User:Chisenga/Temp/Introduction to
institutional iepositories.doc
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INTRODUCTION INSTITUTIONAL REPOSITORIES
Objective

To introduce participants to the concepts of Institutional Repositories and Open Access
Archives
Introduction
The adoption and use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) in research
institutions has resulted in more and more information resources being generated primarily in
digital format. While the storage, organization and preservation of print-based information
resources has a long history and is well established and institutionalized in research institutions,
in form of libraries, documentation centres and archives; this is not the case with documents
generated primarily in digital format. In most research institutions there are no systems in place
to capture and store documents in digital format and the institutions are losing the knowledge
and information that does not find its way into the main communication channels for outputs of
research, i.e. scholarly journals and conference proceedings.
To address the above problem, institutions, especially academic institutions, are setting up
institutional repositories (IRs).
Institutional Repositories
An institutional repository is defined as a database with a set of services to capture, store, index,
preserve and redistributes an institution’s research outputs in digital formats[1]. The objectives
of an institutional repository are:



To provide open access to institutional materials, i.e. research reports, articles, technical
reports, annual reports, seminar papers, etc
To offer the opportunity for long term storage and preservation of digital assets
To aid the management of often easily forgotten (grey) literature such as research
reports, technical reports, etc
Publication of research reports in journals and conference proceedings reflects positively on the
research institutions, and institutional repositories complement existing metrics for gauging
institutional productivity and prestige[2]. Institutional repositories are also forming part of a
larger global system of repositories, which are indexed in a standardized way, and searchable
using one interface, providing the foundation for a new model of scholarly publishing[3].
The primary reason why researchers publish their outputs in journals is to communicate with
others about their research and contributing to the advancement of knowledge in their field.
Online institutional repositories are also contributing to this process by:


Facilitating timely access to the institution's research outputs
Providing the infrastructure for broader dissemination resulting in increased use of the
resources, and enhanced professional visibility of research and creative output while
potentially raising the institutional profile.
Further, research has also demonstrated that, with appropriate indexing and search mechanisms
in place, open access online articles have appreciably higher citation rates than traditionally
published articles.[4]
Different institutions are developing institutional repositories for different purposes, and these
include for:






Electronic publishing and management of collections of research documents
Scholarly communication
Preserving digital materials for the long term
Showcasing an institution’s research outputs
Knowledge management
Encouraging open access to scholarly research
Stakeholders
Institution repositories involve different stakeholders, each bringing different contributions to the
repository. In a research institution, the major stakeholders include the following:




Research scientists: generate research reports, technical reports, articles, and other
information resources required to populate the repository
Policy makers: generate information resources such as annual reports for the institutions
and provide the policy infrastructure and financial support required for the IR
Information management specialists: bring in skills and standards required to manage the
digital information resources
Information technology specialists: bring in the required skills to support the IT technical
infrastructure for the IR
Software Tools for Institutional Repositories
There are several Open Source software systems that are being used to develop institutional
repositories. They include the following:

E-Prints (GNU) [http://software.eprints.org/]. Open-source OAI-compliant software
developed at University of Southampton to enable anyone to set up their own Open
Archives-compliant institutional archive.

DSpace: Durable Digital Depository [http://dspace.org/]. Open-source software
developed at MIT for its repository; released as open source software in Nov. 2002.

Fedora™ Project: An Open-Source Digital Repository Management System
[http://www.fedora.info/]. Jointly developed by the University of Virginia and Cornell
University, Fedora is a general-purpose digital object repository system that can be used
in whole or part to support a variety of use cases including: institutional repositories,
digital libraries, content management, digital asset management, scholarly publishing,
and digital preservation.

Greenstone [http://www.greenstone.org/]. Suite of software for building and distributing
digital library collections. Greenstone is produced by the New Zealand Digital Library
Project at the University of Waikato, and developed and distributed in cooperation with
UNESCO and the Human Info NGO.
Examples of Institutional Repositories

FAO Corporate Document Repository
http://www.fao.org/documents/index.asp?lang=en
The FAO's Corporate Document Repository (CDR) is the Organization's online digital library. It
stores thousands of documents in HTML and PDF format, containing valuable material on
agriculture, food security and the other areas of work of the Organization. Using the Document
Repository, users can easily access the accumulated knowledge and information produced by
FAO directly on the Internet.

CERN Document Server (CDS)
http://cds.cern.ch/
Provide access to well over 630,000 bibliographic records, including 250,000 full text
documents, of interest to people working in particle physics and related areas. Material consists
of preprints, articles, books, journals, photographs, and more.

E-Print Repository - Australia National University
http://eprints.anu.edu.au/
Contains preprints of papers that have been submitted for journal publication papers, posted
electronically for peer consideration and comment before submission for publication, or
documents that have not been submitted to any journal

Electronic Library, Aalborg University
http://www.aub.aau.dk/phd/
Contains electronically versions of research papers and publications of lecturers and researchers
at Aalborg University
Conclusion
Agricultural research organizations and faculties of agriculture should consider setting up
institutional repositories and open archives to facilitate access to the huge
1. ↑ Adapted from: Barton, Mary R. & Waters, Margaret M. 2004. Creating an Institutional Repository: LEADIRS Workbook http://www.dspace.org/implement/leadirs.pdf (Accessed 25 September 2005).
2. ↑ Croy, Raym. 2002. SPARC Institutional Repository Checklist & Resource Guide – URL:
http://www.arl.org/sparc/IR/IR_Guide.html
3. ↑ Queen's Institutional Repository Portal - http://library.queensu.ca/webir/
4. ↑ Croy (2002)
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