Dear Chris Armbruster and Isidro Aguilo,
Since Stevan Harnad has the advantage of being able to read and respond to
messages first, I have nothing further to add. Had I replied first, I would have
made some of the arguments he made in support of my view on the "rankings," but
it would have been done in a less clear and complete way.
Best wishes.
Hélène Bosc
----- Original Message -----
From: Armbruster, Chris
To: AMERICAN-SCIENTIST-OPEN-ACCESS-FORUM_at_LISTSERVER.SIGMAXI.ORG
Sent: Thursday, July 08, 2010 11:44 AM
Subject: Re: Ranking Web of Repositories: July 2010 Edition
Hélène,
"Institution" is indeed not a very precise concept, but the repository
ranking will not be improved if one were to spend much time trying to
decide which repository is institutional and which is not (e.g. how about
also deleting No 10 because it is only a departmental repository?). Also,
it is a bad idea to define repositories as institutional only if they
restrict themselves to the output of a single institution. We already have
too many repository managers who succumb to this kind of institutionalist
logic - and reject OA content only because it is not from their own
institution.
The CSIC has a sound methodology for ranking repositories, and it not
their job to define exclusively what is an IR and what not. And in
cyberspace it is much more interesting to compare repositories according
to domains and services they offer...
Moreover, it would help if we could move beyond the often narrow
understanding of what an institutional repository is and what not &
acknowledge more clearly that a strategy of privileging institutional
repositories as such has not helped. The value & sustainability of IRs
(individually, as isolated instances, & if not embedeed in a national
system) is rather limited for both scholarship and open access. Hence, it
is very welcome that more determined efforts are underway at building
viable networks of research repositories and integrate IRs in national
systems (e.g. Ireland as latest instance).
For a sustained argument, please see:
Armbruster/Romary (2010) Comparing Repository Types: Challenges and
Barriers for Subject-Based Repositories, Research Repositories, National
Repository Systems and Institutional Repositories in Serving Scholarly
Communication." (accepted for publication in IJDLS)
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1506905
Romary/Armbruster (2010) Beyond Institutional Repositories. IJDLS
1(1)44-61
http://ssrn.com/abstract=1425692
Regards, Chris
-----Ursprüngliche Nachricht-----
Von: American Scientist Open Access Forum im Auftrag von Hélène.Bosc
Gesendet: Mi 7/7/2010 23:03
An: AMERICAN-SCIENTIST-OPEN-ACCESS-FORUM_at_LISTSERVER.SIGMAXI.ORG
Betreff: Re: Ranking Web of Repositories: July 2010 Edition
Isidro,
Thank you for your Ranking Web of World Repositories and for informing us
about the best quality repositories!
Being French, I am delighted to see HAL so well ranked and I take this
opportunity to congratulate Franck Laloe for having set up such a good
national repository as well as the CCSD team for continuing to maintain
and
improve it.
Nevertheless, there is a problem in your ranking that I have already had
occasion to point out to you in private messages.
May I remind you that:
Correction for the top 800 ranking:
The ranking should either index HyperHAL alone, or index both HAL/INRIA
and
HAL/SHS, but not all three repositories at the same time: HyperHAL
includes
both HAL/INRIA and HAL/SHS .
Correction for the ranking of institutional repositories:
Not only does HyperHAL (#1) include both HAL/INRIA (#3) and HAL/SHS (#5),
as
noted above, but HyperHAL is a multidisciplinary repository, intended to
collect all French research output, across all institutions. Hence it
should
not be classified and ranked against individual institutional repositories
but as a national, central repository. Indeed, even HAL/SHS is
multi-institutional in the usual sense of the word: single universities or
research institutions. The classification is perhaps being misled by the
polysemous use of the word "institution."
Not to seem to be biassed against my homeland, I would also point out
that,
among the top 10 of the top 800 "institutional repositories," CERN (#2) is
to a certain extent hosting multi-institutional output too, and is hence
not
strictly comparable to true single-institution repositories. In addition,
"California Institute of Technology Online Archive of California" (#9) is
misnamed -- it is the Online Archive of California
http://www.oac.cdlib.org/
(CDLIB, not CalTech) and as such it too is multi-institutional. And
Digital
Library and Archives Virginia Tech University (#4) may also be anomalous,
as
it includes the archives of electronic journals with multi-institutional
content. Most of the multi-institutional anomalies in the "Top 800
Institutional" seem to be among the top 10 -- as one would expect if
multiple institutional content is inflating the apparent size of a
repository. Beyond the top 10 or so, the repositories look to be mostly
true
institutional ones.
I hope that this will help in improving the next release of your
increasingly useful ranking!
Best wishes
Hélène Bosc
----- Original Message -----
From: "Stevan Harnad" <harnad_at_ECS.SOTON.AC.UK>
To: <AMERICAN-SCIENTIST-OPEN-ACCESS-FORUM_at_LISTSERVER.SIGMAXI.ORG>
Sent: Tuesday, July 06, 2010 6:07 PM
Subject: Fwd: Ranking Web of Repositories: July 2010 Edition
Begin forwarded message:
From: "Isidro F. Aguillo" <isidro.aguillo_at_CCHS.CSIC.ES>
Date: July 6, 2010 11:13:58 AM EDT
To: SIGMETRICS_at_listserv.utk.edu
Subject: [SIGMETRICS] Ranking Web of Repositories: July 2010 Edition
Ranking Web of Repositories: July 2010 Edition
The second edition of 2010 Ranking Web of Repositories has been published
the same day OR2010 started here in Madrid. The ranking is available from
the following URL:
http://repositories.webometrics.info/
The main novelty is the substantial increase in the number of repositories
analyzed (close to 1000). The Top 800 are ranked according to their web
presence and visibility. As usual thematic repositories (CiteSeer, RePEc,
Arxiv) leads the Ranking, but the French research institutes (CNRS, INRIA,
SHS) using HAL are very close. Two issues have changed from previous
editions from a methodologicall point of view:, the use of Bing's engine
data has been discarded due to irregularities in the figures obtained and
MS
Excel files has been excluded again.
At the end of July the new edition of the Rankings of universities,
research
centers and hospitals will be published.
Comments, suggestions and additional information are greatly appreciated.
--
===========================
Isidro F. Aguillo, HonPhD
Cybermetrics Lab (3C1)
IPP-CCHS-CSIC
Albasanz, 26-28
28037 Madrid. Spain
Editor of the Rankings Web
===========================
Received on Thu Jul 08 2010 - 21:32:38 BST