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14th International Conference on Open Repositories 2019 – All The User Needs

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A special issue of Publications (ISSN 2304-6775).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 March 2020) | Viewed by 50901

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Special Issue Editors

Mr. Jyrki Ilva

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National Library of Finland, University of Helsinki, 00100 Helsinki, Finland

Ms. Liz Krznarich

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ORCID Inc., Bethesda, MD, USA

Ms. Jessica Lindholm

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Chalmers University of Technology, Göteborg, Sweden

Dr. Torsten Reimer

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Head of Research Services at the British Library, 96 Euston Road, London NW1 2DB, UK
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Following the successful 14th International Conference on Open Repositories in Hamburg, we would like to build on the conference theme of “All the User Needs” with a Special Issue of the peer-reviewed journal Publications. This issue will allow conference presenters to develop their research further. The theme of the conference focused on the combination of a realistic understanding of the potential of technology with an assessment of the policy environment and an engagement with the needs of our users.

We are pleased to invite conference presenters to contribute to the Special Issue as a continuation of the conference momentum. To that end, articles that focus on the broad themes will be given greater consideration. We welcome manuscripts that address the overall user-centered theme, but also other theoretical, practical, organizational or administrative topics presented in Hamburg. The themes for conference proposals were, broadly:

Understanding user needs and user experience
Discovery, use and impact
Repositories—evolution or revolution?
Supporting open scholarship and cultural heritage
Open and sustainable
Policies, licensing, and the law
How can metadata and standards help our users?
Repositories and global knowledge

Timeline: Full papers will be due Feb 15th, 2020.

The journal Publications will waive their standard APC for this Special Issue. There will be no cost associated with publication.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts will be thoroughly refereed through a peer-review process.

The editorial team encourages you to contact us at [email protected] with questions and considerations.

MDPI Publications-Special Issue on Open Repositories 2019

Mr. Jyrki Ilva
Ms. Liz Krznarich
Ms. Jessica Lindholm
Dr. Torsten Reimer
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Publications is an international peer-reviewed open access quarterly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

Research infrastructure
Open Repositories 2019
Repositories
Open access
Research data
Scholarly communications
Community infrastructures
Open science

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Published Papers (11 papers)

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13 pages, 2850 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Data Science Tools for Monitoring the Global Repository Eco-System and its Lines of Evolution

by Friedrich Summann, Andreas Czerniak, Jochen Schirrwagen and Dirk Pieper

Publications 2020, 8(2), 35; https://doi.org/10.3390/publications8020035 - 22 Jun 2020

Cited by 4 | Viewed by 5197

Abstract

The global network of scholarly repositories for the publication and dissemination of scientific publications and related materials can already look back on a history of more than twenty years. During this period, there have been many developments in terms of technical optimization and the increase of content. It is crucial to observe and analyze this evolution in order to draw conclusions for the further development of repositories. The basis for such an analysis is data. The Open Archives Initiative (OAI) service provider Bielefeld Academic Search Engine (BASE) started indexing repositories in 2004 and has collected metadata also on repositories. This paper presents the main features of a planned repository monitoring system. Data have been collected since 2004 and includes basic repository metadata as well as publication metadata of a repository. This information allows an in-depth analysis of many indicators in different logical combinations. This paper outlines the systems approach and the integration of data science techniques. It describes the intended monitoring system and shows the first results. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue 14th International Conference on Open Repositories 2019 – All The User Needs)

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13 pages, 337 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Providing Digital Infrastructure for Audio-Visual Linguistic Research Data with Diverse Usage Scenarios: Lessons Learnt

by Hanna Hedeland

Publications 2020, 8(2), 33; https://doi.org/10.3390/publications8020033 - 11 Jun 2020

