Open Access Institutional Repositories Research Articles

Measuring Altruistic Impact: A Model for Understanding the Social Justice of Open Access

INTRODUCTION Traditional assessment of ways in which open access initiatives and institutional repositories have provided a return on investment normally use pragmatic measures such as download counts and citation benefits. This pragmatic approach misses out on the powerful altruistic impact of improving access to international and/or marginalized communities. Using a frame of social justice, this article considers the importance of developing altruistic measures of repositories, particularly for institutions with missions specifically related to social justice and related themes. METHODS Using web analytics data for search keywords from eight institutions and geographic usage data from nine institutions, the authors were able to determine how well social justice related content is accessed by search engines and how much overall content is accessed internationally, particularly by lower-resourced countries. A social justice term list was developed to permit corpus overlap analysis with each institution’s search keywords, while the World Bank country income lists were used to determine international access by low and low-middle income countries. RESULTS Universities with mission statements explicitly mentioning social justice or Catholic social teaching had greater overlap with the social justice corpus. Low and low-middle income countries as defined by the World Bank were among the most engaged users. All institutions had at least one social justice search term in their top ten; Marquette University had five. Collection development in social science and environmental sustainability at Loyola University Chicago successfully increased this term overlap year-over-year and increased user engagement as measured by session length. DISCUSSION The results of this exploratory study indicate that it is possible to use repository data to evaluate the success of an institution’s open access and social justice initiatives. The year-over-year improvement of Loyola’s numbers suggest in addition that it is possible to increase social justice impact through collection development. Performing an analysis of social justice impact can be used as an overall strategy for repository success and outreach on campus, particularly for institutions where social justice is an important part of the campus identity. For repositories in need of further resources, the ability to quantify impact for university administrators and decision-makers may be of use. CONCLUSION For institutions with a social justice mission, improving social justice content may improve repository ranking in social justice related search results. Collection development strategies should focus on departments and/or individuals who are working in social justice related areas, which defined broadly could encompass much of an institution. For institutions that emphasize social justice, it may be easier to approach faculty who might not otherwise have an interest in open access issues.External Data or Supplements:Heller, M. & Gaede, F. (2016). Appendix A: Social Justice Term Analysis & Appendix B: Social Justice Overlap Template & Geographic Usage. http://dx.doi.org/10.7910/DVN/XU5IBN, Harvard Dataverse.

Peta Perkembangan Penelitian Pemanfaatan Repositori Institusi Menuju Open Access: Studi Bibliometrik dengan VOSViewer

The study is aimed to know the development mapping in using open-access institutional repositories. It has been researched in August 2016 by using scopus databases with keywords: open access and institutional repository. The results findings are descriptively analysed according to publication years, institution and country names, journal names, document types, and research topics. To gather the research development mapping, the data were exported by u sing CSV format (Comma Separated Values). These data then being processed and analysed using VOSViewer application program. The study found that the research development mapping have been occurred since 1986. From 2002-2016, the mapping have been significantly increased. The journals that mostly published its trends were OCLC System and Services, Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Grey Journal, Information Services and Use, Liber Quarterly, Library Review, and Serial Librarian. Meanwhile, the most type of documents were articels, conference paper, review, and book chapters. For the topic of research, it is found that open access, institutional repositories, societies and institutions, information services, digital libraries, metadata, and electronic publishing were dominant. The visual network has shown that the relationship among topics can be seen from descriptor lines in each field. The more relation descriptor lines the closest realtionship among documents.

AgriCat: An One-stop Shop for OAI-based Open Access Agricultural Repositories

The paper gives an overview of open access (OA) institutional digital repositories (IDRs) in agricultural fields. The main objective is to provide free and unrestricted access to the public funded research outputs in global-scale in the domain of agricultural by developing a single window search interface as a useful tool for agricultural researchers in developing countries with special reference to India keeping in view the exorbitant cost of research output. It reports the design and development of a federated search interface, viz. AgriCat that facilitates resource sharing through extracting metadata from different OAI (Open Archives Initiative) compatible agricultural IDRs registered in OpenDOAR (Directory of Open Access Repositories) database.

