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1 – 10 of over 10000Lovemore Kusekwa and Aston Mushowani
The paper aims to focus on the current state of open access (OA) initiatives in Zimbabwean universities. The paper specifically reports the initiatives at Zimbabwean universities…
Abstract
Purpose
The paper aims to focus on the current state of open access (OA) initiatives in Zimbabwean universities. The paper specifically reports the initiatives at Zimbabwean universities regarding institutional repositories that promote OA and other digital OA collections.
Design/methodology/approach
A qualitative research methodology was adopted. Questionnaires were used as the primary data collection method for this research. The research sought to address the following specific areas: the state of institutional repositories and open access in Zimbabwe, the discoverability of content, open access policies and mandates, the benefits of open access in Zimbabwe, and future plans for institutional OA. A total of eight out of 12 universities responded to the questionnaire. The data provided by the universities involved in the research were summarised to give a general picture of the open access landscape in Zimbabwe.
Findings
The current initiatives in the universities involved in this survey indicate that most universities in Zimbabwe are going to have institutional repositories that promote open access to information. Most institutions in Zimbabwe are already working on putting open access policies in place in a bid to promote open access.
Originality/value
The research will shed more light on the status quo of open access initiatives in Zimbabwe, particularly with regards to institutional repositories, open access policies and open access mandates.
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This paper aims to bring together information on whether any evidence exists of a commercial conflict between the creation of digital archives at research institutions and by key…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to bring together information on whether any evidence exists of a commercial conflict between the creation of digital archives at research institutions and by key subject centres of excellence, and the business of journal publishing.
Design/methodology/approach
Relevant publications, including articles published in refereed books and journals, as well as informal commentaries on listservs, blogs and wikis, were analysed to determine whether there is any evidence of a commercial relationship.
Findings
Most of the published comments are highly subjective and anecdotal – there is a significant emotional overtone to many of the views expressed. There is precious little hard evidence currently available to support or debunk the idea that a commercial conflict exists between repositories and journal subscriptions. The situation is made more difficult by the many technological, sociological and administrative changes that are taking place in parallel to the establishment of repositories.
Practical implications
Separating the key drivers and their impact is a major strategic challenge facing all stakeholders in the scholarly communication industry in future.
Research limitations/implications
This is an important area which requires close monitoring – the possible threat that the established journal publishing system could be eroded away by a new “free” scholarly information system needs attention. One significant study in this area is being undertaken by the PEER group, funded by the European Commission with hard evidence being collected by UCL's CIBER research group. The results from this impartial investigation will be very welcome.
Originality/value
The paper shows that relationship between repositories and journal subscriptions is vague.
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Chew Bee Leng, Kamsiah Mohd Ali and Ch’ng Eng Hoo
Triggered by the advancement of information and communications technology, open access repositories (a variant of digital libraries) is one of the important changes impacting…
Abstract
Purpose
Triggered by the advancement of information and communications technology, open access repositories (a variant of digital libraries) is one of the important changes impacting library services. In the context of openness to a wider community to access free resources, Wawasan Open University Library initiated a research project to build open access repositories on open educational resources. Open educational resources (OER) is an area of a multifaceted open movement in education. The purpose of this paper is to show how two web portal repositories on OER materials were developed adopting a Japanese open source software, called WEKO.
Design/methodology/approach
The design approach is based on a pull to push strategy whereby metadata of scholarly open access materials kept within the institution and network communities’ digital databases were harvested using the Open Archives Initiatives Protocol for Metadata Harvesting method into another open knowledge platform for discovery by other users.
Findings
Positive results emanating from the university open access repositories development showed how it strengthen the role of the librarian as manager of institutional assets and successfully making the content freely available from this open knowledge platform for reuse in learning and teaching.
Research limitations/implications
Developing further programmes to encourage, influence faculty members and prospective stakeholders to use and contribute content to the valuable repositories is indeed a challenging task.
