Category: Digital Repositories

"A DSpace Mobile Theme for San Diego State University"

Mini Vamadevan Pillai has self-archived "A DSpace Mobile Theme for San Diego State University."

Here's an excerpt:

This thesis is an attempt to install and customize a DSpace mobile theme for San Diego State University. The work also includes development of additional features like adding navigational bars, adding administrative login capabilities, accessing administrative navigational panel via mobile theme. The mobile theme supports other features like search, advanced search, recent submissions, submissions and workflow. With the widespread use of mobile telephony, providing a mobile theme for SDSU DSpace will reach out to faculty and other interested parties.

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APA/C-DAC International Conference on Digital Preservation and Development of Trusted Digital Repositories 2014 Proceedings

The APA/C-DAC International Conference on Digital Preservation and Development of Trusted Digital Repositories 2014 proceedings have been released.

Presentations and session videos are also available.

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"Have Digital Repositories Come of Age? The Views of Library Directors"

David Nicholas et al. have published "Have Digital Repositories Come of Age? The Views of Library Directors" in Webology.

Here's an excerpt:

This survey of approximately 150 repositories assessed the achievements, impact, and success of digital repositories. Results show that while the size and use of repositories has been relatively modest, almost half of all institutions either have, or are planning, a repository mandate requiring deposit and small gains have been made in raising the profile of the library within the institution. Repositories, then, have made a good deal of progress, but they have not quite come of age.

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"Flexible and Extensible Digital Object and Repository Architecture (FEDORA)"

Sandra Payette and Carl Lagoze have self-archived "Flexible and Extensible Digital Object and Repository Architecture (FEDORA)."

Here's an excerpt:

We describe a digital object and repository architecture for storing and disseminating digital library content. The key features of the architecture are: (1) support for heterogeneous data types; (2) accommodation of new types as they emerge; (3) aggregation of mixed, possibly distributed, data into complex objects; (4) the ability to specify multiple content disseminations of these objects; and (5) the ability to associate rights management schemes with these disseminations. This architecture is being implemented in the context of a broader research project to develop next-generation service modules for a layered digital library architecture.

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"Cultures of Access: Differences in Rhetoric around Open Access Repositories in Africa and the United States and Their Implications for the Open Access Movement"

Natalia T. Bowdoin has self-archived "Cultures of Access: Differences in Rhetoric around Open Access Repositories in Africa and the United States and Their Implications for the Open Access Movement."

Here's an excerpt:

For this study I examined the rhetoric used by OA institutional repositories and what this rhetoric may say about different "cultures of OA." I conducted textual analysis of 46 websites of OA repositories in the United States and 14 Sub-Saharan African nations. Analysis of the specific rhetoric used to present the OA repositories reveals differing views on the importance of OA in terms of cultural ideas about information control, access to information, and social capital.

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"Open-Access Repositories Worldwide, 2005-2012: Past Growth, Current Characteristics and Future Possibilities"

Stephen Pinfield et al. have self-archived "Open-Access Repositories Worldwide, 2005-2012: Past Growth, Current Characteristics and Future Possibilities" in White Rose Research Online.

Here's an excerpt:

This paper reviews the worldwide growth of open-access (OA) repositories, December 2005 to December 2012, using data collected by the OpenDOAR project. It shows that initial repository development was focused on North America, Western Europe and Australasia, particularly the USA, UK, Germany and Australia. Soon after, Japan increased its repository numbers. Since 2010, other geographical areas and countries have seen repository growth, including East Asia (especially Taiwan), South America (especially Brazil) and Eastern Europe (especially Poland). During the whole period, countries such as France, Italy and Spain have maintained steady growth, whereas countries such as China and Russia have experienced relatively low levels of growth. Globally, repositories are predominantly institutional, multidisciplinary and English-language-based. They typically use open-source OAI-compliant repository software but remain immature in terms of explicit licensing arrangements. Whilst the size of repositories is difficult to assess accurately, the available data indicate that a small number of large repositories and a large number of small repositories make up the repository landscape. These trends and characteristics are analyzed using Innovation Diffusion Theory (IDT) building on previous studies. IDT is shown to provide a useful explanatory framework for understanding repository adoption at various levels: global, national, organizational and individual. Major factors affecting both the initial development of repositories and their take up by users are identified, including IT infrastructure, language, cultural factors, policy initiatives, awareness-raising activity and usage mandates. It is argued that mandates in particular are likely to play a crucial role in determining future repository development.

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"Fedora Commons with Apache Hadoop: A Research Study"

Mohamed Mohideen Abdul Rasheed have published "Fedora Commons with Apache Hadoop: A Research Study" in the latest issue of Code4Lib Journal.

