Authors' attitudes to, and awareness and use of, a university institutional repository

Sarah Watson

doi:10.1629/20225

Abstract

Serials: The Journal for the Serials Community has been digitised and can be accessed in full on this website. All content is freely available on an open-access basis. Serials was published between 1988 and 2011. In 2012, the journal was retitled and is now published as Insights: the UKSG journal.

Highlights

MethodologyCranfield QUEprints is amongst the most successful UK HE institutional repositories (IRs) in terms of the amount of content
Motivation for publishing/sharing work with others It seemed important to gain an understanding of what motivates the authors to publish/share their work with others and it was hoped that by understanding this it might help with the design of future advocacy of the institutional repository, QUEprints, to coincide with these motivations
When asked directly: Has the Research Assessment Exercise influenced where you choose to publish?, 76 per cent said that it had and, when probed further: What has its effect been on your choice?, the majority said that it made them try, wherever possible, to publish their work in the journals that have a high impact factor rating in their subject area and, interestingly, a couple of the authors said that it had made them focus on publishing in journals with a relatively fast turnaround time between when they submit their work and when it gets published, so as not to miss out on including the paper in their Department’s RAE submission

Summary

Introduction

MethodologyCranfield QUEprints is amongst the most successful UK HE institutional repositories (IRs) in terms of the amount of content. The aim of the research described here was to provide the Library with a greater understanding of the attitudes, behaviours and concerns of the authors from whom they wish to obtain content, and to identify the issues that might either encourage or discourage authors from putting their work in QUEprints.

Results

Conclusion