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INSTITUTIONAL REPOSITORIES: A POWERFUL TOOL FOR ACCESSING

INFORMATION FOR EDUCATIONALISTS

Conference Paper · August 2010

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 INSTITUTIONAL REPOSITORIES: A POWERFUL TOOL FOR
ACCESSING INFORMATION FOR EDUCATIONALISTS

Chandran Velmurugan

Librarian,
Rajalakshmi Institute of Technology
Kuthambakkam, Chennai –602 107, India

ABSTRACT

The institutional repository (IR) is a modern concept that captures and makes available
through internet and it intranets the institutional research output and other relevant documents to
the users by way of digitizing the output. The IR’s have already started emerging in India. This
paper highlights the aims, objectives, benefits, advantages and importance of IR. Most of the
repositories are using open source information repository software like e-prints, d-space, and
Fedora. It is observed that generally documents like theses, dissertations, seminar papers, journal
articles, etc., are being found more in the repositories.

Keywords: Institutional repository; Information repository software; Digital libraries; Scholastic

resource.

WHAT IS AN INSTITUTIONAL REPOSITORY?

The term ‘Institutional Repository (IR)’ consists of formally organized and managed
collections of digital content generated by faculty, staff and students in an institution. The
content of these repositories can be available for assimilation with on-campus library, course
management systems, and can also be made available to colleagues and students in other
institutions as well as to the public.

DEFINITION

‘‘An Institutional Repository is an organization based set of services which the organization
offers to the members of its community for the management and dissemination of digital
materials created by the institution and its community members. It is most essentially as an
organizational commitment to the stewardship of these digital materials, including long-term
preservation where appropriate as well as organization and access or distribution”.

- Clifford Lynch, 2003

This paper published in Proceedings of the National Conference on Next Generation Digital
Libraries and web technologies: challenges and opportunities held on 19-21st August, 2010 at
Sri Krishna College of Engineering & Technology, Coimbatore, pp 6.92- 6.97.
‘‘An Institutional Repository (IR) is defined to be a web-based database (repository) of scholarly
material which is institutionally defined (as opposed to a subject-based repository); cumulative
and perpetual (a collection of record); open and interoperable (e.g. using OAI-compliant
software); and thus collects, stores and disseminates (is part of the process of scholarly
communication). In addition, mostly it would include long-term preservation of digital materials
as a key function of IRs’’.
- Mark Ware, Pathfinder Research on Web-based Repositories

WHAT IS THE AIM OF IR?

The most indispensable aim of this IR is to enhance the speed of institutional adoption by
providing practical assistance and advice based on available solutions, with an emphasis on
operational issues to do with the installation, implementation and deployment of institutional
repositories.

OBJECTIVES

The main objective of IR is to evaluate the growth and development of online research
repositories in India. It provides more repositories and content and re-use of content. Most of the
repositories are using open source information repository software like E-prints, D-Space, and
Fedora. It is observed that generally documents like theses and dissertations, seminar papers,
journal articles etc., are being found more in the repositories.

CHARACTERISTICS

Henry & Anderson (2005) states that the characteristics of IR, Contains content,
deposited by owner, creator or third party; repository architecture manages content as well as
metadata; repository offers a minimum set of basic services. eg. put, get, search, access control
etc.; repository must be sustainable, trusted, well supported and well – managed.

WHY SHOULD AN ORGANIZATION DEVELOP IR?

 To provide access to unpublished, but nevertheless valuable, research of faculty, research

staff, and students.
 To promote the principles of open access by providing opportunities for faculty self-
archiving.
 To preserve and disseminates a wide variety of content beyond traditional scholarly
articles, including datasets, learning objects, electronic theses and dissertations, audio-
visual content, and presentations.
 It helps to universities fulfill obligations to make publicly funded or non-profit-funded
research available on an open access basis.
 It encourages access and sharing among disciplines and institutions
 It allows universities to capture digital e-learning courseware so they can expand on
existing programs

This paper published in Proceedings of the National Conference on Next Generation Digital
Libraries and web technologies: challenges and opportunities held on 19-21st August, 2010 at
Sri Krishna College of Engineering & Technology, Coimbatore, pp 6.92- 6.97.
BENEFITS OF IR

The principal benefit is that repositories make it easier for faculty members to get
previously scattered or restricted-access materials in a single location.

Research scholars and faculty members are also expected to benefit from the increased
visibility associated with repositories. Since repositories are typically defined as open access
systems, the content receives more use from the academic community because it is free. This
may translate into higher citation rates than comparable material published in subscription-only
journals.

Moreover, repositories eliminate what many academics consider the artificial space
limitations of printed journals, allowing for more and different kinds of information to be
published. As these constraints are lifted, researchers can expect more of their own work and that
of colleagues to become available for review. It should help in the creation of knowledge to
advance the field of study.

NOTABLE INSTITUTIONAL REPOSITORY INITIATIVES WEBSITES

1. http://drtc.isibang.ac.in/
2. http://www.icrier.org/
3. http://eprints.iimk.ac.in
4. http://etd.ncsi.iisc.ernet.in/
5. http://eprint.iitd.ac.in/
6. http://library.iitk.ac.in
7. http://dspace.ncl.res.in/
8. http://vidya-mapak.ncsi.iisc.ernet.in/cgi-bin/library
9. http://www.indialabourarchives.org
10. http://dspace.nitrkl.ac.in/dspace/

TYPES OF RESEARCH MATERIAL IN IR

There are three types of research materials in an Institutional repository, namely,

Published Research Material, Unpublished Research Material and Supporting Research material.

