Open access publisher BioMed Central, UK, and Wilfrid Laurier University have announced the launch of Laurier IR, an institutional repository. Laurier IR provides a visible point of open access archiving of intellectual output for all members of the university community.
Built on BioMed Central's 'Open Repository' system and using its open access (OA) knowledge and technology experience, Laurier IR is a personalised in-house repository that is expected to significantly increase access to the university's scholarly information. It is also projected to highlight the talent of the university's researchers and students.
Open Repository is built upon DSpace, an open-source solution for accessing, managing and preserving scholarly material. In addition, under the university's Supporter Membership with BioMed Central, Laurier researchers get a 15 percent discount on the article processing charges for publishing in BioMed's OA journals.
The Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) now requires authors to publish research results into OA journals and also encourages dual submission into an institutional repository. Complying with this mandate and also heeding wider position statements from bodies such as the Canadian Library Association (CLA) necessitated Wilfrid Laurier University to establish Laurier IR.
Laurier IR embraces the OA movement by allowing authors to submit their original research directly to the repository. Electronic documents, including articles, pre-prints, monographs, reports, movies and databases, can all be archived in the repository. The service ensures that Laurier's scholarly communication output is consolidated, thus enabling researchers to broaden their knowledge base through greater collaboration and also providing a central point to store teaching support materials across the Laurier community.
Laurier University aims to build a full community structure for its repository within the next 12 months which will include customised designs and collections for particular groups of researchers. The university also hopes to implement a 'content recruitment strategy' to ensure that as much scholarly output from the university as possible is held with the repository.
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