Here's an excerpt:

The Digital Collections digital repository at the University of Maryland Libraries is growing and in need of a new backend storage system to replace the current filesystem storage. Though not a traditional storage management system, we chose to evaluate Apache Hadoop because of its large and growing community and software ecosystem. Additionally, Hadoop's capabilities for distributed computation could prove useful in providing new kinds of digital object services and maintenance for ever increasing amounts of data. We tested storage of Fedora Commons data in the Hadoop Distributed File System (HDFS) using an early development version of Akubra-HDFS interface created by Frank Asseg. This article examines the findings of our research study, which evaluated Fedora-Hadoop integration in the areas of performance, ease of access, security, disaster recovery, and costs.

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"Who and What Links to the Internet Archive"

Yasmin AlNoamany, Ahmed AlSum, Michele C. Weigle, and Michael L. Nelson have self-archived "Who and What Links to the Internet Archive" in arXiv.org.

Here's an excerpt:

The Internet Archive's (IA) Wayback Machine is the largest and oldest public web archive and has become a significant repository of our recent history and cultural heritage. Despite its importance, there has been little research about how it is discovered and used. Based on web access logs, we analyze what users are looking for, why they come to IA, where they come from, and how pages link to IA. We find that users request English pages the most, followed by the European languages. Most human users come to web archives because they do not find the requested pages on the live web. About 65% of the requested archived pages no longer exist on the live web. We find that more than 82% of human sessions connect to the Wayback Machine via referrals from other web sites, while only 15% of robots have referrers. Most of the links (86%) from websites are to individual archived pages at specific points in time, and of those 83% no longer exist on the live web.

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"2013 Open Repositories Conference Highlights: Repository Island in Sea of Research Data"

Carol Minton Morris has published "2013 Open Repositories Conference Highlights: Repository Island in Sea of Research Data" in the latest issue of D-Lib Magazine.

Here's an excerpt:

The Eighth International Conference on Open Repositories 2013 was held July 8-12, 2013 on Prince Edward Island, Canada. The annual conference offers attendees an opportunity to learn about new ways to access information, innovative repository tools, and emerging community initiatives. More than 300 attendees came to OR2013 to meet with colleagues, keep up with fast-paced development goals, and hear expert speakers who are attuned to current repository issues.

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figshare for Institutions Launched

figshare has launched an instiutional service for research data.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

figshare today announces the launch of 'figshare for Institutions'—a simple and cost-effective software solution for academic and higher education establishments to both securely host and make publicly available its academic research outputs. figshare, allows academic institutions to publish, share and get credit for their research data, hosting videos, datasets, posters, figures and theses in a cost-effective way.

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AAU, ARL, and APLU Establish SHARE Steering Group

AAU, ARL, and APLU have established the SHARE Steering Group.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

The Association of Research Libraries (ARL), the Association of American Universities (AAU), and the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities (APLU) today announced the formation of a joint steering group to advance a proposed network of digital repositories at universities, libraries, and other research institutions across the US that will provide long-term public access to federally funded research articles and data.

The steering group will oversee a feasibility study, guide policy, and explore governance structures necessary for prototyping and implementing the network. This repository network, the Shared Access Research Ecosystem (SHARE), is being developed as one response to a White House directive instructing federal funding agencies to make the results of research they fund available to the public.

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"Open Access and the Changing Landscape of Research Impact Indicators: New Roles for Repositories"

Isabel Bernal has published "Open Access and the Changing Landscape of Research Impact Indicators: New Roles for Repositories" in Publications.

Here's an excerpt:

The debate about the need to revise metrics that evaluate research excellence has been ongoing for years, and a number of studies have identified important issues that have yet to be addressed. Internet and other technological developments have enabled the collection of richer data and new approaches to research assessment exercises. Open access strongly advocates for maximizing research impact by enhancing seamless accessibility. In addition, new tools and strategies have been used by open access journals and repositories to showcase how science can benefit from free online dissemination. Latest players in the debate include initiatives based on alt-metrics, which enrich the landscape with promising indicators. To start with, the article gives a brief overview of the debate and the role of open access in advancing a new frame to assess science. Next, the work focuses on the strategy that the Spanish National Research Council's repository DIGITAL.CSIC is implementing to collect a rich set of statistics and other metrics that are useful for repository administrators, researchers and the institution alike. A preliminary analysis of data hints at correlations between free dissemination of research through DIGITAL.CSIC and enhanced impact, reusability and sharing of CSIC science on the web.

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"Hita-Hita: Open Access and Institutional Repositories in Japan Ten Years On"

Ikuko Tsuchide et al. have published "Hita-Hita: Open Access and Institutional Repositories in Japan Ten Years On" in the latest issue of Ariadne.