Originality/value
This paper provides insight for academic libraries on how open access repositories development and metadata analysis can enhance new professional challenges for information professionals in the field of data management, data quality and intricacies of supporting data repositories and build new open models of collaboration across institutions and libraries. This paper also describes future collaboration work with institutions in sharing their open access resources.
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Ishrat Ayub Sofi, Ajra Bhat and Rahat Gulzar
The study aims to shed light on the current state of “Dataset repositories” indexed in Directory of Open Access Repositories (OpenDOAR).
Abstract
Purpose
The study aims to shed light on the current state of “Dataset repositories” indexed in Directory of Open Access Repositories (OpenDOAR).
Design/methodology/approach
From each repository/record information, the Open-Access Policies, Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting (OAI-PMH), year of creation and the number of data sets archived in the repositories were manually searched, documented and analyzed.
Findings
Developed countries like the United Kingdom and the USA are primarily involved in the development of institutional open-access repositories comprising significant components of OpenDOAR. The most extensively used software is DSpace. Most data set archives are OAI-PMH compliant but do not follow open-access rules. The study also highlights the sites’ embrace of Web 2.0 capabilities and discovers really simple syndication feeds and Atom integration. The use of social media has made its presence known. Furthermore, the study concludes that the number of data sets kept in repositories is insufficient, although the expansion of such repositories has been consistent over the years.
Practical implications
The work has the potential to benefit both researchers in general and policymakers in particular. Scholars interested in research data, data sharing and data reuse can learn about the present state of repositories that preserve data sets in OpenDOAR. At the same time, policymakers can develop recommendations and policies to assist in the construction and maintenance of repositories for data sets.
Originality/value
According to the literature, there have been numerous studies on open-access repositories and OpenDOAR internationally, but no research has focused on repositories preserving content-type data sets. As a result, the study attempts to uncover various characteristics of OpenDOAR Data set repositories.
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This paper aims to uncover the central purposes of institutional repositories, how developments are being affected by policies and researcher behaviour and also what services and…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to uncover the central purposes of institutional repositories, how developments are being affected by policies and researcher behaviour and also what services and approaches are appropriate in supporting repositories from those partners involved in scholarly communication with a particular focus on services that support the publication of research.
Design/methodology/approach
The research reviews the literature and current practices within higher education with regard to the core purposes of institutional repositories, the possible causes of low population of repositories in some institutions and subject disciplines, how this is being addressed and likely future developments. A qualitative survey using semi-structured interviews explores current best practices and tests the specific research questions that emerged from the literature review.
Findings
The rate at which institutional repositories have grown in number has been very fast in recent years, but the population of repositories with research has been relatively slow. The research identified a number of reasons as to why the population of repositories was likely to accelerate in the future and have a more significant impact on scholarly communication. The main catalysts are: strengthening of national and funder policies that serve to both mandate open access (green or gold) and raise awareness of open access amongst faculty; the alignment of repositories with current research information systems within universities; and the development of metadata and open archives initiative harvesting that will improve discoverability and usage data.
Research limitations/implications
As many of the issues around the development of repositories centre on the attitudes of faculty, it would also provide an interesting extension to the research to understand their views of the role of institutional repositories, too.
Practical implications
The study presents a number of possible new ways of working by both information professionals and publishers to improve scholarly communication through the inclusion of research within institutional repositories and how perceived barriers could be overcome.
Social implications
The study provides guidance on how the communication of scholarly research could be improved and reach a wider audience. This, in turn, will benefit researchers, corporate organisations and the public at large.
Originality/value
The paper provides a review of current best practices in managing institutional repositories and identifies new ways of addressing some of the perceived barriers to populating repositories and the benefits for each stakeholder in the scholarly communication process.
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Preedip Balaji Babu, Kadari Santosh Kumar, Nilesh A. Shewale and Abhinav K. Singh
The objective of this paper is to find out the rationale for institutional repository (IR) categories, and the challenges in sustainable development of open scholarship to…
Abstract
Purpose
The objective of this paper is to find out the rationale for institutional repository (IR) categories, and the challenges in sustainable development of open scholarship to facilitate scholarly communication.
