UOC collaborates with largest network of open access repositories in the world
Subject: Multidisciplinary
COAR aims to raise the profile of its member institutions, their repositories and their research
On 24 April, Sebastiano Giorgi-Scalari attended the 11th General Assembly of the Confederation of Open Access Repositories (COAR) on behalf of the UOC. The international gathering brought together COAR's members and partners to share best practices and future lines of work and to explore new opportunities for collaboration.
Assembly-goers also reflected on the distinction between institutional repositories and data repositories, two concepts currently separated by a thin, blurry line. Likewise, they discussed their desire to increase repository traffic and expand their collections.
Finally, they addressed this year's need to create a directory of institutional repositories, in which entries would be certified based on the quality of their metadata.
The UOC's institutional repository, O2
Over the past year, the number of free scientific and general interest resources available in the O2 repository has risen by 16%, exceeding 13,000 total documents to date.
Most of the resources are final bachelor's degree and master's degree projects, followed by educational resources and scientific articles. The deposit of such articles has undergone considerable growth in the last two years: in July 2018, only 11.75% of published research with UOC involvement were available in open access through the O2. By the end of 2019, however, this had risen to 23%, and the percentage is showing no signs of slowing down its upward trend.
The UOC's repository is well placed in the 9th TRANSPARENT RANKING: Institutional Repositories by Google Scholar produced by the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) Cybermetrics Lab.
Since January, the O2 repository has made it easier to access research data by improving data set descriptions, adapting them to Data Management Plan (DMP) guidelines and applying the DataCite MetaData Schema.
COAR is an international association with over 140 members and partners across the globe who represent libraries, universities, research institutions, government funding entities and repository networks. The UOC joined the online confederation at the end of 2018 as part of its Open Knowledge Action Plan.