Dead but not gone: The case for PRL as a pseudophosphatase

Background: Protein phosphorylation and dephosphorylation is an integral component of many cellular signaling pathways and regulatory mechanisms. Phosphatases are enzymes that catalyze the removal of phosphate groups from proteins. The phosphatases of regenerating liver (PRLs) are a family of phosphatases which have been correlated with cancer development and metastasis. However, they appear to have weak phosphatase activity and little is known about their physiological substrates. This review discusses PRL from a structural and functional perspective, including recent findings on its interaction with another family of proteins, cyclin M (CNNM). Methods: Articles were obtained from the scientific literature using databases like PubMed and McGill University’s open access institutional repository. This paper specifically focuses on those articles that provided an overview of phosphatases, PRLs, CNNMs, and structural and functional studies of PRLs and CNNMs. In total, 40 articles were selected for the purpose of this review. Summary: Although PRLs retain many of the structural features of other protein tyrosine phosphatases (PTPs) including the phosphatase catalytic motif and regulation via oxidation, other structural features such as mutation of a conserved serine/threonine residue to alanine in the active site disfavor catalytic activity. Moreover, PRL interaction with CNNM appears to be responsible for its oncogenic potential, yet this inter- action does not appear to require PRL phosphatase activity. Thus, PRL may be best classified as a pseudo-phosphatase, which are phosphatase-like proteins that are structurally similar to phosphatases but have acquired a dominant function that does not require phosphatase activity.

Facebook use by the open access repository users

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore the type and implications of user-generated content posted by users of an open access institutional repository (DSpace) on Facebook. Design/methodology/approach – The identified user-generated content was organised into three categories: personal; professional; and social information. It encompassed all content from the members of the “DSpace” Facebook group, posted during the seven-year period (2007-2014). The posts were read and analysed to identify and categorise user-generated content posted by users to determine how Facebook is used by open access repository users. Findings – The results of analysis demonstrate the importance of social information posted by users over personal and professional information. Major types of user-generated content posted by users in the social information category were request, greetings, status-update, and announcement. Further, there has been a threefold increase in the number of user postings in the last two years (2013-2014), when posts were analysed over a seven-year period. Research limitations/implications – This study contributes to the theory on the implications eventuating from user-generated content posted by users of an open access institutional repository. An analysis of user-generated content identified in this study implies that users of DSpace open access repository are primarily using Facebook for information seeking, relationship building, and knowledge dissemination. Practical implications – By analysing the findings, administrators and policy makers of open access repositories could identify the extent of user support in the form of technical assistance, improved sustainability of supported projects, user community development, marketing and communications required to sustain open access scholarly communication. Originality/value – Previous studies examined how social networking sites have been used for a different purpose (interaction, collaboration, and discussion), but to date there has been very little research into the use of Facebook, a public social networking site, by open access repository users. Hence, this study addresses this gap in the literature by an interpretive analysis of user-generated content posted by users on the “DSpace” Facebook group.

Open Access Institutional Repositories in Nigeria Academic Libraries: Advocacy and Issues in Scholarly Communication

This study was conducted to examine advocacy issues in open access institutional repositories in Nigeria. A descriptive survey research design was adopted to study 150 librarians from six government-funded academic institutions in South East Nigeria. The article identified 12 local content materials as relevant for publication in institutional repositories. It was found that advocacy is very critical in attracting funds and creation of awareness for institutional repositories in Nigeria. Major advocacy strategies are the use of institutions Websites, face-to-face interaction with target groups, seminars, and workshops. The study identified the National Universities Commission, Federal Ministry of Education, and institutional administration as major targets of the advocacy. Library associations, librarians, and management of the institutions are identified as very important groups to spearhead advocacy programs. The problems associated with institutional repositories advocacy were also identified. This stu...

Contribution of the institutional repositories of the Chinese Academy of Sciences to the webometric indicators of their home institutions

Starting from the perspective of Webometrics, this paper explores the improvement effect of institutional repositories (IRs) on their home institutions with respect to web presence and visibility. Taking 19 IRs from institutions affiliated to the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) as study samples, we calculate the contribution of IRs to the webometric indicators of their home institutions in terms of four indicators: page counts, PDF counts, URL mention counts, and link counts. According to their open-access (OA) status, the IRs of CAS were divided into an OA group and a non-OA group, which were compared with respect to differences in the above indicators as well as browse counts and download counts. The results of the study show that: (1) IRs showed a relatively significant positive improvement with respect to Google page counts, Scholar page counts, and Google PDF counts, although the improvement effect with respect to Scholar PDF counts was almost nonexistent; (2) repositories presented a certain improvement effect with respect to URL mention counts, but the contribution of link counts was limited; and (3) OA repositories manifested noticeable advantages in terms of Google PDF counts, URL mention counts, and download counts. We conclude that IRs can improve the web presence and visibility of their home institutions, while OA IRs offer more benefits to their home institutions.

