Chapter 5 summary

Mandatory versus voluntary depositing

What kind of policy is followed by the institute maintaining the digital repository towards the academics with regard to depositing material? It appears that 51% of the participating digital repositories have a policy of voluntary depositing, while 25% have a policy of (partly) mandatory depositing. The others have no official policy or a different one. From the comments of the respondents it appears that (1) at a number of institutes the academics are obliged to deposit the metadata of their publications (2) at a number of institutes the PhD students are obliged to deposit their theses in the repository and (3) in some UK institutes the deposited articles are used for the country-wide Research Assessment Exercise, which is important for research funding.

Spread of various institutional policies

What kind of other policies have been realised within the institutes with regard to the repository?

The most widespread institutional policies (realized in more than 50% of the digital repositories) relate to awareness-raising campaigns among academics and integration and linking of the repository all with other systems in the institute.

Less widespread policies (30% to 50% of the digital repositories) relate to (1) contact with a coordinating national body (2) guidelines for the selection of material for inclusion in the digital repository (3) high interest from the decision-makers within the institute in the repository (4) safeguarding the long-term preservation of the deposited material and (5) a link to a national central gateway.

A number of policies have only been carried out in a small minority of the repositories (less than 20%). These policies relate to (1) some academics are required to deposit research output by the research funding organisations in the country (2) financial support from a national funding program for the setting-up of the repository and (3) the usage of the deposited materials to measure the output of the individual researchers for evaluation purposes.

In the comments of the respondents research evaluation is mentioned several times as an important purpose for the digital repository and as an important motivational factor for academics to deposit materials.