Research students and the Loughborough institutional repository

This dissertation investigated the potential role for research students in a new institutional repository at Loughborough University. The project began with an extensive search for information concerning stakeholders’ attitudes towards open access publishing and institutional repositories. It was apparent from this review that no previous research had focused on the needs and potential contribution of research students in this area. Two studies were therefore carried out. The first, an email survey of managers of existing institutional repositories, investigated student use of their repositories, advocacy undertaken, and attitudes toward research student content. Responses were received from 35 universities in the UK and abroad. The second study comprised face-to-face interviews with 34 research students at Loughborough University. Using a mixture of closed and open questions, the interviews explored the students’ experiences and opinions of publishing, open access and the proposed Loughborough repository. Repository managers were overwhelmingly in favour of permitting the deposit of research student work, albeit under specified conditions. One half of the respondents mentioned allowing, or even encouraging, the deposit of theses and dissertations. The relative newness of many repositories meant that advocacy to student authors was limited, although a number of managers were including the repository in routine research training sessions. The interviews with research students established that, as readers, they wanted to find many more types of material in the repository than, as authors, they were willing to deposit. However, complete theses, postprints and conference papers were acceptable to both groups. The ability to disseminate their work and receive feedback and commentary were the most important motivators to students depositing work, closely followed by the principle of open access. The greatest deterrents were the risk of being unable to publish elsewhere later, the ownership of copyright, and plagiarism. Based on the findings of the literature review and the two studies, appropriate recommendations were made for the Loughborough repositor

A librarian's guide to institutional repositories

Institutional repositories (IRs) are a recent feature of the UK academic landscape. You may already have one at your workplace (in which case you might be better to skip to the next article); you will probably have heard the term being bandied about by your colleagues; you might even have come across one when trawling the web. But what is an IR? Should your institution have one? And if so, how would you go about creating it? These are some of the questions we hope to address in this short article

Research students and the Loughborough institutional repository

This paper investigates the potential role for research students in an institutional repository (IR). Face-to-face interviews with 34 research students at Loughborough University were carried out. Using a mixture of closed and open questions, the interviews explored the students’ experiences and opinions of publishing, open access and the proposed Loughborough repository. As both authors and readers, students were most interested in access to complete theses, postprints and conference papers. The ability to disseminate their work and receive feedback and commentary were the most important motivators to students depositing work in the IR, closely followed by the principle of open access. The greatest deterrents were the risk of being unable to publish elsewhere later, the ownership of copyright, and plagiarism. Appropriate recommendations are made for the implementation of an institutional repository

A Socio-Spatial Analysis of Perinatal Mortality in Greater Leicester

This thesis examines the social and spatial distribution of perinatal mortality in Greater Leicester. The study area comprises the city of Leicester and the surrounding contiguous built up area. Following a discussion of the current status of relevant research in medical geography and perinatal epidemiology the three major data sources used here are described, these being the 1981 Population Census, the Leicestershire Perinatal Mortality Survey to 1982 and the Leicestershire Births records for 1980. The analysis commences with a classification of census enumeration districts into nine socio-economic 'clusters', reflecting demographic, economic and social differences within the study area. The new small areas created by this classification are then used as a basis for mapping census variables and describing the geography of Greater Leicester. In a detailed analysis of the perinatal and births data some 21 variables are found to be associated with adverse perinatal outcome. These describe physical, obstetric, socio-economic and health care characteristics of both mother and infant. Both statistical and cartographical methods are used to examine these in a spatial dimension. It is concluded that neither perinatal mortality nor the risk factors associated with it are uniformly distributed with respect to the 'at risk' population. Further data analysis shows how perinatal, births and census data may usefully be combined. Poisson probability maps are used to show the relative likelihood of perinatal death in different parts of the study area. The thesis concludes with a summary of the main results and some suggestions regarding directions for future research