Content-type: text/html Downes.ca ~ Stephen's Web ~ Institutional Repositories: Essential Infrastructure for Scholarship in the Digital Age

Stephen Downes

Knowledge, Learning, Community
This article has generated a flurry of debate in the open archives discussion lists. The author points to the rise of institutional repositories and in particular the role played by MIT's D-Space. Such repositories represent an "organizational committment" to the preservation and sharing of academic resources. Additionally, institutional repositories relieve individual staff from the burden of "content curation." And they can encourage the "exploration and adoption of new forms of scholarly communication." The author also raises several cautionary notes. Institutional repositories should not be used as tools to exercise institutional control over academic work. By the same token, faculty wishing to challenge traditional publishing should not impose constraints either. Cumbersome gate-keeping policies restricting access to instutional repositories are counterproductive, he argues.

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Stephen Downes Stephen Downes, Casselman, Canada
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Last Updated: Nov 22, 2024 08:40 a.m.

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