Evaluation of Spanish institutional repositories based on criteria related to technology, procedures, content, marketing and personnel
| Pages | 384-404 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/DTA-10-2017-0074 |
| Published date | 02 July 2018 |
| Date | 02 July 2018 |
| Author | Rocio Serrano-Vicente,Remedios Melero,Ernest Abadal |
| Subject Matter | Library & information science,Librarianship/library management,Library technology,Information behaviour & retrieval,Metadata,Information & knowledge management,Information & communications technology,Internet |
Evaluation of Spanish
institutional repositories based on
criteria related to technology,
procedures, content, marketing
and personnel
Rocio Serrano-Vicente
Servicio de Bibliotecas, Universidad de Navarra, Pamplona, Spain
Remedios Melero
Instituto de Agroquímica y Tecnología de Alimentos-CSIC, Paterna, Spain, and
Ernest Abadal
Facultat de Biblioteconomia i Documentació, Universitat de Barcelona,
Barcelona, Spain
Abstract
Purpose –The purpose of this paper is to provide, through a set of indicators, an overview of the way in
which Spanish institutional repositories are run and the services they offer their respective institutions and
other users. The selected descriptors are based on aspects related to technology, procedures, content,
marketing and the personnel responsible for managing repositories.
Design/methodology/approach –In order to establish the indicators, a thorough review of the literature
was carried out to identify existing indicators that are used to assess repositories. These were divided into
five categories (technology, procedures, content, marketing and personnel) with a total of 48 components.
An online survey was conducted with the repositories managers of 66 Spanish research institutions in order
to verify the degree of fulfilment of the selected indicators.
Findings –The survey received fort y-six responses, which re presented a response ra te of 69 per cent.
Of these, 44 came from universities and two from research centres. In total, 65 per cent of the repositories
have the capacity to impor t data from and export data to o ther university syste ms, mainly Current
Research Information System (32 per cent). Most repositories have mechanisms for thel arge-scaleimport
and export of metadata an d digital objects (83 per cent). The use o f altmetrics in repositories is wides pread
(44 per cent). Authors an d librarians deposit most frequently (37 an d 32 per cent, respectively), in spite of
the fact that 44 per cent do not have full-timestaff working in the repository. In more than 80 per cent of the
repositories, betwe en 90 and 100 per cent of the deposits are full-t ext documents. With respect to the tools
used to promote the repository within the institution, these are primarily face-to-face training sessions
(82 per cent), followed b y support materials such as manuals and help p ages (65 per cent). The academic
authorities encourage open access among researchers in 56 per cent of cases, a significant element in
repository marketing.
Originality/value –This work proposes a model based on five dimensions and 48 indicators to assess
institutional repositories. This approach has been applied to Spanish institutional repositories to provide up-
to-date information about their management procedures and promotional methods and the services they offer
authors and the university community. This overview of Spanish repositories has provided an insight into the
way in which repositories have evolved in recent years and allowed potential improvements to be identified
based on the most advanced repositories. This model can also be exported to assess institutional repositories
in other countries.
Keywords Open access, Spain, Institutional repositories, Research libraries, Repository assessment,
Repository management
Paper type Research paper
Data Technologies and
Applications
Vol. 52 No. 3, 2018
pp. 384-404
© Emerald PublishingLimited
2514-9288
DOI 10.1108/DTA-10-2017-0074
Received 18 October 2017
Revised 7 February 2018
Accepted 30 April 2018
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
www.emeraldinsight.com/2514-9288.htm
This study was carried out under the project “Open Access to Science in Spain”(CSO2014-52830-P) of
the Spanish R&D Plan funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation.
384
DTA
52,3
Introduction
The institutional repository, within the university context, has been defined as “a set of services
that a university offers to the members of its community for the management and dissemination
of digital materials created by the institution and its community members”(Lynch, 2003).
In the current context of academic communication, the role of institutional repositories is
considered vital to ensure that the process is managed by researchers. If repositories also
incorporate statistical services, connect to social networks and even include a peer review
system, they constitute an alternative to the traditional academic communication system,
thereby achieving substantial savings in research funding and ensuring that dissemination
and communication are entirely in the hands of the research community (COAR, 2017).
Therefore, the quality of institutional repositories is paramount to ensure that they are the
best possible tools for achieving this objective.
Thus, several important points related to the management of the repository require
analysis: procedures for depositing documents, interoperability with other systems (Current
Research Information System (CRIS),Online Public Access Catalogue,etc.), the statistical data
provided and how these reach the user, internal marketing, economic resources and the
personnel dedicated to managing and maintaining the repository. Early studies on
repositoriesfocussed more on identifying how to increasecontent; however, this indicatorcan
be ambiguous,since records are often subjectto large-scale automaticdeposits. In this respect,
Carr and Brody(2007) concluded that the dailydeposit rate was more importantthan the total
number of records for ensuring that a repository is actually maintained over time.
One of the first studies regarding evaluation of repositories (Westell, 2006) analysed nine
factors in the repositories of English-speaking Canadian universities through a survey in which
subjects were asked about institutional policies, funding models, preservation strategies,
interoperability and metrics. The analysis revealed that none of the institutions had an open
access mandate or a specific budget for the repository, but relied on library resources, and the
study concluded that alignment with the institution’s objectives is key to the success of a
repository. Thibodeau (2007) proposed a theoretical model that included different aspects to be
considered when evaluating repositories: service (in other words, identifying the users and their
needs); coverage (the documents preserved in the repository); chronological orientation (whether
a repository preserves whatever the manager deems valuable or satisfies the needs of users);
collaboration with other repositories; and state (the repository’s current state of development).
Swan (2008) studied the business model of the repositories and proposed a set of
performance indicators: content (type of documents); deposit ratio; users’knowledge of open
access; repository workflow; and funding. Kim and Kim (2006, 2008) developed an
evaluation model applied to the Korean repositories within the dCollection consortium,
which is composed of more than 40 universities. The authors proposed 19 items divided into
four categories: content (metadata, repository size, characteristics of the document upload
procedure and formal characteristics); management and policies (procedural criteria
(legal and costs), institutional support for open access and participation of academic staff );
system (access mode, integration with other university programmes, confidence in the
system, interoperability, functionality and cooperation); and, lastly, uses and users opinions
(accessibility, usability, user satisfaction, relevance of searches within the repository,
fulfilment of deadlines in document uploads and potential users).
In Spain, a report on open-access repositories was carried out in 2009 based on data from an
online survey conducted among research library directors (Melero et al., 2009). The findings of
this studyrevealed that thefactors that contributed to thedevelopment of repositoriesincluded
ease of use, increased visibility of research, integration of systems and quality of searches
within the programme. Meanwhile, the factors found to inhibit the development of the most
commonly mentioned repositories were the absence of funding bodies and institutional policies
and mandates, the lack of integration with other research systems and poor coordination of
385
Spanish
institutional
repositories
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