A conceptual model of Open Access Institutional Repository in Indonesia academic libraries

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to attempt to build a conceptual model of Open Access Institutional Repositories (OAIR) in Indonesia academic libraries, viewed from knowledge management (KM) perspective. Design/methodology/approach – Literature-based conceptual analysis of previous studies related to open access, institutional repositories viewed from KM perpective. Findings – The conceptual model of OAIR emphasizes three variables – people collaboration, process, and technology functions. These variables, with their many elements, are integrated together in order to help the university or Higher Education (HE) institution in capturing its own scholarship produced as a whole. Besides, that integration aims at facilitating knowledge sharing so as to enrich knowledge content and to enhance global access. A process chart of OAIR based on the conceptual model is built to illustrate knowledge content recruitment in Indonesia academic libraries. Research limitations/implications – The conceptual model proposed in this paper is not yet formally tested. It needs more research to understand the Indonesian context of OAIR to build a more accurate model, based on the experiences in developing and implementing OAIR in Indonesia HE institutions. Originality/value – Many academic libraries in Indonesia develop OAIR to increase the visibility of the scholarship of the parent HE institution. It is significant to view the practice of OAIR in academic library from the KM perspective. KM implementation is almost unheard of in Indonesia universities. However, The OAIR phenomenon in Indonesia academic libraries can be viewed as a KM initiative.

How To Write A Technical Paper: A Mirror

Enumerates all steps one by one and discusses them for writing a technical paper. Elaborates salient features of a research article. Discusses the different bibliographic standards and styles of citing references. Highlightes the present trends of publications in open access journals and Institutional Repositories.

Librarianss Perception of Lecturerss Awareness as a Factor Influencing the Development of Institutional Repository in Public Universities in South-West Nigeria

The growth of open access institutional repositories has been very remarkable in many developed countries. However, academic and research institutions in many developing countries like Nigeria are still battling to overcome many challenging issues in an attempt to make their research outputs openly accessible and available by means of internet technologies like institutional repositories. This research used both primary and secondary sources of information and simple percentage was used to analyse the data for presentation. The research revealed that the main problem faced by the Institutional Repository (IR) development is the perception of librarians towards IR development and willingness of lecturers to support the development of IR. The research found out that Librarians have a negative perception that lecturers are not fully aware of IR and are not willing to support the project by submitting their intellectual property to the university IR. This research work concludes by highlighting the need for librarians to have a positive perception of IR development. Based on the findings it recommends that necessary conferences and capacity building workshops should be encouraged to educate, inform, update and train librarians and other stakeholders on Institutional repository development. Libraries should embrace IR as a development that has come to stay in the Information world and should be encouraged by ensuring that IR development is given priority.

English

The study made an attempt to carry out the citation analysis of primary literature archived in select Open Access Institutional repositories in the field of Health Science listed by Directory of Open Access Repositories (OpenDOAR). A total of 99 articles harvested from three select Health Science repositories were tested in two primary literature indexing databases, viz., Web of Science and Google Scholar for citation analysis. Among these, Google Scholar could not retrieve three (10.34 per cent) articles while for Web of Science this number goes to 26 (89.66 per cent). The number of citations received by the deposited contents is higher in Google Scholar (59.57 per cent) as compared to Web of Science (40.42 per cent). However, the average citation per article is higher in Web of Science (3.24) in comparison to Google Scholar (2.53). There are 27 articles in the resource corpus which have not received any citation. Number of such articles in Google Scholar and Web of Sciences are 20 (20.83 per cent) and 7 (9.59 per cent), respectively.

Digital Bibliography and Global Shakespeare

Although there is currently “much ado about” global Shakespeare studies, this field has been thriving for decades – even centuries. This article outlines the role of the World Shakespeare Bibliography Online (WSB Online) in the past and future of global Shakespeare studies, exploring how digital scholarly practices, including open access periodicals and institutional repositories, are changing the bibliography’s workflow and presentation of materials. Ultimately, the digital nature of the World Shakespeare Bibliography further opens the door to global Shakespeare studies and participates in recovering early research in the field. The WSB is the result of global scholarly collaboration; it is itself an early global Shakespeare studies project that works to foster further scholarship in the field.