Cited by 2 | Viewed by 3506

Abstract

This article describes the development of the digital infrastructure at a research data centre for audio-visual linguistic research data, the Hamburg Centre for Language Corpora (HZSK) at the University of Hamburg in Germany, over the past ten years. The typical resource hosted in the HZSK Repository, the core component of the infrastructure, is a collection of recordings with time-aligned transcripts and additional contextual data, a spoken language corpus. Since the centre has a thematic focus on multilingualism and linguistic diversity and provides its service to researchers within linguistics and other disciplines, the development of the infrastructure was driven by diverse usage scenarios and user needs on the one hand, and by the common technical requirements for certified service centres of the CLARIN infrastructure on the other. Beyond the technical details, the article also aims to be a contribution to the discussion on responsibilities and services within emerging digital research data infrastructures and the fundamental issues in sustainability of research software engineering, concluding that in order to truly cater to user needs across the research data lifecycle, we still need to bridge the gap between discipline-specific research methods in the process of digitalisation and generic digital research data management approaches. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue 14th International Conference on Open Repositories 2019 – All The User Needs)

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11 pages, 1461 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Stewarding National User Groups to Strengthen Open Source Software Communities

by Pascal-Nicolas Becker, Michele Mennielli and Katharina Trachte

Publications 2020, 8(2), 31; https://doi.org/10.3390/publications8020031 - 4 Jun 2020

Cited by 2 | Viewed by 4240

Abstract

Open Source Software (OSS) communities are often international, bringing together people from diverse regions with different linguistic and cultural backgrounds. National user groups can bolster these international communities by convening local events, championing the software to peers, welcoming and onboarding new contributors, raising money to support the broader community, and collecting important information on user’s needs. The open source community-led software DSpace has had great success encouraging the creation of national user groups; in the UK, North America, and Germany, the Groups have been active for many years. However, it was in 2018, thanks to a renewed focus on international engagement and more diverse representation of the global community in governance groups, that the national communities entered into a new phase: 15 new national User Groups have been formed all over the world since then, while the German user group evolved into the “DSpace-Konsortium Deutschland”, founded by 25 institutions, marking a pivotal point for membership options and National User Group participation within DSpace Governance. This article will offer an overview of the historical development of the DSpace community and its governance model, as well as DuraSpace’s international engagement strategy, including its benefits and challenges. Subsequently, we will present a case study on the DSpace-Konsortium Deutschland and explain its relation to the broader context of how to build national user groups within global communities. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue 14th International Conference on Open Repositories 2019 – All The User Needs)

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8 pages, 1661 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Toward Easy Deposit: Lowering the Barriers of Green Open Access with Data Integration and Automation

by Hui Zhang

Publications 2020, 8(2), 28; https://doi.org/10.3390/publications8020028 - 20 May 2020

Cited by 2 | Viewed by 4833

Abstract

This article describes the design and development of an interoperable application that supports green open access with long-term sustainability and improved user experience of article deposit. The lack of library resources and the unfriendly repository user interface are two significant barriers that hinder green open access. Tasked to implement the open access mandate, librarians at an American research university developed a comprehensive system called Easy Deposit 2 to automate the support workflow of green open access. Easy Deposit 2 is a web application that is able to harvest new publications, to source manuscripts on behalf of the library, and to facilitate self-archiving to a university’s institutional repository. The article deposit rate increased from 7.40% to 25.60% with the launch of Easy Deposit 2. The results show that a computer system can implement routine tasks to support green open access with success. Recent developments in digital repository provide new opportunities for innovation, such as Easy Deposit 2, in supporting open access. Academic librarians are vital in promoting “openness” in scholarly communication, such as transparency and diversity in the sharing of publication data. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue 14th International Conference on Open Repositories 2019 – All The User Needs)

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8 pages, 940 KiB

Open AccessArticle

R-Shiny as an Interface for Data Visualization and Data Analysis on the Brazilian Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations (BDTD)

by Lucca de Farias Ramalho and Washington R. de Carvalho Segundo

Publications 2020, 8(2), 24; https://doi.org/10.3390/publications8020024 - 2 May 2020

