Ranking Web of Repositories: July 2010 Edition

[Armbruster, Chris]

Hélène, 

"Institution" is indeed not a very precise concept, but the repository ranking will not be improved if one were to spend much time trying to decide which repository is institutional and which is not (e.g. how about also deleting No 10 because it is only a departmental repository?). Also, it is a bad idea to define repositories as institutional only if they restrict themselves to the output of a single institution. We already have too many repository managers who succumb to this kind of institutionalist logic - and reject OA content only because it is not from their own institution. 

The CSIC has a sound methodology for ranking repositories, and it not their job to define exclusively what is an IR and what not. And in cyberspace it is much more interesting to compare repositories according to domains and services they offer...

Moreover, it would help if we could move beyond the often narrow understanding of what an institutional repository is and what not & acknowledge more clearly that a strategy of privileging institutional repositories as such has not helped. The value & sustainability of IRs (individually, as isolated instances, & if not embedeed in a national system) is rather limited for both scholarship and open access. Hence, it is very welcome that more determined efforts are underway at building viable networks of research repositories and integrate IRs in national systems (e.g. Ireland as latest instance).

For a sustained argument, please see:

Armbruster/Romary (2010) Comparing Repository Types: Challenges and Barriers for Subject-Based Repositories, Research Repositories, National Repository Systems and Institutional Repositories in Serving Scholarly Communication." (accepted for publication in IJDLS)
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1506905 

Romary/Armbruster (2010) Beyond Institutional Repositories. IJDLS 1(1)44-61
http://ssrn.com/abstract=1425692 

Regards, Chris

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Hélène.Bosc <hbosc-tchersky -- orange.fr>
Date: Wed, Jul 7, 2010 at 5:03 PM
Subject: Re: Ranking Web of Repositories: July 2010 Edition
To: AMERICAN-SCIENTIST-OPEN-ACCESS-FORUM at listserver.sigmaxi.org


Isidro,
Thank you for your Ranking Web of World Repositories and for informing
us about the best quality repositories!

Being French, I am delighted to see HAL so well ranked and I take this
opportunity to congratulate Franck Laloe for having set up such a good
national repository as well as the CCSD team for continuing to
maintain and improve it.

Nevertheless, there is a problem in your ranking that I have already
had occasion to point out to you in private messages.
May I remind you that:

Correction for the top 800 ranking:

The ranking should either index HyperHAL alone, or index both
HAL/INRIA and HAL/SHS, but not all three repositories at the same
time: HyperHAL includes both HAL/INRIA and HAL/SHS .

Correction for the ranking of institutional repositories:

Not only does HyperHAL (#1) include both HAL/INRIA (#3) and HAL/SHS
(#5), as noted above, but HyperHAL is a multidisciplinary repository,
intended to collect all French research output, across all
institutions. Hence it should not be classified and ranked against
individual institutional repositories but as a national, central
repository. Indeed, even HAL/SHS is multi-institutional in the usual
sense of the word: single universities or research institutions. The
classification is perhaps being misled by the polysemous use of the
word "institution."

Not to seem to be biassed against my homeland, I would also point out
that, among the top 10 of the top 800 "institutional repositories,"
CERN (#2) is to a certain extent hosting multi-institutional output
too, and is hence not strictly comparable to true single-institution
repositories. In addition, "California Institute of Technology Online
Archive of California" (#9) is misnamed -- it is the Online Archive of
California http://www.oac.cdlib.org/ (CDLIB, not CalTech) and as such
it too is multi-institutional. And Digital Library and Archives
Virginia Tech University (#4) may also be anomalous, as it includes
the archives of electronic journals with multi-institutional content.
Most of the multi-institutional anomalies in the "Top 800
Institutional" seem to be among the top 10 -- as one would expect if
multiple institutional content is inflating the apparent size of a
repository. Beyond the top 10 or so, the repositories look to be
mostly true institutional ones.

I hope that this will help in improving the next release of your
increasingly useful ranking!

Best wishes
Hélène Bosc

To: <AMERICAN-SCIENTIST-OPEN-ACCESS-FORUM -- LISTSERVER.SIGMAXI.ORG>
Sent: Tuesday, July 06, 2010 6:07 PM
Subject: Fwd: Ranking Web of Repositories: July 2010 Edition

Begin forwarded message:

From: "Isidro F. Aguillo" <isidro.aguillo -- CCHS.CSIC.ES>
Date: July 6, 2010 11:13:58 AM EDT
To: SIGMETRICS at listserv.utk.edu
Subject: [SIGMETRICS] Ranking Web of Repositories: July 2010 Edition

Ranking Web of Repositories: July 2010 Edition

The second edition of 2010 Ranking Web of Repositories has been
published the same day OR2010 started here in Madrid. The ranking is
available from the following URL:

http://repositories.webometrics.info/

The main novelty is the substantial increase in the number of
repositories analyzed (close to 1000). The Top 800 are ranked
according to their web presence and visibility. As usual thematic
repositories (CiteSeer, RePEc, Arxiv) leads the Ranking, but the
French research institutes (CNRS, INRIA, SHS) using HAL are very
close.  Two issues have changed from previous editions from a
methodologicall point of view:, the use of Bing's engine data has been
discarded due to irregularities in the figures obtained and MS Excel
files has been excluded again.

At the end of July the new edition of the Rankings of universities,
research centers and hospitals will be published.

Comments, suggestions and additional information are greatly appreciated.

===========================
Isidro F. Aguillo, HonPhD
Cybermetrics Lab (3C1)
IPP-CCHS-CSIC
Albasanz, 26-28
28037 Madrid. Spain

Editor of the Rankings Web
===========================

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