The editors of this special edition originally asked if institutional repositories are shaping and changing scholarly communications. While the Open Access movement has had a profound impact, there is at least one area where repositories are not. While repositories are Web-based, they almost always contain only print-oriented materials which are not fully realizing the fabric of the Web and its ability to link documents to each other and to data.
This article will explore some of the factors that have contributed to this print-dominated situation and then report on work undertaken at the University of Southern Queensland (USQ) to make repositories more Web-like, using a publishing system which was originally devised at the university for publishing course materials to multiple formats. The article concludes with a description of a new model for changing scholarship by focusing on post-graduate theses and new journals in an open access context.
Posted by
Gavin Baker at 8/20/2009 06:11:00 PM.
The open access movement:
Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature
on the internet. Making it available free of charge and
free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Removing the barriers to serious research.
I recommend the OA tracking project (OATP) as the best way to stay on top of new OA developments. You can read the OATP feed on a blog-like web page or subscribe to it by RSS, email, or Twitter. You can also help build the feed by tagging new developments you encounter.
