting databases of peer-reviewed literature, Clarivate Analytic’s, Web of Science and Elsevier’s Scopus. Search terms like institutional repositories, institutional research output, open access repositories, green open access, open access, open access publishing, open access initiatives, digital libraries, directory of open access repositories, open DOAR and scholarly communication were run across the databases for article retrieval, and the relevant studies were extracted accordingly. To make the study more comprehensive and current, the studies citing the retrieved articles were also consulted. The study reveals that the benefits associated with institutional repositories are manifold. They recounter users with the information which was otherwise unavailable due to the reasons ranging from the non-availability of supplementary information (like unpublished reports and working papers, multimedia and audiovisual items, learning objects, other special item types, bibliographic references, datasets, lecture notes and so forth) to the paywall/subscription models adopted by commercial channels of scholarly communication. Furthermore, the social, research and technological factors tend to be the main motivating factors for their wider acceptance by the scholarly community at global, national, organizational, and individual levels. They enhance the preservation of institutional research output with increased viewership and prestige apart from achieving a potential research impact. They, in a real sense, have abrogated the unilateral assault orchestrated by the commercial publishers on the author community by democratizing their scholarly voices via open and barrierless scholarly platforms. They are the future of the academic output of an institution/author as they perform successfully within the constitutional boundaries of scholarly and academic publishing, thus safeguarding the rights and claims of every academic actor. Given the importance of institutional repositories for a more democratic, barrierless and impactful information communication, they are for sure going beyond various scholarly circles by breaking the traditional and rigid walls of scholarly endeavours. The study presents a useful overview of the progression of the institutional repositories, their intended purpose and how they serve to fill the gaps in scholarly publishing and meet the needs of the wider academic community. The article summarizes in one place a concise overview of the use and impact of institutional repositories. The study is also an eye-opener for scholars interested in the research in the field of institutional repositories.

scholarly journals Increased impact for Open Publishing

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susanne Mikki ◽  
Marta Zygmuntowska
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Information System ◽  
Open Access ◽  
Publication Output ◽  
Subject Field ◽  
Institutional Repositories ◽  
Scholarly Output ◽  
Publication Data ◽  
Social Media Platforms ◽  
Citation Advantage

Watch the VIDEO here. Presenter - Susanne Mikki.PurposeBased on the scholarly output in Norway, we aim to determine the total amount of articles freely available online, and prove whether there exists a citation advantage for these. We also investigate whether these articles receive more mentions on social platforms such as tweets or blogposts.DesignThe total scholarly publication output of Norway is indexed in CERES, the Current Information System in Norway. Based on these publication data, we searched a) Google Scholar and denoted a document as freely available, when a link to a full-text was provided, and b) altmetric.com to detect mentions of these articles. We analyzed the extracted data by publishing year, citations, availability, provider and mentions on different platforms.FindingsDependent on subject field, we find that almost 70 % of all articles are freely available. Articles behind paywalls belong to the most prestigious publishers such as Elsevier, Springer, Routledge and Universitetsforlaget (the main Norwegian academic publisher). According to Google Scholar’s link resolver, ResearchGate and academia.edu are the most frequent providers. In addition, institutional repositories seem to play a major role in posting free article versions.We find a clear advantage for open publishing; on average, these documents received almost 30 % more mentions on social media platforms and twice as many citations, indicating that open access is the future in publishing.

scholarly journals Formation and Open Access of Institutional Electronic Research Corners for Promotion of Communication Facilities and Quality Research

2020 ◽  
Vol 15 (06) ◽  
pp. 192
Author(s):  
Sukanta Chandra Swain
Keyword(s):  
Open Access ◽  
Research Output ◽  
Group Discussion ◽  
Research Centers ◽  
Quality Research ◽  
Institutional Repositories ◽  
University Center ◽  
Library Network ◽  
Indian Higher Education ◽  
Internal Stakeholders

Indian higher education institutions (HEIs) are struggling hard to get a berth among top-rated HEIs in the world. One of the important parameters that restrict our HEIs from the list of top-notch global HEIs is ‘contribution to research’. It does not mean that Indian HEIs don’t have quality researchers to produce world class research output. Had that been the case, Indian researchers doing research abroad would not have done miracles with their unique research output in varied domains. The hindrance for researchers in India could be owing to improper communication facility that fails to exchange ideas and outcomes of research among peers. Thus, the urge for formation of sound institutional electronic repositories, i.e., electronic research corners (e-research corners) has crop up. Mere formation of e-research corners won’t suffice to address the issue. Besides formation, e-research corners need to be open accessed. University Grants Commission (UGC) of India has established an Inter-University Center called Information and Library Network Center (Inflibnet), which is the best example of open access institutional repositories. While some HEIs of India do have their research corners that are accessed by only the internal stakeholders, some other HEIs don’t have any such repositories as such. On the backdrop of the necessity of formation and open access of institutional electronic repositories, this paper focuses on unfolding how open access to sound e-research corners promote quality education. Besides, it will also design a framework that will assist the HEIs to build sound e-research centers. For the purpose, in-depth interviews will be conducted with 50 researchers working in reputed HEIs in Bhubaneswar to ascertain how open access e-research centers facilitate quality research. Focus Group Discussion will also be conducted among experts in the field like research heads of selected HEIs, Chief Librarians of established Libraries and reputed educationists of the State for designing the framework to form e-research centers. The findings of this research will help in communicating ideas and findings of researchers to all the corners that matter for quality research.

