Research Repository FAQ

What is the CPIT Institutional Research Repository?
Why should I put my research outputs in the Research Repository?
I already enter data about my research onto the CPIT Research website, what is the difference between the research website and the repository?
How do I submit my research to the repository?
Whocan access the papers/work in the Repository?
How do I know whether I have permission from my publisher to deposit my papers into the research repository?

1. What is the CPIT Institutional Research Repository?

The CPIT Institutional Research Repository is an open access repository through which the output by CPIT research staff will be made publicly available via the web. All outputs will have had permission granted by the publisher.

The repository software we are using is Fedora; an open source, multi purpose repository developed by Cornell University. We are also using FEZ as a front end web-based interface to Fedora. FEZ was developed at the University of Queensland as an open source repository workflow management tool.

The CPIT repository infrastructure arose out of OARINZ, a CPIT led eCDF (TEC) funded project. The main focus of the eCDF funding round in 2006 was aimed at enhancing the access to publicly funded research coming from NZ research institutions by supporting projects related to research repositories. As part of the OARINZ project CPIT’s Web Unit prototyped a metadata harvesting tool which was later adopted by the National Library’s Kiwi Research Information Service [KRIS]. For more information about the OARINZ project see http://www.oarinz.ac.nz.

We chose to use FEZ/Fedora as we believe the open, flexible and multipurpose nature of the solution provides a good fit with the needs and capability of CPIT.

2. Why should I put my research outputs in the Research Repository?

To archive, preserve and increase the exposure of your work, both on a personal and institutional level.
Research has shown that Open Access articles can increase the number of citations to your work by between 50 to 300%. (see link to Open Citation Project below)

The Open Access movement is gaining momentum internationally and there is increasing evidence that papers available on open access are cited more than ones that are only available through subscription services. By making your work available via the CPIT Research Repository you can potentially reach a much wider audience and may increase the impact of your article.

3. I already enter data about my research onto the CPIT Research website, what is the difference between the research website and the repository?

The CPIT Research website (and the underlying database) contains a record of all CPIT research and it performs various functions related to funding/grant applications, reporting and publicity. Although in some cases there are links to papers available on the web, the research website does not provide access to the research outputs themselves.

The CPIT Institutional Research Repository enables open access to an appropriate (publisher approved and copyright cleared) version of the research output itself. The data in the research repository represents a sub set of the data in the research database and on the research website.

4. How do I submit my research to the repository?

Currently submission is done in direct collaboration with John Wynn-Williams, CPIT’s Digital Librarian. Long term there will be a self submission process involving the researcher submitting a paper (or work) for approval; the work will be checked for copyright clearance, additional metadata will be added and it will be published to the repository by an administrator.

The key medium to long term goal involves merging some of the functions performed by the current CPIT research database/website with the institutional research repository so that papers and associated metadata will only need to be submitted once.

5. Who can access the papers/work in the Repository

Generally speaking, papers and other works added to the Repository are freely accessible via the World Wide Web; therefore anyone with access to the internet can search for and retrieve them. We could if required restrict access to certain papers to authenticated users or groups.

Work can be searched for and accessed directly from the CPIT Institutional Research Repository , OAI-PMH compliant sites such as the Kiwi Research Information Service (which harvests data from our repository), or search engines such as Google Scholar (if we allow it).

6. How do I know whether I have permission from my publisher to deposit my papers into the research repository?

Most academic publishers allow some form of depositing of papers to institutional research repositories. It may be helpful to read the copyright agreement you signed when you published your paper. If it’s not written into your copyright agreement then the publisher’s copyright rules may be publicly available at the Sherpa/RoMeO site. For all other publishers/journals that aren’t listed at the Sherpa/RoMeO site the publisher will need to be contacted directly (or it may be clearly laid out on the publisher’s web site).

In the long term the seeking of permission to deposit papers will need to be incorporated into the research workflow, for example incorporated into the copyright transfer agreement. In the short term the Digital Librarian is available to seek publisher’s permission on the researcher’s behalf.

Some publishers do not allow authors to post a copy of their article into an institutional research repository web site at all and therefore to do so would be to breach your copyright agreement.