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This study demonstrates that aggregated data from the Repository Analytics and Metrics Portal (RAMP) have significant potential to analyze visibility and use of institutional repositories (IR) as well as potential factors affecting their use, including repository size, platform, content, device and global location. The RAMP dataset is unique and public.

The webometrics methodology was followed to aggregate and analyze use and performance data from 35 institutional repositories in seven countries that were registered with the RAMP for a five-month period in 2019. The RAMP aggregates Google Search Console (GSC) data to show IR items that surfaced in search results from all Google properties.

The analyses demonstrate large performance variances across IR as well as low overall use. The findings also show that device use affects search behavior, that different content types such as electronic thesis and dissertation (ETD) may affect use and that searches originating in the Global South show much higher use of mobile devices than in the Global North.

The RAMP relies on GSC as its sole data source, resulting in somewhat conservative overall numbers. However, the data are also expected to be as robot free as can be hoped.

This may be the first analysis of aggregate use and performance data derived from a global set of IR, using an openly published dataset. RAMP data offer significant research potential with regard to quantifying and characterizing variances in the discoverability and use of IR content.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/OIR-08-2020-0328

Open-access mega-journals (OAMJs) represent an increasingly important part of the scholarly communication landscape. OAMJs, such as PLOS ONE, are large scale, broad scope journals that operate an open access business model (normally based on article-processing charges), and which employ a novel form of peer review, focussing on scientific “soundness” and eschewing judgement of novelty or importance. The purpose of this paper is to examine the discourses relating to OAMJs, and their place within scholarly publishing, and considers attitudes towards mega-journals within the academic community.

This paper presents a review of the literature of OAMJs structured around four defining characteristics: scale, disciplinary scope, peer review policy, and economic model. The existing scholarly literature was augmented by searches of more informal outputs, such as blogs and e-mail discussion lists, to capture the debate in its entirety.

While the academic literature relating specifically to OAMJs is relatively sparse, discussion in other fora is detailed and animated, with debates ranging from the sustainability and ethics of the mega-journal model, to the impact of soundness-only peer review on article quality and discoverability, and the potential for OAMJs to represent a paradigm-shifting development in scholarly publishing.

This paper represents the first comprehensive review of the mega-journal phenomenon, drawing not only on the published academic literature, but also grey, professional and informal sources. The paper advances a number of ways in which the role of OAMJs in the scholarly communication environment can be conceptualised.

The purpose of this paper is, first, to scrutinize the determinants of key benefits of open educational resources (OER) to faculty. Second, it is to expose how, in which routines the variables involved, are interrelated.

An exploratory design is used in this study. Qualitatively, key benefits include integration, opportunity, efficiency, enrichment, and collaboration. These benefits have direct impacts on enhancing student learning, augmenting teaching practice, improving productivity, catalyzing changes in teaching practice, and supporting non-traditional learners. Quantitatively, the key benefit is moderating the variables. Integration, opportunity, efficiency, enrichment, and collaboration are independent variables. Variables like enhancing student learning, enriching teaching practice, improving productivity, catalyzing changes, and supporting non-traditional learners are the dependent variables. The study population comprised the 721 Universitas Terbuka (UT) faculty members. The respondents were chosen randomly by distributing 450 questionnaires. Only 203 questionnaires were completed. Importance performance analysis and customer satisfaction index (IPA-CSI) were used to measure the importance level of variables involved and their benefits. Structural equation model (SEM) was used to examine the ten hypotheses developed so that the author could understand the significance level and relations power among variables engaged with reference to the qualitative outcomes previously obtained.

Six hypotheses were validated by the analysis. Statistically, efficiency and integration affect key benefits. Likewise, moderating variables affect teaching practice enhancement, productivity improvement, catalyzing changes, and supporting non-traditional learners. Conversely, key benefits were neither interrelated by opportunity, enrichment, and collaboration nor learning enhancement.

This study highlighted that adoption, integration, and implementation of OER in the UT milieu do take place.

This study recognized the variation of qualitative vs quantitative outcomes. An auxiliary inquiry is needed with broader perspective by increasing the respondents sample in order to minimize the difference between qualitative and quantitative results.

This study aims to evaluate faculty research repositories used in higher education institutions, their different levels and functions with regard to research information management. This is revealed through the selected studies reviewed.

A systematic literature search of journal article studies on research repositories in higher education institutions was carried out on several databases, namely, Ebscohost, Emerald Insight, Science Direct, Sage, Google Scholar, SA e-Publications and citation databases such as Scopus and Web of Science. The systematic review was conducted in accordance with the preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analyses guidelines. The time frame for the analysis was 2015 to 2021.

The findings are presented on the motives for developing faculty research repositories the services provided and benefits derived from faculty research repositories and what is the utilization of faculty research repositories.

The results show that the development of research repositories at the faculty level enhances sharing, analysis, evaluation and preservation of scholarly research produced.