Cited by 5 | Viewed by 5336

Abstract

This work presents a use case of building a data visualization interface for open-access repositories. The case in the analysis is the Brazilian Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations (BDTD). From the almost 670,000 records of BDTD, one applies statistical methods using the language R. One of the visualization packages of R is called Shiny, which makes it easy to build interactive web applications straight from R. Through the app, a user can visualize data in a fast and customizable way. It could help to keep track of metadata and usage statistics over the repositories and also can be applied to discovering scientific information, such as bibliographic data and lists of specialists in a certain research domain. These data visualization tools can stimulate others to create open repositories and join either national, regional or international repositories networks. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue 14th International Conference on Open Repositories 2019 – All The User Needs)

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14 pages, 11840 KiB

Open AccessArticle

A Vertical Cooperation Model to Manage Digital Collections and Institutional Resources

by Jack Maness, Kim Pham, Fernando Reyes and Jeff Rynhart

Publications 2020, 8(2), 23; https://doi.org/10.3390/publications8020023 - 26 Apr 2020

Cited by 1 | Viewed by 3298

Abstract

The technology space of the University of Denver Libraries to manage digital collections and institutional resources isn’t relegated to one department on campus – rather, it distributed across a network of collaborators with the skills and expertise to provide that support. The infrastructure, which is comprised of an archival metadata management system (Archivespace), a digital repository (Node.js + ElasticSearch), preservation storage (ArchivesDirect), and a streaming server (Kaltura) is independently but cooperatively managed across IT, library departments and vendors. The coordinated effort of digital curation activities still allows each group to focus on the service they have the most vested interest in providing. This paper will talk about the different management and development practices involved in developing our integrated infrastructure to provide digital collections as a service. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue 14th International Conference on Open Repositories 2019 – All The User Needs)

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8 pages, 1269 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Integration of a National E-Theses Online Service with Institutional Repositories

by Vasily Bunakov and Frances Madden

Publications 2020, 8(2), 20; https://doi.org/10.3390/publications8020020 - 9 Apr 2020

Cited by 3 | Viewed by 3476

Abstract

We present an information resource prototype that was developed by the FREYA project for the integration of a national e-thesis service and institutional repositories supported by a large national laboratory. The integration allows us to mutually enrich the metadata in the e-thesis service and institutional repositories with new entities and attributes, and can offer novel ways of reasoning over research outcomes that are supported by direct funding and funding-in-kind by large research facilities. The integrated information resource can be presented as a labeled-property graph for its exploration with a declarative query language and visualizations. We emphasize the role of persistent identifiers (PIDs), including for entities that are currently not necessarily or not consistently assigned PIDs. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue 14th International Conference on Open Repositories 2019 – All The User Needs)

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11 pages, 1748 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Building NED: Open Access to Australia’s Digital Documentary Heritage

by Barbara Lemon, Kerry Blinco and Brendan Somes

Publications 2020, 8(2), 19; https://doi.org/10.3390/publications8020019 - 8 Apr 2020

Cited by 2 | Viewed by 6610

Abstract

This article charts the development of Australia’s national edeposit service (NED), from concept to reality. A world-first collaboration between the national, state and territory libraries of Australia, NED was launched in 2019 and transformed our approach to legal deposits in Australia. NED is more than a repository, operating as a national online service for depositing, preserving and accessing Australian electronic publications, with benefits to publishers, libraries and the public alike. This article explains what makes NED unique in the context of global research repository infrastructure, outlining the ways in which NED member libraries worked to balance user needs with technological capacity and the variations within nine sets of legal deposit legislation. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue 14th International Conference on Open Repositories 2019 – All The User Needs)

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17 pages, 701 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Enhancing Content Discovery of Open Repositories: An Analytics-Based Evaluation of Repository Optimizations

by George Macgregor

Publications 2020, 8(1), 8; https://doi.org/10.3390/publications8010008 - 6 Feb 2020

