Abstract
This article explores the community reach and societal impact of institutional repositories, in particular Griffith Research Online (GRO), Griffith University’s institutional repository. To promote research on GRO, and to encourage people to click through to the repository content, a pilot social media campaign and some subsequent smaller social media activities were undertaken in 2018. After briefly touching on these campaigns, this article provides some reflections from these activities and proposes options for the future direction of social engagement and GRO in particular, and for institutional repositories in general. This undertaking necessitates a shift in focus from repositories as a resource for the scholarly community to a resource for the community at large. The campaign also highlighted the need to look beyond performance metrics to social media metrics as a measure of the social and community impact of a repository. Whilst the article is written from one Australian university’s perspective, the drivers and challenges behind researchers and universities translating their research into economic, social, environmental and cultural impacts are national and international. The primary takeaway message is for libraries to take more of a proactive stance and to kick-start conversations within their institutions and with their clients to actively partner in creating opportunities to share research.
Highlights
This article explores the community reach and societal impact of institutional repositories, in particular Griffith Research Online (GRO), Griffith University’s institutional repository
Results from a literature search around institutional repositories and engagement demonstrated a focus on improving metadata, searchability and discoverability rather than social engagement; a focus confirmed through the guiding principles for repositories published by the Confederation of Open Access Repositories (COAR).[7]
Whilst this paper does not provide a definitive roadmap or template for repositories, it does highlight the need to divert from our traditional path, focused on metadata, discoverability and reporting, to proactively find opportunities to demonstrate the important role our repositories play in research dissemination and community reach
Summary
The primary impetus behind exploring the community reach and societal impact of Griffith Research Online (GRO),[1] and by extension institutional repositories, was the emerging trend across governments, nationally and internationally, to demonstrate the economic and social returns from their investments in research. On 7 December 2015 the Australian Government launched its National Innovation and Science Agenda Report.[2] One of the measures under the Agenda was for Australia to introduce a national assessment of the engagement and impact of university research. In 2018 the Australian Research Council published the Engagement and Impact Assessment 2018–19 National Report,[3] the results of the inaugural pilot to assess how well researchers were engaging with end-users of research and how universities were translating research into economic, social, environmental, cultural and other impacts. Around the same time similar agendas were being explored internationally: in New Zealand in 2015,4 the UK in 20155 and the USA in 2015.6
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