An institutional repository is an online, cloud-based platform that hosts digital content and works produced within an institution. While typically used at institutions of higher education, institutional repositories can be utilized anywhere: healthcare centers, non-profits, businesses, and other locations where employees are producing creative and/or scholarly works.
Importantly, institutional repositories are not meant to be a cloud-based storage for the employees of the institutions. Instead, acceptance is based on if the work fits the mission, scope, and vision of the institutional repository. In most cases, as is the case for the Lewis University Institutional Repository, fit is based on if the work was produced as part of the faculty or staff's tenure at Lewis University. This means, if the work was produced under the terms of their contract or during the research they conduct as part of their appointments, then it is valid for submission. For students, if the work was produced as part of a class, in collaboration with a faculty advisor (e.g. a thesis, capstone, or dissertation), in pursuit of their degree program, as part of a university event, or is otherwise directly associated with the university, then it is valid for submission.
This is all to say that works must be tied to the university. A faculty or student may have a topic that they write on (even to a scholarly level) outside of the university, but because these are not works related to their tenure at the university, these do not count as valid for submission to the institutional repository.
Institutional repositories, especially those that are tied to academic institutions, focus on and promote open access to the content hosted the platform. This means that content is available to anybody from anywhere; the public is able to access, read, and download any works published on the platform. For more information on this, please refer to the Open Access section of our Copyright LibGuide.
The Institutional Repository is significant benefit for the community. First and foremost, it allows a platform for faculty, students, and staff to upload, preserve, and share out their work. The repository provides an alternative to the paid model of publishing where only those who have access to subscriptions to journals or only those who pay for individual journal articles can access them. Instead, anybody can read the research and contributions that Lewis University's faculty are making within their fields. This allows faculty to get more eyes on their works, allowing for more people to engage with them and build upon them. Hosting in a repository means that it is more likely for works to be influential in their fields.
In addition, students have a different way to break into their fields. Traditional publishing channels can be difficult for students to find or to achieve, so by posting their work onto the Institutional Repository, they have a way to point others to their work and to display it. This can help for undergraduate students who are planning to apply for graduate school or for any student who wants to demonstrate the work they accomplished to a potential employer.
Third, the Institutional Repository allows authors to view real-time statistics and analytics for engagement on their work. Authors can see where their works are being read, how many downloads their work has received, and how many times their works have been shared on social media. This gives insight into the global impact of works posted on the repository. Authors are able to sign up and receive reports on a regular schedule and can access analytics online at any time.
Finally, Digital Commons puts Lewis University and its community into conversation with the Digital Commons Network. The network is the collection of every institution that utilizes the Digital Commons platform; this includes everything from very large state institutions to Ivy League institutions to very small institutions. It also includes other Lasallian institutions, such as St. Mary's College of California. Lewis University produced works will appear alongside all of these and be just as accessible.