To What Extent Is Material in Institutional Repository Representative of an Institution's Research Output?

Abstract

Institutional repositories are powerful tools that have the potential to change the scholarly publishing model. However there is a steep road ahead for institutions in accomplishing this goal. Populating institutional repositories with content is still something librarians and other administrators are struggling to achieve. This report compares the content of several institutional repositories with the material published by the same institutions in other publications as retrieved by an affiliation search in Scopus Database. The paper discusses the type of content found in the institutional repositories studied, their copyright date, the self archival policies and the volume of published material. The conclusion is that all the institutional repositories studied are under populated with the exception of one where a mandatory depositing policy was in place. However, this institutional repository still doesn't archive all the research output published by its researchers. This report concludes that Institutional repositories are still in their early stage of development and they might take time to gain popularity but they have a promising potential.