MyOpenArchive, an individual rather than an institutional
Open Access Repository, and initial responses
Keita BANDO
Digital Repository Librarian and Coordinator for Scholarly Communication, MyOpenArchive
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Abstract
Open Access Week [1] indicated the potential of the Open Access
Movement by reaching a large number of current users of Open
Access Journals and Institutional Repositories (IRs). [2] The main
focus of this study is to highlight the importance of self-archiving as
a form of “iR” for individuals as opposed to IR for institutions. Thus,
we focus on MyOpenArchive, [3] which has been developed
through the efforts of several individuals.
MyOpenArchive is an Open Access Repository for researchers who
need to undertake self-archiving. Within the first 3 years of its
launch, MyOpenArchive has attracted 393 users and received 210
posts from individuals. First, we should note that different types of
research have been archived using MyOpenArchive. Of the total
number of posts, 95% are private studies (so-called gray literature).
Moreover, 83% of the posts are licensed under a Creative
Commons License. [4] Users of MyOpenArchive thus seem to
understand the usefulness of digital rights management. On the
basis of these facts, we can safely assume that iR can meet the
demands of a large number of users who need open resources and
licenses.
MyOpenArchive was created by a university staff member who
wished to set up an iR for himself, because his institution did not
have an IR at that time. (See Fig. 1 for a screenshot.) The service
was developed through the efforts of Japanese individuals who had
no professional knowledge of IR inventory.
Officially, 1,851 IRs have been launched around the world. Japan
has 129 (7%) of the world’s IRs, which makes its academic
repository the fourth largest in the world, after those of the US
(383/2%), UK (18/1%), and Germany (142/8%). [5] Japan has 125
university IRs, [6] which means that only 16% of Japanese
universities (773) have their own IRs. [7] Given that 84% of
Japanese universities do not have their own IRs, we can conclude
that 144,000 researchers at Japanese institutions require access to
the green road―namely, self-archiving.
Therefore, we founded MyOpenArchive in September 2007. We
mainly drew on the principles of Open Access Repositories for
individuals, especially researchers who lack the assistance of
institutions or library staff. Among the literature available on the
web, we advocate the use of open access especially for gray
literature, a term that has recently started to receive general
acceptance for referring to academic resources without repositories.
Gray literature can comprise technical reports, conference papers,
and theses, and can be defined as “documents that are difficult to
access because they have not received large-scale publication or
circulation.” (Fig. 3)
Because such documents tend to be stored in personal collections
from which they cannot be easily retrieved, we have paid special
attention to the use of open access for archiving gray literature
through voluntary efforts, attendance at seminars, [8] and
organization of conferences [9] for researchers.
Initial Results
Within the first 3 years of its launch, MyOpenArchive has attracted
393 users and received 210 posts from individuals. Of the total
number of posts on MyOpenArchive, 95% consist of gray literature.
On the basis of the initial results, we can safely claim that the
project has been a success. Through this project, we have acquired
a vast variety of research, including some gray literature, such as
faculty papers and final drafts. We also believe that we have been
successful because a few of the studies in MyOpenArchive have
been cited, for instance, by some theses.
Finally, as shown in Fig. 4, 83% of the users posted their work
under a Creative Commons License. Moreover, 50% of the posts
are under a Creative Commons BY-NC License. [10] Users of
MyOpenArchive therefore understand the usefulness of digital
rights management. These results reveal the increasing public
awareness of the importance of a medium for sharing academic
studies.
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Conclusions
As mentioned above, we advocate MyOpenArchive as an iR for
researchers with or without an IR. We promote MyOpenArchive
because it has successfully fulfilled the needs of researchers not
only in Japan but also around the world. Its infrastructure and user
experience can enhance and expand the global academic
community.
Driven by our belief in the usefulness of MyOpenArchive, we
launched an English version in November 2011. [11] Twitter,
Facebook, and other social media API have been utilized to
advertise it, as these social media are popular among researchers
around the world. [12] Such advertising has basically been carried
out by volunteers because it is both cost- and time effective. We
hope that this new method of self-archiving revolutionizes scholarly
communication, although other initiatives are also necessary.
References
[1] Open Access Week http://openaccessweek.org/
[2] The Imaginary Journal of Poetic Economics: 2010 Dramatic
Growth of Open Access
http://poeticeconomics.blogspot.com/2010/12/2010-dramatic-
growth-of-open-access.html
[3] MyOpenArchive http://season1.myopenarchive.org/toppage
[4] About the Licenses - Creative Commons
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/
[5] OpenDOAR Chart - Proportion of Repositories by Country -
Worldwide http://goo.gl/Sghcb
[6] NII Institutional Repositories Program | Current IRs
http://www.nii.ac.jp/irp/en/list/
[7] Preliminary Report on School Basic Survey Summary of Results
for FY2009: Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and
Technology (PDF: 94KB)
http://www.mext.go.jp/component/b_menu/other/__icsFiles/afieldfile/
2009/08/06/1282571_1.pdf
[8] Asia: Open Access Day 2008 – OAD
http://oad.simmons.edu/oadwiki/Asia:_Open_Access_Day_2008#N
ational_Institute_of_Informatics.2C_Japan
[9] Asia: Open Access Week 2009 – OAD
http://oad.simmons.edu/oadwiki/Asia:_Open_Access_Week_2009#
Open_Access_.E2.80.9CFriday_.26_Night.E2.80.9D_2009
[10] Creative Commons―Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0
Unported―CC BY-NC 3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-
nc/3.0/
[11] MyOpenArchive Launched New Digital Repository for Open
Access | MyOpenArchive Blog
http://blog.myopenarchive.org/2011/01/23/myopenarchive-
launched-new-digital-repository-for-open-access/
[12] Social Media: A Guide for Researchers | Research Information
Network http://www.rin.ac.uk/our-work/communicating-and-
disseminating-research/social-media-guide-researchers
Acknowledgments
Editage (www.editage.com), a division of Cactus Communications,
provided partial financial support.
Journal Article
Preprint Thesis or Dissertation
Conference
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Presentation
Research
Paper
Technical Report
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Introduction
Open Repository 2011/Poster Session/This poster is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.
Figure 1: Screenshot of MyOpenArchive
Figure 2: Screenshot of the new MyOpenArchive
Figure 3: Types of gray literature
Figure 4: Types of posts on MyOpenArchive