ACCESS DIGITAL ARCHIVE COLLECTIONS, PUBLISHED AND UNPUBLISHED WORKS OF FACULTY AND RESEARCHERS AT THE UNIVERSITY OF LIMERICK INSTITUTIONAL REPOSITORY (ULIR)
Electronic Thesis:
The 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
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 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.
Depositing Work in the UL IR
Benefits to authors:
- Increases citations for research material
- Broadens worldwide access to material
- Provides a method of preserving material
- Makes for easier access to material via search engines such as Google, Google Scholar and Yahoo
- Raises profile of Irish researchers internationally
Benefits to the University:
- Provides a showcase for UL's research output
- Raises the profile of UL's research internationally through broader access and citations
- Allows potential integration with UL's Research Information Support System (RISS), providing a full text storage complement
- Provides a space for individuals, research groups, schools and faculties to display research work
- Increases potential for collaboration and synthesis between Irish and international researchers
National Portal Project
Beginning in 2007 and funded for a three-year period by the government's Strategic Innovation Fund (SIF) and the seven participating Irish universities, the IREL Open Access to Research project is coordinating the building of open access institutional repositories in each of the seven universities and the development of a national portal. This portal will provide a single point of access to the research output of the seven universities, thus increasing the profile and visibility of Irish research.
The project is directed by the Irish Universities Association and managed by the Irish Universities Association Librarians' Group. It is envisaged that the project will be extended in the future.
Benefits of being part of a national portal:
- Increased exposure of national research
- Development of enhanced searching and analysis of content
- A source of standards and advice
Types of material held in the repository:
- Journal articles
- Theses
- Working papers
- Conference papers
- Datasets
- Book chapters
Copyright and Other Rights Issues
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 two projects to help authors. RoMEO gives a summary of permissions granted by publishers and JULIET outlines certain research funders' archiving mandates and guidelines.
Who are the project partners?
Partner Institutional Repositories
Other Irish Institutional Repositories
Useful Links
If you have any questions regarding the Institutional Repository at the University of Limerick, email ir@ul.ie or contact Sinéad at (061) 23 3296.
