A disciplinary repository (or subject repository) is an online archive, often an
open-access repository, containing works or data associated with these works of
scholars in a particular
subject area. Disciplinary repositories can accept work from scholars from any institution. A disciplinary repository shares the roles of collecting, disseminating, and archiving work with other repositories, but is focused on a particular subject area. These collections can include academic and
research papers.
Disciplinary repositories can acquire their content in many ways. Many rely on author or organization submissions, such as
SSRN. Others such as
CiteSeerX crawl the web for scholar and researcher websites and download publicly available
academic paper
Academic publishing is the subfield of publishing which distributes Research, academic research and scholarship. Most academic work is published in academic journal articles, books or Thesis, theses. The part of academic written output that is n ...
s from those sites.
AgEcon, established in 1995, grew as a result of active involvement of academia and societies.
A disciplinary repository generally covers one broad based discipline, with contributors from many different institutions supported by a variety of funders; the repositories themselves are likely to be funded from one or more sources within the subject community. Deposit of material in a disciplinary repository is sometimes
mandated by
research funders.
Disciplinary repositories can also act as stores of data related to a particular subject, allowing documents along with data associated with that work to be stored in the repository.
What was believed to be the first public Workshop on Disciplinary Repositories
was held on June 16 and 17, 2011, at the ACM Joint Conference on Digital Libraries in
Ottawa
Ottawa is the capital city of Canada. It is located in the southern Ontario, southern portion of the province of Ontario, at the confluence of the Ottawa River and the Rideau River. Ottawa borders Gatineau, Gatineau, Quebec, and forms the cor ...
, Ontario, Canada.
Importance
Beyond the core functions of collecting, disseminating, and archiving scholarly works, disciplinary repositories offer significant benefits to the overall academic ecosystem. Here is a closer look at their contributions:
* Increased accessibility: Many research articles are published in pay-walled journals, hindering access for new researchers. Disciplinary repositories make these publications more readily available at no cost, fostering wider dissemination of knowledge.
* Enhanced discoverability: By categorizing scholarly works by subject area, disciplinary repositories enable researchers to locate relevant studies quickly and efficiently. This targeted organization streamlines the research process.
* Improved credibility: Several disciplinary repositories implement a pre-print quality control process. This initial vetting enhances the overall credibility of the hosted research materials.
* Preservation: Disciplinary repositories serve as digital archives, safeguarding valuable research from loss or degradation.
* Scholarly impact measurement: Citation data associated with publications within disciplinary repositories can be used to evaluate research impact and the contribution of individual studies to a particular field.
In conclusion, disciplinary repositories play a vital role in promoting research, scholarship, and knowledge development across academic disciplines.
See also
*
Institutional repository
References
External links
Open Access Directory - Disciplinary repositories
{{Open access navbox
Discipline-oriented digital libraries
Open access (publishing)