Julia Lovett

Institutional Repositories and Academic Social Networks: Competition or Complement? A Study of Open Access Policy Compliance vs. ResearchGate Participation

INTRODUCTION The popularity of academic social networks like ResearchGate and Academia.edu indicates that scholars want to share their work, yet for universities with Open Access (OA) policies, these sites may be competing with institutional repositories (IRs) for content. This article seeks to reveal researcher practices, attitudes, and motivations around uploading their work to ResearchGate and complying with an institutional OA Policy through a study of faculty at the University of Rhode Island (URI). METHODS We conducted a population study to examine the participation by 558 full-time URI faculty members in the OA Policy and ResearchGate followed by a survey of 728 full-time URI faculty members about their participation in the two services. DISCUSSION The majority of URI faculty does not participate in the OA Policy or use ResearchGate. Authors’ primary motivations for participation are sharing their work more broadly and increasing its visibility and impact. Faculty who participate in ResearchGate are more likely to participate in the OA Policy, and vice versa. The fact that the OA Policy targets the author manuscript and not the final published article constitutes a significant barrier to participation. CONCLUSION Librarians should not view academic social networks as a threat to Open Access. Authors’ strong preference for sharing the final, published version of their articles provides support for calls to hasten the transition to a Gold OA publishing system. Misunderstandings about the OA Policy and copyright indicate a need for librarians to conduct greater education and outreach to authors about options for legally sharing articles.

ResearchGate vs. the Institutional Repository: Competition or Complement?

The popularity of academic social networks like ResearchGate and Academia .edu indicates that scholars want to share their work, yet for universiti es with open access (OA) policies, these sites may be competi ng with insti tuti onal repos‐ itories for content. Our study seeks to reveal researcher practi ces, atti tudes, and moti vati ons around uploading their work to ResearchGate and complying with an insti tuti onal Open Access Policy. We conducted a populati on study to examine the parti cipati on by 558 full‐ ti me University of Rhode Island faculty members in the OA Policy and Research‐ Gate, followed by a survey of 728 full‐ ti me URI faculty members about their parti cipati on in the two services. Finding 1 While a slightly greater percentage of faculty have shared arti cles through ResearchGate than through the OA Policy, only a minority of faculty (29%) are parti cipati ng in either ResearchGate, the OA Policy, or both (Figure 1). Contrary to expectati ons, faculty who parti cipate in ResearchGate are actually more likely to share their arti cles via the Open Access Policy than faculty who do not parti cipate in ResearchGate, and vice versa. This suggests librarians should not be overly concerned about academic social networking sites competi ng with OA policies; if anything, faculty who parti cipate in academic social networking sites may be more likely to share their work in general. Finding 2 Faculty reported a strong aversion to sharing the author manuscript version of their arti cles (Figure 2). This was the most signifi cant barrier to parti cipati ng in the OA Policy. This fi nding, if generalizable, should inform current discussions among OA advocates about the respecti ve roles going forward of Green OA achieved through depositi ng author manuscripts in insti tuti onal repositories and Gold OA achieved at the point of publicati on. Finding 3 Our survey revealed a range of misunderstandings about the insti tuti onal repository (IR), OA policies, and copyright (Figure 3). For example, many respon‐ dents believe that the legality of posti ng one’s arti cles in both the IR and ResearchGate depends on publisher policy and the version of the arti cle posted. In fact, permissions‐ based OA policies make it legal to post author manuscripts in the IR regardless of publisher policies, and many subscripti on‐ access journals prohibit depositi ng any version of an arti cle to commercial sites like ResearchGate. These misun‐ derstandings indicate a need for librarians to conduct greater educati on and outreach to faculty around their opti ons for legally sharing published arti cles. Conclusions Librarians should not view academic social networks as a threat to open access. Authors’ strong pref‐ erence for sharing the fi nal, published version of their arti cles provides support for calls to hasten the Figure 1. Faculty parti cipati on in URI Open Access Policy and ResearchGate (n = 558).

New England Technical Services Librarians Spring 2012 Conference: iLibrary: Digital Futures for Libraries (May 3, 2012, Worcester, MA)

This report discusses the program of the 2012 New England Technical Services Librarians (NETSL) annual spring conference, held on Thursday, May 3 at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts, titled “iLibrary: Digital Futures for Libraries.” NETSL is a section of the New England Library Association and a regional group of the American Library Association. Big Data: Dig Deal? New Challenges for Scholars & Librarians