Who is Citing Undergraduate Theses in Institutional Digital Repositories? Implications for Scholarship and Information Literacy

Undergraduate theses are available through open access institutional repositories. Is undergraduate work being integrated into the larger body of academic research, and, if so, how? Institutional repositories containing undergraduate theses were selected and titles were searched using the forward citation feature in Google Scholar to determine if and where undergraduate scholarship is being cited. Results show that 24 percent of citations to senior theses were in peer-reviewed or refereed journals and 33 percent in dissertations and theses. This article addresses citation source and the potential value of undergraduate scholarship as well as the implications for information literacy instruction to senior thesis students.

Who Owns a Dissertation, and Why Does It Matter?

Who Owns a Dissertation, and Why Does It Matter?

Propuesta sociotecnológica para el desarrollo de repositorios de Acceso Abierto adecuados al contexto universitario argentino

The paper shows the main result of the scientific-technological investigation project “Towards the development and the use of Institutional Repositories of Open Access for Educational Digital Objects in the context of public universities belonging to the mid-east area of Argentina”. Its objective is to design and propose a prior theoretical, methodological and technological model, which is experimental, of Open Access Institutional Repositories for Educational Digital Objects. In view of the theoretical and methodological framework of Dynamic Hypermedial Device, a socio-technological approach was adopted. Therefore, qualitative and software engineering instruments and methodological techniques were implemented. Based on DSpace diagnostics data usability problems and viewing needs and publications practices in open access of the regional academic community, we develop a First Experimental Prototype for Educational Digital Objects with DSpace technology. Design options in terms of internal organization, visibility and usability of the prototype are explained. About the internal organization, 12 collections of various types of Educational Digital Objects were predetermined. Observing the definition of required and optional fields of metadata for each collection combining Dublin Core and Learning Object Metadata metadata standards. About usability, First Experimental Prototype improvement and assessments conducted by academics from the participating universities are presented. These evaluations show an improvement in self-archiving conditions and the possibility to create publication models more efficient, inclusive and open.

Institutional Repository (IR) Awareness and Willingness of Faculty Staff to Deposit Research Work: A Study of Faculty Staff in Selected Public and Private University in Nigeria

This study appraised the awareness and willingness of faculty staff in Nigerian universities to deposit their pre and post research publications in open access institutional repository. Two universities (one private and one public) were systematically selected for the study. Nigeria has a total of 129 universities; 79 are public universities, while 50 are private universities. The researcher purposefully selected two universities from the public and private for convenience and easy analysis. The population of study cut across all faculty staff in the selected universities given a total number of 179 academic staff. Findings reveal that the majority of the respondents (52% and 36% from private and public universities respectively) are aware of IR. Findings also show that the majority (62% and 44% of the respondents in the private and public universities respectively) have published 1 - 10 research publications using materials from IR. While 22% and 26% of the respondents have also published up to 11 - 20 publications using materials published in IR. Unfortunately, despite benefitting from IR, findings reveal that 88% and 96% of the respondents from private and public universities have not deposited any publication in IR. The researcher, therefore, recommend that awareness of IR in institutions of higher learning must be prioritized and that faculty staff should be encouraged to contribute to IR project as a means of increasing their relevance, visibility and ranking and that of their affiliated university.

Speaking as One: Supporting Open Access with Departmental Resolutions

Library faculty at the City University of New York (CUNY) have engaged in promoting and advocating for open access publishing at each of our campuses as well as across the University. Inspired by the passing of a faculty senate resolution in support of the creation of an open access institutional repository and associated policies, many CUNY librarians felt the need to raise their level of commitment. In this article, the authors—four library faculty members and one faculty member from outside the library—share their experiences creating and approving open access policies in the library departments of four CUNY schools and promoting open access beyond the libraries. They offer practical advice and guidance for other librarians and faculty seeking to encourage the embrace of open access publishing in departments or other sub-institutional contexts.