Design/methodology/approach
This is a critical study method adopted to find out the categories of IR and various developmental challenges with the aid of related literature.
Findings
IR categories and their nomenclature are found to be overlapping when used by repository registries and librarians alike. As the digital objects in the repositories are expanding, with a requirement to store new entities as diverse as linked data and web archives, IR categorization becomes difficult to determine. Even though the growth of IRs in India is phenomenal, concerted research and development efforts to strengthen digital infrastructure and repository solutions in multilingual settings are slow.
Originality/value
With the rapid growth of IRs worldwide, the categories with which these are classified is examined. As a contentious player in scholarly communication process, the challenges of IRs' development are underlined. The prospects and deployment of IRs requires funding and an appropriately skilled workforce, along with government support. This is viewed from global and Indian perspectives.
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Feria Wirba Singeh, A. Abrizah and Noor Harun Abdul Karim
The aim of this paper is to evaluate Malaysian authors' readiness to self‐archive in open access repositories. The effectiveness of open access repositories to support…
Abstract
Purpose
The aim of this paper is to evaluate Malaysian authors' readiness to self‐archive in open access repositories. The effectiveness of open access repositories to support knowledge‐sharing is expected to be highly dependent on the readiness of authors to self‐archive their research output.
Design/methodology/approach
The study has adopted a quantitative research design and a web based survey method was used for data‐gathering. The subjects of the study were authors within the five research‐intensive universities in Malaysia. An e‐mail invitation was sent out to 1,000 authors within the five intensive universities, of which 108 responded. This study uses the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT) model, which postulates the constructs of performance expectancy, effort expectancy, social influence and facilitating conditions on using technology. These constructs determine the behavioral intent, which influences the usage behavior of this technology.
Findings
The findings from this study revealed that performance expectancy, effort expectancy, social influence and facilitating condition did not influence authors' behavioral intention to self‐archive. Even though academic researchers tend to agree that institutional repositories are a good way of disseminating information and use them frequently, most of them have not fully embraced self‐archiving in institutional repositories.
Originality/value
This is the first attempt to utilize the UTAUT model to assess self‐archiving practices, and it shows that self‐archiving does not prove strong support for the model.
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Keywords
Javaid Ahmad Wani, Taseef Ayub Sofi, Ishrat Ayub Sofi and Shabir Ahmad Ganaie
Open-access repositories (OARs) are essential for openly disseminating intellectual knowledge on the internet and providing free access to it. The current study aims to evaluate…
Abstract
Purpose
Open-access repositories (OARs) are essential for openly disseminating intellectual knowledge on the internet and providing free access to it. The current study aims to evaluate the growth and development of OARs in the field of technology by investigating several characteristics such as coverage, OA policies, software type, content type, yearly growth, repository type and geographic contribution.
Design/methodology/approach
The directory of OARs acts as the source for data harvesting, which provides a quality-assured list of OARs across the globe.
Findings
The study found that 125 nations contributed a total of 4,045 repositories in the field of research, with the USA leading the list with the most repositories. Maximum repositories were operated by institutions having multidisciplinary approaches. The DSpace and Eprints were the preferred software types for repositories. The preferred upload content by contributors was “research articles” and “electronic thesis and dissertations”.
Research limitations/implications
The study is limited to the subject area technology as listed in OpenDOAR; therefore, the results may differ in other subject areas.
Practical implications
The work can benefit researchers across disciplines and, interested researchers can take this study as a base for evaluating online repositories. Moreover, policymakers and repository managers could also get benefitted from this study.
Originality/value
The study is the first of its kind, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, to investigate the repositories of subject technology in the open-access platform.
