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Institutional repository
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An Institutional repository is an online locus for collecting, preserving, and disseminating - in digital
Digital
A digital system is a data technology that uses discrete values. By contrast, non-digital systems use a continuous range of values to represent information...

 form - the intellectual
Intellectual
An intellectual is a person who uses intelligence and critical or analytical reasoning in either a professional or a personal capacity.- Terminology and endeavours :"Intellectual" can denote four types of persons:...

 output of an institution
Institution
An institution is any structure or mechanism of social order and cooperation governing the behavior of a set of individuals within a given human community...

, particularly a research institution.

For a university
University
A university is an institution of higher education and research, which grants academic degrees in a variety of subjects. A university is an organisation that provides both undergraduate education and postgraduate education...

, this would include materials such as research journal articles,
before (preprint
Preprint
A preprint is a draft of a scientific paper that has not yet been published in a peer-reviewed scientific journal.-Role:Publication of manuscripts in a peer-reviewed journal often takes weeks, months or even years from the time of initial submission, because manuscripts must undergo extensive...

s) and after (postprints) undergoing peer review
Peer review
Peer review is a process of self-regulation by a profession or a process of evaluation involving qualified individuals within the relevant field. Peer review methods are employed to maintain standards, improve performance and provide credibility...

, and digital versions of theses and dissertations, but it might also include other digital asset
Digital asset
A digital asset is any item of text or media that has been formatted into a binary source that includes the right to use it. A digital file without the right to use it is not an asset. Digital assets are categorised in three major groups which may be defined as textual content , images and...

s generated by normal academic life, such as administrative documents, course notes, or learning object
Learning object
A learning object is "a collection of content items, practice items, and assessment items that are combined based on a single learning objective". The term is credited to Wayne Hogins when he created a working group in 1994 bearing the name though the concept was first described by Gerard in 1967...

s.

The four main objectives for having an institutional repository are:
  • to provide open access to institutional research output by self-archiving
    Self-archiving
    To self-archive is to deposit a free copy of a digital document on the World Wide Web in order to provide open access to it. The term usually refers to the self-archiving of peer-reviewed research journal and conference articles as well as theses, deposited in the author's own institutional...

     it;
  • to create global visibility for an institution's scholarly research;
  • to collect content in a single location;
  • to store and preserve other institutional digital assets, including unpublished or otherwise easily lost ("grey") literature (e.g., theses or technical reports).

Origins

The origin of the notion of an "institutional repository" [IR] are twofold:
IRs are partly linked to the notion of digital interoperability
Interoperability
Interoperability is a property referring to the ability of diverse systems and organizations to work together . The term is often used in a technical systems engineering sense, or alternatively in a broad sense, taking into account social, political, and organizational factors that impact system to...

, which is in turn linked to the Open Archives Initiative
Open Archives Initiative
The Open Archives Initiative is an attempt to build a "low-barrier interoperability framework" for archives containing digital content . It allows people to harvest metadata...

 (OAI) and its Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting
Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting
OAI-PMH is a protocol developed by the Open Archives Initiative. It is used to harvest the metadata descriptions of the records in an archive so that services can be built using metadata from many archives...

 (OAI-PMH). The OAI in turn had its roots in the notion of a "Universal Preprint Service," since superseded by the open access movement.

IRs are partly linked to the notion of a digital library
Digital library
A digital library is a library in which collections are stored in digital formats and accessible by computers. The digital content may be stored locally, or accessed remotely via computer networks...

 - i.e., collecting, housing, classifying, cataloguing, curating, preserving, and providing access to digital
Digital
A digital system is a data technology that uses discrete values. By contrast, non-digital systems use a continuous range of values to represent information...

 content, analogous with the library's conventional function of collecting, housing classifying, curating, preserving and providing access to analog
Analog signal
An analog or analogue signal is any continuous signal for which the time varying feature of the signal is a representation of some other time varying quantity, i.e., analogous to another time varying signal. It differs from a digital signal in terms of small fluctuations in the signal which are...

 content.

