Embracing the future: embedding digital repositories in the University of London

Digital repositories can help Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) to develop coherent and coordinated approaches to capture, identify, store and retrieve intellectual assets such as datasets, course material and research papers. With the advances of technology, an increasing number of Higher Education Institutions are implementing digital repositories. The leadership of these institutions, however, has been concerned about the awareness of and commitment to repositories, and their sustainability in the future. This study informs a consortium of thirteen London institutions with an assessment of current awareness and attitudes of stakeholders regarding digital repositories in three case study institutions. The report identifies drivers for, and barriers to, the embedding of digital repositories in institutional strategy. The findings therefore should be of use to decision-makers involved in the development of digital repositories. Our approach was entirely based on consultations with specific groups of stakeholders in three institutions through interviews with specific individuals. The research in this report was prepared for the SHERPA-LEAP Consortium and conducted by RAND Europe

Experimental DML over digital repositories in Japan

In this paper the authors show an overview of Virtual Digital Mathematics Library in Japan (DML-JP), contents of which consist of metadata harvested from institutional repositories in Japan and digital repositories in the world. DML-JP is, in a sense, a subject specific repository which collaborate with various digital repositories. Beyond portal website, DML-JP provides subject-specific metadata through OAI-ORE. By the schema it is enabled that digital repositories can load the rich metadata which were added by mathematicians

Reinforcing Students’ Research Abilities via Digital Repositories

Computer science graduates are requested to possess complex professional abilities including research skills. In this paper we justify the development of a departmental repository to assist all non-auditorium activities and summarize its benefits. We are convinced that this is the way students and teachers to form interim learning societies

Digital Repositories and Open Access: Information Without Limits

For many libraries, the Digital Repository has become the main storage center for materials created by the community they serve. Such materials can include important historical records, local newspapers, community newsletters, as well as articles, presentations, data sets, images, videos and other multimedia items. In this way, the repository takes on a central role in placing free, open access materials into the hands of the public. While many repositories are currently managed by universities, their benefits reach beyond the walls of academia to include K-12 students as well as the public at large. Thus, all librarians are encouraged to utilize the materials housed in repositories during their educational programming. Doing so has the advantage of providing reliable information at no cost to their patrons while at the same time creating ties between the university and the local community. Furthermore, the use of open access materials during instruction sessions and reference interactions presents the librarian with many opportunities to discuss the increased importance of fair use and intellectual property issues

Audit and Certification of Digital Repositories: Creating a Mandate for the Digital Curation Centre (DCC)

The article examines the issues surrounding the audit and certification of digital repositories in light of the work that the RLG/NARA Task Force did to draw up guidelines and the need for these guidelines to be validated.

Designing an automated prototype tool for preservation quality metadata extraction for ingest into digital repository

We present a viable framework for the automated extraction of preservation quality metadata, which is adjusted to meet the needs of, ingest to digital repositories. It has three distinctive features: wide coverage, specialisation and emphasis on quality. Wide coverage is achieved through the use of a distributed system of tool repositories, which helps to implement it over a broad range of document object types. Specialisation is maintained through the selection of the most appropriate metadata extraction tool for each case based on the identification of the digital object genre. And quality is sustained by introducing control points at selected stages of the workflow of the system. The integration of these three features as components in the ingest of material into digital repositories is a defining step ahead in the current quest for improved management of digital resources

OPEN DIGITAL REPOSITORIES: PROSPECTS OF AFRICAN COUNTRIES WITHIN THE GLOBAL INFORMATION SPACE

This study examines the contributions of African countries to open digital repositories in the world information space. Two online directories of open digital repositories were used as data sources. The OpenDOAR is an authoritative directory of academic open access repositories listing 3,670 repositories as at 6th January, 2019. The Registry of Open Access Repositories (ROAR) is a directory of 4,580 institutional repositories and their contents as at 7th January, 2019. Extracted data were analysed using quantitative techniques and presented in tabular and pictorial formats to reveal findings in accordance with desired objectives. The results revealed that Dspace is the most preferred open digital repositories software across the world. The results showed that the contributions of African countries (3.78%) to open digital repositories in the world are low. The results also showed that only 22 African countries contribute to global open digital repositories and that the rate of contribution increased rapidly in the last few years. The study concludes that for Africa to overcome the challenges associated with open digital repositories there is need for more African countries to be involved in the African Open Access Initiative and the need to tap into the experiences of various professionals on the African continen

Digital Sustainability and Digital Repositories

The tasks associated with managing and backing up digital data are well known to IT managers, but the mere presence of the data stream is not the only criterion for preserving and maintaining digital content. Digital sustainability recognises that the continuity of digital information goes well beyond basic storing and managing of data and is integrated into the lifecycle of the information object. It includes technical, social and economic considerations. In 2004 a DEST-funded project, the Australian Partnership for Sustainable Repositories (APSR) initiated an investigative process to establish a centre of excellence for the management of digital collections. The APSR has an overall focus on the critical issues of the access continuity and the sustainability of digital collections, and this paper draws on the investigation of these issues in the University sector