Enhancing Institutional Repositories for Effective Research Support

Traditionally institutional repositories (IRs) were established to collect institutional research outputs including both published (such as journal articles, books and book chapters) and unpublished research reports (theses and dissertations, seminar and conference papers) in one place and make them publicly available. Therefore, users can read, download, copy, print, or distribute the research outputs. The advances in information and communication technology and changes in users' behaviours create a need for continuous updates and integration of essential functions to the IRs that support various research activities including data collection, report writing, collaboration and dissemination of the research findings. Various scholars have cited the inefficiency of most institutional repositories to support different aspects of the research life cycle including sharing and promoting the research findings and obtaining feedback on the works found in the repositories. This is related to a lack of awareness of the relevant technologies, inadequate skills and knowledge of the repositories managers, lack of users' experience and preferences, and use of old technologies and protocols. Thus, a survey of the selected institutional repositories was conducted to establish features of the IRs that are essential to support the researchers' needs