WATERLOO – Wilfrid Laurier University announces the launch of an open research archive, an institutional repository that provides open-access archiving of intellectual output for all members of the university community.

Built on BioMed Central’s “open repository” system and using BioMed Central's open-access knowledge and technology experience, the archive will significantly increase access to Laurier’s scholarly information and highlight the talent of the university’s researchers and students.

Laurier is one of many organizations around the world that has adopted Open Repository. Open Repository is built on DSpace, an open-source solution for accessing, managing and preserving scholarly material.

In addition, the university’s supporter membership with BioMed Central reduces the barriers for Laurier researchers publishing in BioMed Central’s open-access journals by providing researchers with a 15 percent discount on the article processing charges.

The Canadian Institutes of Health Research now requires authors to publish research results in open-access journals and also encourages dual submission into an institutional repository. Complying with this mandate and also heeding wider position statements from bodies such as the Canadian Library Association were key considerations in Laurier’s decision to establish an institutional repository.

Within the next 12 months, Laurier aims to build a full community structure for the repository which will include customized designs and collections for particular groups of researchers. Laurier’s research archive will embrace the open-access model by allowing authors to submit their original research directly.

A project team will establish content and policy parameters for the archive. The team also hopes to implement a content-recruitment strategy to ensure that as much scholarly output from the university as possible is held with the repository. It is anticipated that articles, pre-prints, monographs, reports, theses and databases will be archived. The research archive may also become a central point for storing teaching support materials across the Laurier community.

The Laurier research archive will ensure that Laurier’s scholarly communication output is consolidated in a visible and accessible web environment, thus enabling researchers to broaden their knowledge base through greater collaboration.

"Laurier is excited to be developing an institutional repository,” said Dr. Deborah MacLatchy, vice-president: academic and provost at Laurier. “It will be an excellent way for other scholars, as well as students and professionals, to access scholarly and creative works and theses published by Laurier faculty and students. It increases Laurier's presence internationally and extends our scholarly output to a much wider audience, such as researchers in the developing world.”

For more information on the Laurier Open Research Archive, contact project manager Debbie Chaves at dchaves@wlu.ca.