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Umer Yousuf Parray, Aasif Mohammad Khan, Aasif Ahmad Mir and Shahid Maqbool Mir
Open access repository is an essential element of an organization's strategy for enhancing the visibility and accessibility of its intellectual output to a global audience. Owing…
Abstract
Purpose
Open access repository is an essential element of an organization's strategy for enhancing the visibility and accessibility of its intellectual output to a global audience. Owing to its importance, the study aims to explore the current status of open access repositories in India and China by analyzing the different characteristic features of repositories.
Design/methodology/approach
The data for the study is collected from OpenDoar which is labeled as a quality assured repository directory across the globe. The country-wise contribution of Asian repositories is extracted from OpenDoar using various filtration options available in the repository. Further, the URL of every Indian and Chinese repository was manually accessed to gather the following metadata: Repository Type, Software Usage, Repository Interface Language, Year of Development, Subject Coverage, Content Coverage, and the utilization of Web 2.0 tools by repositories.
Findings
The findings of the study highlights that among the Asian countries, India is at 4th rank while China is at 5th rank in terms of repository count. The study depicts that India has shown more promising growth than China. However, both the countries mainly focused on institutional repositories while disciplinary, aggregated, and governmental repositories are very few in number, therefore building such repositories is the need of an hour. Dspace as the preferred software and English as a dominant interface language occupy the prominent places in the repositories of both countries. Moreover, the repositories of both countries have embraced web 2.0 tools like RSS 1.0, RSS 2.0 and Atom with little presence of social media tools.
Research limitations/implications
The study has limitations, and results should be interpreted with caution. The comparison between the two countries is based on only one data source, i.e. OpenDoar. However, there is a possibility that future studies can take various repository directories as a data source that will give a clear picture of comparison.
Originality/value
The study can be beneficial to the policymakers and the administrators of these two regions as it will provide them a vivid picture of the diffrent characteristic features of their repositories so that they can formulate better policies that will be helpful to foster green open access.
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Milena Carvalho, Michael Boock, Tania Yordanova Todorova, Susana Martins, Ines Braga and Cláudia Pinto
Surveying authors at doctoral-granting institutions of higher education in Portugal, the authors in this paper aim to seek to determine the extent to which Portuguese researchers…
Abstract
Purpose
Surveying authors at doctoral-granting institutions of higher education in Portugal, the authors in this paper aim to seek to determine the extent to which Portuguese researchers prefer that their work appears in open access journals or open access repositories resulting in improved access to quality, peer-reviewed scientific information and faster scientific and technological advances. The authors also seek to gauge Portuguese author's familiarity with open access, the importance they attach to open access when choosing a publication outlet, and to determine their preferences for achieving open access.
Design/methodology/approach
The methodology adopted in this research is the case study. The case study intends to understand a complex social phenomenon through an in-depth study holistically. In May 2020, the authors distributed a survey to faculty in all academic ranks at 14 Portuguese higher education institutions to learn the extent to which Portuguese authors currently make their research openly available, ascertain their awareness of open access, their support of the European Union (EU) open access goal and their preferences for achieving open access.
Findings
Researchers at Portuguese universities overwhelmingly are aware of arguments in favor of open access and believe that open access benefits researchers in their fields. Portuguese researchers regularly publish in open access journals and deposit their papers in institutional or disciplinary repositories.
Research limitations/implications
16.7% of 740 potential respondents completed the survey. The relatively low response rate prevents extrapolations from being made to the universe. The study was implemented during the COVID-19 pandemic, which, due to the disruption created in all sectors, made data collection complex and delayed its subsequent treatment.
Originality/value
Similar studies have been conducted at individual universities and in particular disciplines to determine the degree to which their faculty authors are aware of open access, its benefits, and preferences for achieving it. A similar study of Bulgarian university authors was conducted in 2018. No previous study of Portuguese authors at institutions of higher education has been conducted. The results will be useful to Portuguese institutions of higher education and academic libraries to establish and revise open access outreach and implementation services that may be helpful to their faculty in meeting EU open access and funder open access requirements.
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