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11 – 20 of over 12000Milena 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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Miriam Kakai, Maria G.N. Musoke and Constant Okello-Obura
Given that repositories were proposed as one of the routes to open access (OA), this study sought to establish the achievements universities in East Africa had attained in…
Abstract
Purpose
Given that repositories were proposed as one of the routes to open access (OA), this study sought to establish the achievements universities in East Africa had attained in initiating institutional repositories (IRs), the challenges in providing OA and strategies for the way forward.
Design/methodology/approach
Data were collected through literature searches, using the internet, journal databases and university websites in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda for information about OA and IRs in East Africa. Some of the findings were based on the author’s PhD “The management and accessibility of OA IRs in selected universities in East Africa”, which used face-to-face interviews with six librarians and self-administered questionnaires responded to by 183 researchers at Kenyatta University, Muhimbili University of Health and Allied Sciences and Makerere University.
Findings
Universities in East Africa were still in the intermediate stages of embracing OA, and only 40 libraries out of 145 universities had implemented IRs. However, most of the repositories had less than 1,000 items, with this challenge attributed to the absence of institutional and government/funder mandates that affected the collection/provision of OA, in addition to the lack of awareness of IRs among researchers.
Originality/value
The value in this research was establishing the extent of IR initiatives in universities in East Africa and their contribution to OA, which is regarded as more visible and accessible to scholars and government personnel who could leverage the information for further development in the region.
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By describing some of the often‐ignored aspects of repository advocacy, such as disciplinary differences and how these might affect the adoption of a particular institutional…
Abstract
Purpose
By describing some of the often‐ignored aspects of repository advocacy, such as disciplinary differences and how these might affect the adoption of a particular institutional repository, this paper aims to offer practical guidance to repository managers and those responsible for open access and repository policy.
Design/methodology/approach
The argument uses examples from an empirical study of 43 in‐depth interviews of academic staff in three disciplines, Chemistry, Computer Science and Sociology, at two Australian universities. The interviewees discussed their interaction with the literature as an author, a reader and a reviewer.
Findings
The study finds that disciplines are markedly different from one another, in terms of their subject matter, the speed of publication, information‐seeking behaviour and social norms. These all have bearing on the likelihood a given group will adopt deposit into an institutional repository as part of their regular work practice.
Practical implications
It is important to decide the purpose of the institutional repository before embarking on an advocacy program. By mapping empirical findings against both diffusion of innovations theory and writings on disciplinary differences, this paper shows that repository advocacy addressing the university academic population as a single unit is unlikely to be successful. Rather, advocacy and implementation of a repository must consider the information seeking behaviour and social norms of each discipline in question.
Originality/value
The consideration of disciplinary differences in relation to repository advocacy has only begun to be explored in the literature.
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B.S. Shivaram and B.S. Biradar
This paper aims to examine the grey literature archiving pattern at open-access repositories with special reference to Indian open-access repositories.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to examine the grey literature archiving pattern at open-access repositories with special reference to Indian open-access repositories.
Design/methodology/approach
The Bielefeld Academic Search Engine (BASE) was used to collect data from different document types archived by open-access repositories across the world. Data were collected by advanced search and browse features available at the BASE on document types, the number of repositories by country wise and Indian academic and research repositories. Data were tabulated using MS Excel for further analysis.
Findings
Findings indicated that open-access repositories across the world are primarily archiving reviewed literature. Grey literature is archived more at European and North American repositories compared to rest of the world. Reports, theses, dissertations and data sets are the major grey document types archived. In India, a significant contributor to the BASE index with 146 open-access sources, reviewed literature is the largest archived document types, and grey literature is above world average due to the presence of theses and dissertations at repositories of academic institutions.
Originality/value
Grey literature is considered as valuable sources of information for research and development. The study enables to get insights about the amount of grey content archived at open-access repositories. These findings can further be used to investigate the reasons/technology limitations for the lesser volume of grey content in repositories. Furthermore, this study helps to better understand the grey literature archiving pattern and need for corrective measures based on the success stories of repositories of Europe and North America.