scholarly journals Open Science: Reinventing the Librarianship

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Esa-Pekka Keskitalo ◽  
Tanja Vienonen
Keyword(s):  
Open Access ◽  
Data Management ◽  
Data Storage ◽  
Service Providers ◽  
Research Output ◽  
Open Science ◽  
Research Data ◽  
Open Access Publishing ◽  
National Library ◽  
Institutional Repositories

Better utilisation of publicly funded research output is an aim of the Finnish Government. To reach that aim, the Open Science and Research (ATT) Initiative was launched in 2014. Lead by the Ministry of Education and Culture, the ATT Initiative has funded a number of projects that support good research data management, opening of research data, and Open Access in general. The Initiative also emphasises cooperation and interoperability nationally, and internationally.The National Library of Finland and other research libraries have an important role in the ATT Initiative. Libraries are in a good position to make meaningful contributions as they can repurpose their expertise on metadata, information retrieval, and collection management. They are finding new ways of collaboration and creating services in the fields of Open Access and Open Science.Libraries and other service providers should, first and foremost, respect the needs of research and researchers: science should always be the guiding force. But Open Access and Open Science do have an effect on how research is conducted and published. Therefore, it must be possible to have a critical look on conventional research practices. Increasing amounts of data, new technological possibilities, and new methods of analysis mean that old practices need to be revised. The more pronounced demands of interoperability and innovative re-usability drive for change, too. Of course, the funders are also very keen on cost-efficiency and measurable impact. There is a demand for harmonisation, collaboration, and shared infrastructures and services.The Open Scientific Publishing Project (TAJUA) in the National Library of Finland is a part of the ATT Initiative. The main focus of the project is to increase and improve the availability of Finnish research output. It comprises of several subprojects that build on the existing expertise of the Library, taking it to new directions. They deal withimproving the institutional repository infrastructure provided by the National Library, with special attention to organisations with restricted resources and basic demands;better guidance for institutional repositories on best practices in metadata creation, licensing, and in gathering statistics in a commensurable manner;a tool for easy creation of metadata about research datasets;improved persistent identifier services (ISNI, ORCID, URN, etc.);better understanding of economics of Open Access publishing, e.g. real level of APC, and recommendations for changes in publishing workflows; andrecommendations for ensuring long-term accessibility of scientific output.The TAJUA project complements others under the umbrella of the ATT Initiative. They deal with more efficient publishing workflows, data management planning, opening datasets, training and education on Open Science, and tools to enrich and work up open linked data. Existing national services on data storage, preservation, and dissemination will also be extended.Research libraries should not be shy about their knowledge and skills. With metadata being the new black, they can really make their mark on the world of Open Science.

scholarly journals Green Open Access in Lithuania

Knygotyra ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 75 ◽  
pp. 141-161
Author(s):  
Fausta Kepalienė
Keyword(s):  
Open Access ◽  
Full Text ◽  
Research Output ◽  
Open Access Publishing ◽  
Text Documents ◽  
Scholarly Journals ◽  
Institutional Repositories ◽  
Scholarly Publications ◽  
Scientific Institutions ◽  
Favorable Conditions

Favorable conditions for the development of open access have been created in Lithuania: in the absence of scholarly commercial publishing, some scholarly journals in 1999 were already freely available on the Internet. eLABa, in 2011 launched as a national repository, laid the foundation for the development of “green” open access in Lithuania. Currently 13 repositories in Lithuania are maintained and various legal acts related to the implementation of open access in the country have been adopted. The aim of this article is to analyze how “green” open access is being developed in Lithuania in terms of infrastructure, regulation, and implementation. International, national, and institutional documents regulating the implementation of open access were analyzed using the document analysis method. The analysis showed that a legal environ­ment which complies with the provisions of international documents regulating open access has been formed. In the analyzed documents, the authors of Lithuanian scholarly publications are required to submit their peer-reviewed publications to eLABa or another specified reposi­tory within a specific period. This requirement, as shown by the analysis of statistical indicators of the national repository eLABa, is fulfilled to a very small extent. Only 3.4% of all scholarly publications for which metadata had been submitted to eLABa were uploaded as full text documents at the end of 2019. It means that scholars provide biblio­graphic data on publications to eLABa, but upload only a small part of the full-text documents to it. One of the reasons for the low level of activity in promoting scholarly publications to eLABa could be that most Lithuanian scholarly journals are open access in nature and are already publicly available. Also, uploading a full-text scholarly publication to a repository, not just registering it, does not have a direct impact on the at­testation of the researchers at most universities in Lithuania. However, the low use of institutional repositories as a channel for publishing scholarly publications is a common problem not only in Lithuania, but also in other countries. There is a global trend of subject repositories being used for the dissemination of full-text scholarly publications, while institu­tional repositories – for providing bibliographic information on research output and uploading student works. This situation, where only a very small proportion of all registered scholarly publications are uploaded to institutional repositories, does not allow scientific institutions to ensure the long-term preservation of scholarly works. In general, it can be seen that the debate on open access and, at the same time, the way to imple­ment “green” open access, is becoming more and more concrete, focusing on specific, practical issues. Instead of considering whether open access is needed, discussion is moved on to the question of what measures should be taken to address the lower-than-expected scholars’ involvement in the implementation of open access publishing. Therefore, the research of scholars’ open access publishing behaviour is important in order to better understand the needs of authors for the dissemination of open ac­cess scholarly publications. In the case of the implementation of “green” open access in Lithuania, it is important to find out what determines the choice of the scholars to provide or not publications to eLABa and / or international repositories as well as to investigate if there is a need to create Lithuanian subject-based repositories.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document