AFRICA
bookmark

How to set up an institutional repository for data-sharing

Only 24 African countries, out of 54, have institutional repositories, according to the Directory of Open Access Repositories.

Recent studies and academic contributions on institutional repositories in Africa show that, of the few repositories currently on the continent, many are not up to standard.

In a chapter contribution (Institutional repositories in Africa: Issues and challenges) in the 2019 book Research Data Access and Management in Modern Libraries, Felicia Yusuf, Goodluck Ifijeh and Sola Owolabi maintain that the development of institutional repositories in most African countries is still at the infancy stage.

This was echoed at a session on open science at the UNESCO World Higher Education Conference 2022, held in Barcelona in Spain from 18 to 20 May, where delegates heard that Africa had few science repositories, which was a barrier that hindered data sharing and open science.

The only countries with well performing repositories are South Africa, Kenya, Nigeria, Algeria, Sudan and Egypt.

This is according to 2021 research published by Usman Ahmed Adam and Kiran Kaur titled ‘Institutional repositories in Africa: Regaining direction’.

To shed light on how universities can set up institutional repositories, University World News spoke to Stephanie Kitchen, the managing editor of the International African Institute, which does research on institutional repositories on the African continent, among other things.

UWN: What are the key steps in setting up an institutional repository?

SK: I am not a repository manager, so I hesitate to tell others what to do! But from the International African Institute’s research, key factors are institutional support from senior managers, but also, importantly, from library staff (for whom a repository may mean extra work) and faculty – who are being asked to upload their research and publications and support the repository accordingly.

UWN: Which software is the best to use?

SK: At the time of our survey [in 2015] the most commonly used software was DSpace. Some repositories used EPrints and Greenstone [software]. More specific technical advice is available from organisations such as OpenDOAR.

UWN: What costs are involved?

SK: The main cost is going to be staff time, or additional staff resources – often in overstretched libraries. Our research showed that African repositories were often being run by one or two members of staff, sometimes in addition to existing librarian responsibilities.

While the platform or software itself may be inexpensive, if a repository wants to undertake significant digitisation of older print materials, it would incur additional costs.

UWN: How is an institutional repository maintained?

SK: There are technical aspects relating to search optimisation – promoting the research held in the repository. The main thing is to ensure the repository is kept current – research staff are encouraged to submit and upload new work.

UWN: What drawbacks are likely to be faced when setting up an institutional repository?

SK: Challenges include staffing, academic staff buy-in – willingness to deposit their work, and facilitation to do so, and technical requirements to render repositories more useful as research tools by promoting them through national and international aggregators and libraries, via subject repositories and internet-based indexes and search engines.

UWN: How does one overcome such challenges?

SK: There are clearly no magic solutions to resource challenges. However, explaining the considerable benefits of research repositories and open access resources to staff and faculty – such as meeting national and international [funder] mandates for research access, and promoting and communicating local research that may not be published in other formats – may encourage support for the repository.

Freely accessible resources via repositories may offer considerable potential in contexts where resources for traditional publications are lacking.

Our research also suggested that more opportunities for repository managers to meet and network regionally and continentally, both in person and virtually, would be a positive step.

UWN: How does one ensure an institutional repository is world class?

SK: Steps such as ensuring your repository features in listed in databases such as OpenDOAR and on the International African Institute’s institutional repository pages should ensure the repository is globally visible.

Ensuring compliance with national and funder mandates for research to be open access as well as publisher copyright or licensing compliance is also important.

If funds allow, digitising older material adds richness and depth to a repository as, for example, the Université Cheikh Anta Diop in Dakar has done.