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Hirak Jyoti Hazarika, Akash Handique and S. Ravikumar
This paper aims to provide image repository to the medical professional in an open source platform, which will increase the visibility of Digital Imaging and Communication in…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to provide image repository to the medical professional in an open source platform, which will increase the visibility of Digital Imaging and Communication in Medicine (DICOM) image in a network mode; further, the proposed system will reduce the storage cost of the images to significant level.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors have developed a new institutional repository model for the medical professionals cum radiologists to preserve, store and retrieve medical images from one database with the help of open source software. The authors used JavaScript programming to integrate and develop the DICOM Standard with DSpace.
Findings
Major outcome of this work is that DICOM images can be accommodated in DSpace without modifying the image properties and keeping intact the various dimensions of image viewing options. Further, it was found that the images are retrieved without any ease because of the robust indexing system.
Research limitations/implications
Major limitation of this study was the size of the data (5000 DICOM image) with which the authors have tested the system. The scalability of the system has to be tested on various fronts, for which separate study has to be done.
Practical implications
Once this system is in place, DICOM user can store, retrieve and access the image from Web platform. This proposed repository will be the storehouse of various DICOM images with reasonable storage costs.
Originality/value
In addition to exploring the opportunities of open source software (OSS) implementation in Medical Fields, this study includes issues related to implementation of open source repository for storing and preserving medical image. This is the first time in Library Science field to create and develop Open Source DICOM Medical Image Library with the help of DSpace. The study will create value for library professionals as well as medical professionals and OSS vendors to understand the medical market in the context of OSS.
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Gayatri Doctor and Smitha Ramachandran
Management Institutions in India are being ranked by various surveys, which give importance to parameters like placements, brand value and intellectual capital. Intellectual…
Abstract
Purpose
Management Institutions in India are being ranked by various surveys, which give importance to parameters like placements, brand value and intellectual capital. Intellectual capital of a Management Institute is the published scholarly material of its faculty consisting of of articles, journal papers published, case studies, books compiled, etc. Use of technologies like Institutional Repositories for capturing the intellectual capital and enabling knowledge sharing in academic institutions especially in developing countries like India are emerging. The purpose of this paper is to describe a survey conducted to ascertain different considerations for implementing an institutional repository and the creation of the pilot Institutional Repository at the ICFAI Business School, Ahmedabad using the Open Source DSpace Institutional Repository Software.
Design/methodology/approach
The survey conducted at ICFAI Business School, Ahmedabad to ascertain the need of an institutional repository and the different aspects associated with the setting up of institutional repository is described. The phases involved in the development of the pilot Institutional Repository at ICFAI Business School, Ahmedabad using open source DSpace Institutional repository software to capture the intellectual capital and enable knowledge sharing are also described.
Findings
Installation of the Institutional Repository is complex, requiring technical know‐how of different software. Creation of communities and collections, archiving of documents into the Repository, enriching them with metadata are essential for efficient retrieval of information. Some knowledge of computers and DSpace software is essential.
Research limitations/implications
Once the Institutional Repository is created it needs to be maintained. Faculty and staff need to be trained for proper uploading of documents and submitting metadata into the repository.
Practical implications
Knowledge sharing of the conference papers presented, journal papers written, books edited, etc., among the faculty of the Institute is possible with the creation of the digital repository. The intellectual capital of the Institute is available at one centralized location facilitating easy information retrieval.
Originality/value
The Institutional repository provides ICFAI Business School, Ahmedabad with a central facility for systematic archiving of its “intellectual capital” – the scholarly material of its faculty and research staff. Awareness and availability of the scholarly material of peer faculty enables knowledge sharing. The Institutional Repository is useful to the faculties, research staff and the institution. Management Institutions, especially in India, should be encouraged to develop Institutional Repositories of their intellectual capital and share knowledge.
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George Osas Eromosele, Olabisi Fadeke Adesina, Mutalib Olanrewaju Abdulrazaq and Mahmud Aliyu
The development of an institutional repository for academic and research libraries makes possible the visibility of localized scholarly contents on web platform and also provide…
Abstract
Purpose
The development of an institutional repository for academic and research libraries makes possible the visibility of localized scholarly contents on web platform and also provide open access to restricted resources. This paper aims to explore the relevance of developing institutional repositories for open and unrestricted access to confined resources, and discusses academic and research libraries roles in developing institutional repositories; the types of software to be used for the development; and the hardware requirements for server setup and copyright issues. With more establishment of institutional repositories, access to localized information domiciled in the remote institutions can be easily accessed by visiting the institutional library online to retrieve the material.