Here's an excerpt:

This article introduces several ideas and projects that have enhanced the penetration of the OA movement and development of institutional repositories in Japan. Moreover, it also outlines the activities of Digital Repository Federation (DRF)[6], a repository managers' community made up of 145 universities and research institutions that has supported such ideas. The term 'hita-hita' means to be tenacious, persevering and to work step by step without giving up. We adopt the term as the title of this article as we believe 'hita-hita' accurately expresses the character of our continued activity in this area.

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Presentations from Open Repositories 2013

Presentations from Open Repositories 2013 are now available.

Here's a brief selection of talks:

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"Publishers and Universities Respond to the OSTP Mandate"

Denise Troll Covey has self-archived "Publishers and Universities Respond to the OSTP Mandate" in SelectedWorks.

Here's an excerpt:

Brief summary and comparison of the Clearinghouse for the Open Research of the United States (CHORUS) announced by the Association of American Publishers and the Shared Access Research Ecosystem (SHARE) announced by the American Association of Universities, Association of Public and Land-grant Universities, and Association of Research Libraries.

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Incentives, Integration, and Mediation: Sustainable Practices for Populating Repositories

The Confederation of Open Access Repositories has released Incentives, Integration, and Mediation: Sustainable Practices for Populating Repositories.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

There is an active, thriving community of open access repositories worldwide and their visibility is rising as funding agencies and governments implement open access policies. Still, repositories must continue to adopt strategies that demonstrate their value to the wider research community. Therefore COAR has now published the report, "Incentives, Integration, and Mediation: Sustainable Practices for Population Repositories". It profiles a variety of successful practices for populating repositories from around the world. Aim of the report is to assist the global repository community in implementing sustainable methods for recruiting content. The profiles were gathered from organizations across the globe, and represent a mixture of approaches involving the introduction of incentives; integration of the repository with other institutional services; and/or mediation of the deposit process. The practices reflect a tradition of innovation and openness in the repository community, and are characterized by creative approaches to staffing, imaginative software developments, and adoption of novel policies.

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AAU, APLU, and ARL: Shared Access Research Ecosystem (SHARE) Proposal

The Association of American Universities, Association of Public and Land-grant Universities, and ARL have released a draft of the Shared Access Research Ecosystem (SHARE) proposal.

Here's an excerpt:

Research universities are long-lived and are mission-driven to generate, make accessible, and preserve over time new knowledge and understanding. Research universities collectively have the assets needed for a national solution for enhanced public access to federally funded research output. As the principal producers of the resources that are to be made publicly available under the new White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP)[1] memorandum, and that are critical to the continuing success of higher education in the United States, universities have invested in the infrastructure, tools, and services necessary to provide effective and efficient access to their research and scholarship. The new White House directive provides a compelling reason to integrate higher education's investments to date into a system of cross-institutional digital repositories that will be known as Shared Access Research Ecosystem (SHARE).

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"Repository of NSF-Funded Publications and Related Datasets: ‘Back of Envelope’ Cost Estimate for 15 Years"

Beth Plale, Inna Kouper, Kurt Seiffert, and Stacy Konkiel have self-archived "Repository of NSF-Funded Publications and Related Datasets: 'Back of Envelope' Cost Estimate for 15 Years" in IUScholarWorks.

Here's an excerpt:

The total projected cost of the data and paper repository is estimated at $167,000,000 over 15 years of operation, curating close to one million of datasets and one million papers. After 15 years and 30 PB of data accumulated and curated, we estimate the cost per gigabyte at $5.56. This $167 million cost is a direct cost in that it does not include federally allowable indirect costs return (ICR). After 15 years, it is reasonable to assume that some datasets will be compressed and rarely accessed. Others may be deemed no longer valuable, e.g., because they are replaced by more accurate results. Therefore, at some point the data growth in the repository will need to be adjusted by use of strategic preservation.

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"Science Europe Position Statement: Principles on the Transition to Open Access to Research Publications"

Science Europe has released "Science Europe Position Statement: Principles on the Transition to Open Access to Research Publications." Science Europe is an "association of 51 European national research organisations."

Here's an excerpt:

Therefore the Science Europe Member Organisations:

  • will continue to support any valid approaches to achieve Open Access, including those commonly referred to as the "green" and "gold" routes; . . . .
  • stress that research publications should either be published in an Open Access journal or be deposited as soon as possible in a repository, and made available in Open Access in all cases no later than six months following first publication. In Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences, the delay may need to be longer than six months but must be no more than 12 months; . . .
  • require that funding of Open Access publication fees is part of a transparent cost structure, incorporating a clear picture of publishers' service costs;. . . .
  • stress that the hybrid model, as currently defined and implemented by publishers, is not a working and viable pathway to Open Access. Any model for transition to Open Access supported by Science Europe Member Organisations must prevent "double dipping" and increase cost transparency;

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"New Opportunities for Repositories in the Age of Altmetrics"

Stacy Konkiel and Dave Scherer have published "New Opportunities for Repositories in the Age of Altmetrics" in the latest issue of the Bulletin of the Association for Information Science and Technology.