The development of an institutional repository at the Aquaculture Department of the Southeast Asian Fisheries Development Center, Philippines

Purpose – This paper aims to present the experiences of SEAFDEC/AQD library staff in digitizing institutional publications and developing an institutional repository (IR). Design/methodology/approach – SEAFDEC/AQD IR or SAIR provides a reliable means for its researchers to store, preserve, share their research outputs, enable easy access to and increase the visibility of its scientific publications. The repository uses DSpace customized with some add-ons. Details on the digitization hardware and software, layout, delivery format, and persistent identifier used are provided. Findings – As of March 2012, the repository contains 771 items with 541 downloadable PDFs. SAIR had 88,287 item views, 69,249 PDF downloads and 271,978 searches. SAIR is registered to and indexed by OpenDOAR, ROAR, Google Scholar and WorldCat. It is harvested by AVANO Ifremer, BASE, Sciencegate.ch and OAIster. Initial impact based on indicators in webometrics ranking web of world repositories and research centers was presented. Reluctance to contribute to IR has been observed by the library staff among SEAFDEC/AQD researchers. Research limitations/implications – The IR can be an effective tool to promote institutional publications and those written by researchers in peer-reviewed journals and to generate higher citations through increased visibility. IR submission policy and procedures are being drafted by the library staff. Practical implications – SAIR provides free access to all in-house publications of SEAFDEC/AQD. Full-text digitized copies of fish farmer-friendly materials like books, handbooks, policy guidebooks, extension manuals, institutional reports, and newsletters can be downloaded. Originality/value – SAIR is one of only three open access institutional repositories registered in the Philippines. The paper discusses the lessons learned and issues to be addressed in developing an IR of value to other institutions considering similar projects. Future plans and further development are also presented.

Local contents and the development of open access institutional repositories in Nigeria University libraries

PurposeThis study seeks to examine the management of local content materials for open access institutional repositories in Nigeria.Design/methodology/approachA survey research design was adopted for this study. A total of 85 librarians from seven government funded universities in South East Nigeria were used for the study.FindingsFrom the findings 15 local content materials were identified as relevant for publication in institutional repositories. Similarly a major method of acquiring these local contents is by encouraging staff to deposit their publications in the university libraries. It was also found out that providing a subject index to the local contents and their digitization were effective methods of organizing the materials for the institutional repository. The findings also showed that an increase in the visibility of the authors, promotion of university ranking and efficient dissemination of research findings were among the benefits of publishing in institutional repositories. The problems and strategies of publishing in institutional repositories were also identified through the findings.Practical implicationsThis study will serve as a useful guide for university administrators and librarians who are interested in developing their institutional repositories using local contents available to them. It will also be of great value to project managers who are engaged in the digitization of their local contents.Social implicationsResearch works generated in Nigeria and other developing countries are poorly disseminated and therefore lack global visibility. The publication of these research findings in institutional repositories of individual universities will not only improve the visibility and utilization of the research but will also increase the global ranking of the universities and researchers who have published the works in the repository.Originality/valueThis paper is on the use of local content information resources in building institutional repositories in Nigerian university libraries. These studies will be useful for university libraries, particularly in developing countries, that intend to build their institutional repositories.

What inhibits authors to self-archive in Open Access repositories? A Malaysian case

This paper reports on a survey carried out on academics in five Malaysian research-intensive universities, investigating their readiness to self archive in Open Access institutional repositories. The study revolves around the following issues: (a) academics’ awareness of self archiving in an institutional repository within their institution; (b) their perceptions about self archiving scientific information into institutional repositories; (c) their perceptions regarding obligations to self archive in institutional repositories; and (d) the possible reasons that inhibit them in contributing to institutional repositories. The answers were identified from 72 academics through a web-based survey. The study reveals that the majority of academics in this study have no or little knowledge of, or experience with, institutional repositories and are unfamiliar with self-archiving opportunities. However most of them endorse the principle of Open Access and are willing to contribute content to an institutional repository if an opportunity arises or if mandated by their funding institutions. Those who agree to self archiving see it to be beneficial in the author’s life as it enhances visibility and recognition of the author’s work, but the main problem encountered is the fact that researchers feel it is time consuming. The major barrier to self archiving is fear of plagiarism. In light of these results, there is a need to create more awareness and to educate authors on the importance of self archiving. Ensuring free electronic access to public-funded research lies with the funding institutions, especially universities, which should set up appropriate repository infrastructures, advocate the public good and ethical implications of open access and even mandate self-archiving of research they fund.