Digital Commons Data: for your institution’s RDM journey

“Digital Commons Data gives your institution the tools you need to successfully drive forward your Research Data Management program, with powerful features for researchers, administrators and data curators to store, manage, curate, share and preserve data. Part of the Digital Commons institutional repository system, Digital Commons Data is a turn-key, cloud-hosted, and fully supported module that delivers all the functionality to achieve an institutional research data management program without additional technical investment….”

An XML-Based Migration from Digital Commons to Open Journal Systems

Abstract:  The Oregon Library Association has produced its peer-reviewed journal, the OLA Quarterly (OLAQ), since 1995, and OLAQ was published in Digital Commons beginning in 2014. When the host institution undertook to move away from Bepress, their new repository solution was no longer a good match for OLAQ. Oregon State University and University of Oregon agreed to move the journal into their joint instance of Open Journal Systems (OJS), and a small team from OSU Libraries carried out the migration project. The OSU project team declined to use PKP’s existing migration plugin for a number of reasons, instead pursuing a metadata-centered migration pipeline from Digital Commons to OJS. We used custom XSLT to convert tabular data exported from Bepress into PKP’s Native XML schema, which we imported using the OJS Native XML Plugin. This approach provided a high degree of control over the journal’s metadata and a robust ability to test and make adjustments along the way. The article discusses the development of the transformation stylesheet, the metadata mapping and cleanup work involved, as well as advantages and limitations of using this migration strategy.

 

International Diamond Open Access Journals Conference

“Digital Commons is pleased to announce the inaugural International Diamond Open Access Journals Conference, taking place virtually 13-15 April 2021.

In recent years, the Diamond OA model has opened space for emerging research, innovative formats, and diverse voices. Spurred by significant shifts in the global research and publishing landscapes, this model is often used at the university, national, or societal level and provides a compelling entry point to internationalization for journals publishing in local languages, on regional issues, or non-STM disciplines….”

The never-ending story | Research Information

“At the same time, the REF open access mandate had just been announced, stating journal articles and some conference proceedings had to be publicly accessible within three months of acceptance for publication in order to be eligible for submission for the post-2014 research excellence framework. Given the double-whammy of easier depositing and REF urgency, WestminsterResearch saw self-deposits rocket from less than one per cent to more than 99 per cent while practice-based/non text-based entries mushroomed by 246 per cent.

‘The Haplo repository and REF open access mandate came at a similar time and the combined power of both led to this massive increase in self-deposits,’ highlights Watts. 

‘The mandates really helped people to comply to open access,’ she adds. ‘And we believe that factors contributing to more practice-based research included vastly improved templates and fields for these outputs… in the past, the repository just couldn’t take this content.’

Following these results and the looming REF2021, WestminsterResearch switched to a full Haplo open source-set up in 2018, and entries have continued to rise. As Watts put it: ‘I don’t think we’d have been able to support the increase in open access deposits without this rise in self-depositing.’…”

The never-ending story | Research Information

“At the same time, the REF open access mandate had just been announced, stating journal articles and some conference proceedings had to be publicly accessible within three months of acceptance for publication in order to be eligible for submission for the post-2014 research excellence framework. Given the double-whammy of easier depositing and REF urgency, WestminsterResearch saw self-deposits rocket from less than one per cent to more than 99 per cent while practice-based/non text-based entries mushroomed by 246 per cent.

‘The Haplo repository and REF open access mandate came at a similar time and the combined power of both led to this massive increase in self-deposits,’ highlights Watts. 

‘The mandates really helped people to comply to open access,’ she adds. ‘And we believe that factors contributing to more practice-based research included vastly improved templates and fields for these outputs… in the past, the repository just couldn’t take this content.’

Following these results and the looming REF2021, WestminsterResearch switched to a full Haplo open source-set up in 2018, and entries have continued to rise. As Watts put it: ‘I don’t think we’d have been able to support the increase in open access deposits without this rise in self-depositing.’…”

Publishers Invest in Preprints – The Scholarly Kitchen

“For years now, preprint communities have provided a glimmer of an alternative to the journal publishing system, that speed and efficiency might replace what has seemed to many like a cumbersome editorial and peer review process. What started in a small set of originating fields such as high energy physics in 1991 has, in recent years, begun to take hold elsewhere, including the biomedical sciences. Today, Ithaka S+R has published an overview of key developments in preprint communities, which are grappling with an array of policy issues as they seek to build trust in a contested information environment and build durable business strategies. 

Rob Johnson and Andrea Chiarelli recently looked at some of the options that publishers face in engaging with preprints. Today, we observe that beyond preprint communities that are typically organized around a field or set of fields, in recent years all the major publishers have made their own investments in preprint platforms. Publishers are integrating preprint deposit into their manuscript submission workflows, and adopting a common strategy designed to take back control of preprints….”

v31#6 Biz of Digital — Transitioning to a New IR Platform – Against the Grain

“In August 2017, Elsevier purchased Digital Commons-bepress, motivating numerous institutions to explore and commit to options for leaving the popular institutional repository (IR) platform.  The purchase took place soon after the Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU) Library decided to migrate from Digital Commons to a new IR platform.  At the time the OHSU Library’s collections were primarily composed of electronic theses and dissertations, digitized historical materials, and one faculty supported journal of student work.  We have about 10,000 items total in our collections and add about 200 additional items a year on average. Samvera, HP Trim, Alma Digital, Alfresco, and Extensis were all discussed as possible replacements for Digital Commons, however, Samvera was selected.  Factors driving this decision, included requirements for displaying Historical Collections & Archives materials and a desire to invest in and contribute to an open source system. This article will describe several of the challenges the Library experienced during the process and the accompanying planning that occurred as a result of the move.  Repository functions are a core function of the services the library offers to the OHSU community.  Digital collections should serve as a showcase for the library’s expertise in preservation, discoverability, metadata quality, and attract new audiences to the work happening at OHSU. …”

“Library-led Publishing with bepress Digital Commons: Data and Benchm” by Casey Busher, Irene Kamotsky et al.

Use the link to access the full text report.  The abstract reads as follows: “The Digital Commons community launched 156 journals in 2013, putting the total number of journals published across all Digital Commons repositories at almost 700, including law reviews. These numbers speak to the success of library-led publishing efforts, and there is much more to discover by exploring the journals’ publishing history and performance data in more detail.

This report presents detailed data from across all journals hosted on Digital Commons. We show how publishing rates and readership vary within the community and how these trends can be used to derive target activity levels for new journals. We also look at publishing across various disciplines to see which of those disciplines are well represented and which may be underrepresented. Measuring the success of publishing efforts can be key in proving viability to stakeholders. Using data that reflects the publishing experiences of over 180 institutions, we’re able to suggest benchmarks of publishing activity and readership that will help publishers set goals and prove effectiveness.”