S. No Type
1 Published Research
Material
2 Unpublished
Research Material
3 Supporting Research
Example
Book chapters, Journal articles, Conference papers…,
Preprints, working papers, Thesis / dissertations,
technical reports, progress/status reports, committee
reports presentations, teaching materials, audio/video
clips..,
Data sheets, models, blue prints..,

This paper published in Proceedings of the National Conference on Next Generation Digital
Libraries and web technologies: challenges and opportunities held on 19-21st August, 2010 at
Sri Krishna College of Engineering & Technology, Coimbatore, pp 6.92- 6.97.
 material
Table 1: Types of Research Materials in IR

AN INSTITUTIONAL REPOSITORY CAN PROVIDE

o Greater access to grey literature

o A complement to existing Scholarly Communication models
o A complement to other digital collections (dynamic connections between ‘texts’)
o Redundancy of scholarship (NELLCO & RePEc)
o Collocation for a scholar’s work (Researcher Page)

HOW DOES IR WORK?

o Research material is managed on an Institutional Repository Server, using

appropriate IR software.
o Accessible on the organizational LAN (intranet) + Internet/Private Scientists use a
web browser to submit (deposit) research material and also search the repository.
o Through OAI inter-operability protocol, a central search service network.
o ‘Harvests” metadata from individual IR’s, builds a cross-index and provides
single point cross-repository search service.
o Security concerns could be handled at network, IR and publication level.

WHAT SOFTWARE IS USED FOR INSTITUTIONAL REPOSITORIES?

A variety of systems are in use. IR software may be supported in various ways (e.g., locally
supported, centrally supported by a consortium of institutions, or supported for a fee by a
vendor). Four commonly used systems are:

 Digital Commons, commercial software, http://www.bepress.com/ir/

 DSpace, free open source software, http://www.dspace.org/
 EPrints, free open source software, http://www.eprints.org/
 Fedora, free open source software, http://www.fedora-commons.org/

OTHER IR SOFTWARES

 ARNO (Academic Research in Netherlands Online), Tilburg University

http://www.uba.uva.nl/arno

 CDSware (CERN Document Server software, CERN, Geneva, Switzerland,

http://cdsware.cern.ch/
 I-Tor (Tools & Technologies for open repositories), Netherlands
http://www.I-tor.org/en/toon
 MyCore- http://www.mycore.de/engl/index.html

This paper published in Proceedings of the National Conference on Next Generation Digital
Libraries and web technologies: challenges and opportunities held on 19-21st August, 2010 at
Sri Krishna College of Engineering & Technology, Coimbatore, pp 6.92- 6.97.
FEATURES AND FUNCTIONALITY

 Registration of institutional users (authors) includes for document submission and

other privileged use, User authentication and Profile set up.
 Document submission includes Authentication, Assign Metadata, Upload Document and
Grant license
 Approval / moderation includes Submission approval (metadata, format, affiliation,
etc.) and Content approval (peer review)
 Archiving includes Date stamping, Unique/persistent identifier assignment, Preservation
support and Indexing and storage
 Dissemination includes Search, browse, OAI registration and compliance (metadata
exposure) and Rights management
 Administration includes Administer communities, collections, users, groups, Document
formats, metadata, Licenses, submission policies and Preservation

IR USERS

The following are the users of institutional repositories,

 Senior administration
 Graduate students
 Retiring professors
 University research documents
 Institutes and Centres
 Our own organization

ADVANTAGES OF IR

 It is a new and innovative channel of scholarly communication.

 It provides wider access and visibility to the research output.
 It preserves of institution’s heritage.
 It reduces the publication delay.
 It is a faster and effective communication channel.
 It increases the citation to the publications.
 It strengthens research especially in the Indian context.
 It is a boon for Gray Literature visibility.

CONCLUSION

The institutional repositories offer access to research publications and other digital
documents of respective institutions. The popularity of this concept is growing rapidly in the
higher educational and research institutions to disseminate newly emerged knowledge and

This paper published in Proceedings of the National Conference on Next Generation Digital
Libraries and web technologies: challenges and opportunities held on 19-21st August, 2010 at
Sri Krishna College of Engineering & Technology, Coimbatore, pp 6.92- 6.97.
 expertise. The institutional repository is a scholastic resource for its success and its long-term
sustainability.

The institutional repositories needs to be reviewed regularly and users’ feedback obtained
from the user communities. Their popularity can be increased through postings in list servers,
web search engines, metadata harvesting services and publicity campaigns. The repositories
should be linked from the institutions’ respective websites. If the institutional repositories are
available, in internet that can be accessed throughout the world. If an institutional repository
offers quality research publications, well-defined metadata elements and user friendly search
interface, it would be popular amongst researchers in the world over.

REFERENCES

1. http://www.dlib.org/dlib/january05/foster/01foster.html
2. http://software.eprints.org/ docs/eprints-docs.pdf
3. http://www.dlib.org/dlib/november02/ johnson/11johnson.html
4. NISO. (2004). Understanding metadata. Bethesda, MD: NISO Press.
5. http://www.sun.com/products-n-solutions/edu/whitepapers/pdf/digitallibrarytrends.pdf
6. http://www.sun.com/products-n-solutions/edu/ whitepapers/digitaltoolkit.html
7. http://www.greenstone.org/docs/ insidegreenstone.pdf

This paper published in Proceedings of the National Conference on Next Generation Digital
Libraries and web technologies: challenges and opportunities held on 19-21st August, 2010 at
Sri Krishna College of Engineering & Technology, Coimbatore, pp 6.92- 6.97.

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