Measuring the international usage of US institutional repositories

Abstract

PurposeIn an educational world with increasing internationalization, digitization, assessment and financial justification, US institutions, especially academic libraries, must justify each new project. Institutional Repositories (IRs) are no exception. The authors attempt to identify factors that might affect the international usage of US IRs as part of assessment efforts to determine an IR's return‐on‐investment.Design/methodology/approachA survey was disseminated to IR administrators asking for demographic information, international usage counts for website hits and downloads, and any internationalization efforts connected to the IR in order to determine any influencing factors on an IR's international usage.FindingsWhile many IRs reported various rates of international usage, the largest group of respondents did not report an international usage rate for both page hits and downloads, despite overwhelmingly expressing an importance of international traffic to their IR and parent institution.Research limitations/implicationsIt is not clear if this non‐reporting of international usage could be due to ignorance, apathy, or lack of technological support on the part of the IR administrators.Practical implicationsDetermining international usage as a part of an IR assessment might be problematic or even impossible for many US IRs.Originality/valueThis study suggests that many IR administrators either do not know, do not care, and/or cannot record international usage data for their respective IRs, which could hinder determining an international return‐on‐investment for the IR.

Undercounting File Downloads from Institutional Repositories

“…"While libraries determine the most appropriate benchmark for success for their respective IRs, the need for more precise usage data will be central to assessment efforts" (Fralinger & Bull, 2013). The message conveying the importance of assessment is also not necessarily widely accepted.…”

“…The message conveying the importance of assessment is also not necessarily widely accepted. In a 2013 publication that surveyed the usage of U.S.-based IR by international audiences, Fralinger and Bull report that many IR administrators "seem to be unaware, apathetic, or unprepared to do IR assessment, specifically from an international perspective" (Fralinger & Bull, 2013).…”

Multidimensional assessment of scholarly research impact

“…Construction of large publications repositories. Disciplinary or institutionally oriented publication repositories are being built, including meta-data and/or full text data of publications made by an international research community in a particular subject field, or by researchers active in a particular institution, respectively (Fralinger & Bull, 2013;Burns, Lana, & Budd, 2013).…”

An analysis of use and performance data aggregated from 35 institutional repositories

“…Literature review Calls for standardized reporting for IR have been evident almost as long as they have existed (Fralinger and Bull, 2013;Harnad and McGovern, 2009;Organ, 2006). However, nearly all such calls end with some variation of the lament that "no clear standard has yet emerged for repository reporting and assessment" (McDonald and Thomas, 2008).…”