Cited by 4 | Viewed by 6323

Abstract

Ensuring open repositories fulfil the discovery needs of both human and machine users is of growing importance and essential to validate the continued relevance of open repositories to users, and as nodes within open scholarly communication infrastructure. Following positive preliminary results reported elsewhere, this submission analyses the longer-term impact of a series of discovery optimization approaches deployed on an open repository. These approaches were designed to enhance content discovery and user engagement, thereby improving content usage. Using Strathprints, the University of Strathclyde repository as a case study, this article will briefly review the techniques and technical changes implemented and evaluate the impact of these changes by studying analytics relating to web impact, COUNTER usage and web traffic over a 4-year period. The principal contribution of the article is to report on the insights this longitudinal dataset provides about repository visibility and discoverability, and to deliver robust conclusions which can inform similar strategies at other institutions. Analysis of the unique longitudinal dataset provides persuasive evidence that specific enhancements to the technical configuration of a repository can generate substantial improvements in its content discovery potential and ergo its content usage, especially over several years. In this case study, COUNTER usage grew by 62%. Increases in Google ‘impressions’ (266%) and ‘clicks’ (104%) were a notable finding too, with high levels of statistical significance found in the correlation between clicks and usage (

t = 14.30, df = 11, p < 0.0005

). Web traffic to Strathprints from Google and Google Scholar (GS) was found to increase significantly with growth on some metrics exceeding 1300%. Although some of these results warrant further research, the article nevertheless demonstrates the link between repository optimization and the need for open repositories to assume a proactive development path, especially one that prioritises web impact and discovery. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue 14th International Conference on Open Repositories 2019 – All The User Needs)

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9 pages, 390 KiB

Open AccessCase Report

The Fast and the FRDR: Improving Metadata for Data Discovery in Canada

by Clara Turp, Lee Wilson, Julienne Pascoe and Alex Garnett

Publications 2020, 8(2), 25; https://doi.org/10.3390/publications8020025 - 2 May 2020

Cited by 3 | Viewed by 3744

Abstract

The Federated Research Data Repository (FRDR), developed through a partnership between the Canadian Association of Research Libraries’ Portage initiative and the Compute Canada Federation, improves research data discovery in Canada by providing a single search portal for research data stored across Canadian governmental, institutional, and discipline-specific data repositories. While this national discovery layer helps to de-silo Canadian research data, challenges in data discovery remain due to a lack of standardized metadata practices across repositories. In recognition of this challenge, a Portage task group, drawn from a national network of experts, has engaged in a project to map subject keywords to the Online Computer Library Center’s (OCLC) Faceted Application of Subject Terminology (FAST) using the open source OpenRefine software. This paper will describe the task group’s project, discuss the various approaches undertaken by the group, and explore how this work improves data discovery and may be adopted by other repositories and metadata aggregators to support metadata standardization. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue 14th International Conference on Open Repositories 2019 – All The User Needs)

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10 pages, 212 KiB

Open AccessCase Report

Bridge2Hyku: Meeting Practitioners’ Needs in Digital Collection Migration to Open Source Samvera Repository

by Annie Wu, Santi Thompson, Anne Washington, Sean Watkins, Andrew Weidner, Dean Seeman and Nicholas Woodward

Publications 2020, 8(2), 22; https://doi.org/10.3390/publications8020022 - 21 Apr 2020

Cited by 3 | Viewed by 3245

Abstract

The University of Houston Libraries, in partnership and consultation with numerous institutions, was awarded an Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) National Leadership/Project Grant to create the Bridge2Hyku (B2H) Toolkit. Content migration from proprietary systems to open source repositories remains a barrier for many institutions due to lack of tools, tutorials, and documentation. The B2H Toolkit, which includes migration strategies, migration tools, as well as system requirements for transitioning from CONTENTdm to Hyku, acts as a comprehensive resource to facilitate repository migration. Through a phased toolkit development process, the project team solicited inputs and feedback from peer migration practitioners via survey and pilot testing. The analysis of the feedback data was built into use cases which informed the development and enhancement of the migration strategies and tools. Working across institutions with migration practitioners’ needs in mind, the project team was able to successfully release a Toolkit that mitigates migration barriers and fills gaps in the migration process. Providing a path to a community-supported open source digital solution, the Bridge2Hyku Toolkits ensures access and expanded use of digital content and collections of libraries and cultural heritage institutions. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue 14th International Conference on Open Repositories 2019 – All The User Needs)

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