What is an Institutional Repository?

An institutional repository (IR) is an open access database where digital copies of research items such as articles, theses, conference proceedings and working papers are held and made freely available on the internet. The records in a repository are stored using an international standard. The content can then be made available to other databases and search engines such as Google Scholar.

What is Open Access?

Open Access (OA) is an international movement to enable the worldwide electronic dissemination of output of funded research in a completely free and unrestricted manner. Any person, who can connect to the internet, can then access this material without incurring any costs. Furthermore, the material can be downloaded, printed and distributed provided the author of the work is properly acknowledged and cited. The potential readership of open access articles far exceeds that of articles where the full-text is restricted to subscribers.

What are the benefits to authors depositing work in the IR?

• Increases citations for research material
• Broadens worldwide access to material
• Provides a method of preserving material
• Makes easier access to material via search engines such as Google, Google Scholar and Yahoo
• Raises profile of Irish researchers internationally

What are the benefits to the Mary Immaculate College?

• Provides a showcase of the institution's research output
• Raises the profile of the institution's research internationally through broader access and citations
• Provide a space for individuals, research groups, schools and colleges to display research work
• Increased potential for collaboration and synthesis between Irish and international researchers

What types of material will be held in the repository?

• Journal articles
• Theses
• Working papers
• Conference papers
• Datasets
• Book chapters
• Library Special Collections

What are the Copyright and other rights issues attached to work in the IR?

When submitting material to the IR, the author agrees to allow the IR to electronically store, preserve and provide access to the work. The work is protected by copyright with all rights reserved and may not be used for commercial purposes.

There are also rights issues relating to OA publishing of material that appears or is due to appear in a published journal. SHERPA (Securing a Hybrid Environment for Research Publication and Access) has 2 projects to help authors. RoMEO gives a summary of permissions granted by publishers and JULIET outlines certain research funders’ archiving mandates and guidelines.

See the Copyright section for more information.

What happens if there is an objection to the inclusion of an item in the IR?

Should we receive an objection to the inclusion of any item in the IR the item will be taken down immediately while we investigate the validity of the objection and work to resolve any issues.

What are the other Irish Institutional Repositories?

• Dublin City University Institutional Repository
• Dublin Institute of Technology ARROW
• NUI Maynooth Institutional Repository
• Trinity’s Access to Research Archive (TARA)
• WIT Institutional Repository

Useful Links

• SHERPA
• DRIVER
• SPARC Europe
• DAREnet
• OAIster

If you have any questions regarding the Institutional Repository at Mary Immaculate College, you can contact us.