Design/methodology/approach
To provide a thorough breakdown of the building of institutional repositories in the University of Ilorin, Library, webliography sources were consulted.
Findings
It has been established by the OpenDOAR which is the quality-assured, global Directory of Open Access Repositories that only 30 repositories have been created by some academic and research libraries in Nigeria. There is a need for more academic and research libraries in Nigeria to key into the initiative of developing online institutional repositories to give online visibility to their intellectual contents that have no copyright restrictions in meeting the researcher’s information needs.
Originality/value
This study revealed a thorough approach and various steps that should be followed in developing institutional repositories for academic and research libraries.
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Ivana Hebrang Grgic and Ana Barbaric
The purpose of this research paper is to present Croatian librarians' awareness about the importance of institutional open access (OA) repositories.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this research paper is to present Croatian librarians' awareness about the importance of institutional open access (OA) repositories.
Design/methodology/approach
The research is based on an online questionnaire sent to all the Croatian research and academic libraries. Online questionnaire was chosen as the most appropriate tool, as the authors wanted it to be anonymous and as quick as possible.
Findings
The findings indicate that all the academic librarians in Croatia are aware of the importance of institutional OA repositories. The number of OA repositories in Croatia is rather small, but the librarians are making lots of efforts towards the development of new repositories. Croatian librarians think that the most appropriate software is open‐source software; that OA repositories have to be open access initiative protocol for metadata harvesting compliant; that copyright owner's consent for archiving is necessary. The biggest problems are the lack of administration support and the researchers' unawareness of the benefits of OA, especially OA repositories.
Practical implications
Based on this research, some steps regarding OA could be done on a national level, e. g. guidelines for establishing OA repositories could be created and the obligation of self‐archiving should be regulated. This research could be a valuable tool for developing new OA repositories.
Originality/value
The paper contributes to the understanding the OA movement in transitional countries and peripheral scientific communities. The knowledge created in such countries can be beneficial for the global scientific community, and OA repositories are valuable way for promoting that knowledge.
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The purpose of this paper is to disseminate information about the IFLA pre‐conference in Chania, Crete, Greece on the subject of open access in libraries.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to disseminate information about the IFLA pre‐conference in Chania, Crete, Greece on the subject of open access in libraries.
Design/methodology/approach
Report on visit.
Findings
The main focus of the meeting was open access. Much information was shared.
Originality/value
This is an original work with some quoted material.
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Rob Kitchin, Sandra Collins and Dermot Frost
The purpose of this paper is to examine funding models for Open Access (OA) digital data repositories whose costs are not wholly core funded. Whilst such repositories are free to…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine funding models for Open Access (OA) digital data repositories whose costs are not wholly core funded. Whilst such repositories are free to access, they are not without significant cost to build and maintain and the lack of both full core costs and a direct funding stream through payment-for-use poses a considerable financial challenge, placing their future and the digital collections they hold at risk.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors document 14 different potential funding streams for OA digital data repositories, grouped into six classes (institutional, philanthropy, research, audience, service, volunteer), drawing on the ongoing experiences of seeking a sustainable funding for the Digital Repository of Ireland (DRI).
Findings
There is no straight forward solution to funding OA digital data repositories that are not wholly core funded, with a number of general and specific challenges facing each repository, and each funding model having strengths and weaknesses. The proposed DRI solution is the adoption of a blended approach that seeks to ameliorate cyclical effects across funding streams by generating income from a number of sources rather than overly relying on a single one, though it is still reliant on significant state core funding to be viable.
Practical implications
The detailing of potential funding streams offers practical financial solutions to other OA digital data repositories which are seeking a means to become financially sustainable in the absence of full core funding.
Originality/value
The review assesses and provides concrete advice with respect to potential funding streams in order to help repository owners address the financing conundrum they face.
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