Here's an excerpt:

By reporting altmetrics (alternative metrics based on online activity) for their content, institutional repositories can add value to existing metrics—and prove their relevance and importance in an age of growing cutbacks to library services. This article will discuss the metrics that repositories currently deliver and how altmetrics can supplement existing usage statistics to provide a broader interpretation of research-output impact for the benefit of authors, library-based publishers and repository managers, and university administrators alike.

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Sustainability of Open Access Services—Report Phase 3: The Collective Provision of Open Access Resources

SPARC has released Sustainability of Open Access Services—Report Phase 3: The Collective Provision of Open Access Resources.

Here's an excerpt:

This report is the third in a series which examines issues relating to the economic sustainability of critical infrastructure services that support the operation and growth of open-access dissemination of scholarly and scientific research. This report is intended to guide funders and project planners in constructing and coordinating collective funding models capable of supporting open-access infrastructure resources. The report:

  • reviews the fundamentals of robust sustainability modeling (Section 2);
  • outlines the economic and institutional issues that confront those seeking to sustain free infrastructure services and discusses the implications of free models for an initiative's ability to provide an optimal level of service (Section 3); and
  • identifies strategies for overcoming institutional free ridership in the design of funding models and describes practical mechanisms for coordinating the collective provision of infrastructure services (Section 4).

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Report on Cost Parameters for Digital Repositories

APARSEN has released the Report on Cost Parameters for Digital Repositories.

Here's an excerpt:

The purpose of this report is to present our analysis of published cost models. A review of cost parameters for the selected models focused on how cost parameters mapped to the International Standard for Trusted Repositories (ISO 16363) which enabled us to assess the areas of; Organisational Infrastructure, Digital Object Management and Infrastructure and Security Risk Management. The purpose was to assess whether cost models were measuring, through their parameters, the relevant activities for a trusted digital repository.

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What EDINA Does: A Community Report

EDINA has released What EDINA Does: A Community Report.

Here's an excerpt:

Universities and colleges across the UK making use of our services enjoy high quality online support documentation and helpful case studies. Flagship services include JISC MediaHub, Digimap Collections, and SUNCAT (with respective focus on multimedia, geo-spatial data and mapping for teaching and research, and the scholarly statement made in journals). . . .

What follows in this booklet also acts as a showcase for our current project activities; the key investments for present and future services. These include innovation to support use on the 'mobile Internet', both mobility and multi-platform delivery and interaction, as part of the national and international development of the 'spatial data infrastructure', including leadership in the citizen observatory (COBWEB) project funded by the EU. There is also significant contribution to the wider definition of digital infrastructure, geared to ensure ease and continuity of access, both for discovery and for stewardship (preservation) of the digital resources that research and education require, such as The Keepers Registry (for e-journals) and now the UK RepositoryNet+ initiative and its service components to assist universities and research institutes with the Open Access agenda and research reporting. More about the product of our research and development project activity is found in the project archive pages of our website.

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"A Mobile Interface for DSpace"

Elías Tzoc has published "A Mobile Interface for DSpace" in the latest issue of D-Lib Magazine.

Here's an excerpt:

Academic libraries were among the first adopters of mobile websites in universities, but much of the early development was focused exclusively on traditional library content such as the library's homepage, catalog, contact information, etc. As libraries continue to work on new technology developments, a mobile interface for their institutional repositories can be a good new way to reach out to faculty and other interested parties. Miami University's Scholarly Commons runs on DSpace as part of a shared infrastructure administered by OhioLINK. DSpace is used at academic institutions, research and resource centers, museums, national libraries, and government and commercial organizations. With over a thousand installations in more than 90 countries, DSpace is the most widely used open source repository platform by any measure. The steady popularity of DSpace suggests that a lot of institutions will benefit from an out-of-the-box mobile interface. This article describes the development and implementation of the first mobile interface developed for DSpace using the jQuery Mobile Framework.

Note: Includes links to software.

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"SSRN and Law Journals—Rivals or Allies?"

Ian Ramsay has self-archived "SSRN and Law Journals—Rivals or Allies?" in SSRN.

Here's an excerpt:

The author identifies and evaluates the respective merits of publication in law journals and publication on the Social Science Research Network (SSRN)—the largest open access repository for legal scholarship. This evaluation leads to the conclusion that at this stage of the evolution of law journals and SSRN, there are advantages in authors publishing both in journals and on SSRN. However, publication on SSRN can have particular advantages for authors in smaller countries.

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