The George Washington University
Scholarly Communication
Benefits to Scholars
When approached by librarians requesting that they put electronic versions of their articles, project reports, data sets, research findings, etc., the first question that might strike a scholar is: "So what? How does this help me teach? Write? Research?"
The short answer is that loading scholarly works into an institutional repository benefits our faculty, our students conducting research, as well as our research staff by providing them a platform to save and distribute their research with other scholars. Below are just a few examples of how:
- Increasingly, scholarly journals are requiring that researchers must put the datasets upon which they base their academic articles on a durable server site where other researcher can go. The Institutional Repository is just such a durable platform for this content to be placed where it is accessible, safe, and maintained by dedicated staff with dedicated resources. And, scholars don't have to worry about maintaining the content on the web if they change jobs, departments, programs, or universities. The content will remain regardless of such changes in situation.
- Increasingly, academics are engaged in collaborative research and writing efforts. These collaborations can cross discipline, department, school, research center, and even institutional boundaries. DSpace, the institutional repository tool that we are using, can be used to create a secure shared workspace where files can be uploaded by authorized individuals and shared amongst the member of the project, no matter where they are physically or institutionally located, but seen by no one else. In other words, project-specific collections which only authorized individual can access can be created for our faculty and researchers on the GW campus.
- By loading up content into the institutional repository, scholars entering the profession have a platform to broadly disseminate their research findings.
- Intellectual content which might not otherwise find a traditional publication venue but nevertheless have intellectual merit can be made available to a wider audience.
- Content which by its very format cannot be published in traditional journals but which act as supporting documentation or evidence can be mounted onto the web via the institutional repository, including the aforementioned datasets, moving image files, still image files, audio files, and even complete databases. As long as the researcher viewing these files has the appropriate software to replay or view the electronic file, they can access any content which has been identified as being open to the wider public.
At the same time, it benefits scholars world-wide by providing them access to content that would otherwise be inaccessible.