Features and Benefits of an Institutional Repository

According to the Directory of Open Access Repositories (DOAR) data and the Repository 66 map at December 2010, the majority of IRs are built using Open Source software.

While the most popular Open Source and hosted applications share the advantages that IRs bring to institutions, such as increased visibility and impact of research output, interoperability and availability of technical support, IR advocates tend to favour Open Source solutions for the reason that they are by their nature more compatible with the ideology of the freedom and independence of the internet from commercial interests. On the other hand, some institutions opt for outsourced commercial solutions.

In her briefing paper on open access repositories, advocate Alma Swan lists the following as the benefits that repositories bring to institutions:
  • Opening up outputs of the institution to a worldwide audience;
  • Maximizing the visibility and impact of these outputs as a result;
  • Showcasing the institution to interested constituencies – prospective staff, prospective students and other stakeholders;
  • Collecting and curating digital output;
  • Managing and measuring research and teaching activities;
  • Providing a workspace for work-in-progress, and for collaborative or large-scale projects;
  • Enabling and encouraging interdisciplinary approaches to research;
  • Facilitating the development and sharing of digital teaching materials and aids, and
  • Supporting student endeavours, providing access to theses and dissertations and a location for the development of e-portfolios.

Repository Software

There are a number of open-source software packages for running a repository including:
  • DSpace
    DSpace
    DSpace is an open source software package that provides the tools for management of digital assets, and is commonly used as the basis for an institutional repository. It supports a wide variety of data, including books, theses, 3D digital scans of objects, photographs, film, video, research data...

  • Eprints
    EPrints
    EPrints is a free and open source software package for building open access repositories that are compliant with the Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting. It shares many of the features commonly seen in Document Management systems, but is primarily used for institutional...

  • Fedora
    Fedora (software)
    Fedora is a modular architecture built on the principle that interoperability and extensibility is best achieved by the integration of data, interfaces, and mechanisms as clearly defined modules...



There are also hosted (proprietary) software services, including:
  • Digital Commons
    Digital commons
    Digital Commons is a hosted repository platform. This hosted service is licensed by the Berkeley Electronic Press. It is used by associations, consortia, universities and colleges to preserve and showcase their scholarly output.- History :...

  • SimpleDL
    SimpleDL
    SimpleDL is digital collection management software that allows for the upload, description, management and access of digital collections and is UTF-8 compatible. SimpleDL is not limited by format and is capable of handling documents, PDFs, images, videos, audio files, and data only objects...



There is a mashup indicating the worldwide locations of open access digital repositories. This project is called Repository 66http://maps.repository66.org/blog/ and is based on data provided by ROAR
Registry of Open Access Repositories
ROAR is a searchable international Registry of Open Access Repositories indexing the creation, location and growth of open access institutional repositories and their contents. ROAR was created by EPrints at University of Southampton in 2003...

 and the OpenDOAR service developed by the SHERPA
SHERPA (organisation)
SHERPA is a project team, originally set up in 2002 to run and manage the SHERPA Project.-History:...

.

See also

  • Legal deposit
    Legal deposit
    Legal deposit is a legal requirement that a person or group submit copies of their publications to a repository, usually a library. The requirement is mostly limited to books and periodicals. The number of copies varies and can range from one to 19 . Typically, the national library is one of the...

  • Digital library
    Digital library
    A digital library is a library in which collections are stored in digital formats and accessible by computers. The digital content may be stored locally, or accessed remotely via computer networks...

  • Digital Assets Repository
    Digital Assets Repository
    A Digital Assets Repository is used to store all types of digital material and provides public access to the digitized collections through web-based search and browsing facilities....

  • Current Research Information System
    Current Research Information System
    A Current Research Information System is a database or other information system storing data on current research by organizations and people, usually through some kind of project activity, financed by a funding programme....


External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
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