Usability of Institutional Repositories of Universities and Polytechnics: the perspective of Professors and Researchers in Portugal

ABSTRACT

This study aims to demonstrate the importance given to Institutional Repositories (IR), the usability and knowledge of their policies, by teachers/researchers of public Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) in Portugal, in a comparison between Universities and Polytechnics. The study was carried out through the application of a survey, using the Google Forms platform. The answers revealed that the majority of respondents attach importance to the RI (Institutional Repository) (77.0%). However, 2.1% claim little use and 29.7% do not publish it in the RI and do not use the RI. The main reasons mentioned were lack of time (38.9%), duplication of tasks (25.0%) and lack of knowledge about Editors' Deposit Policies (20.5%). With regard to the Institution's Documentary Deposit Policy, 62.4% are unaware of its existence and 35.0% of respondents demonstrate that they comply fully and easily. The article is the most shared document in RI (62.8%), with an annual average of individual deposits of 1-5 documents and 29.9% of the participants use the archive to share their scientific productions. The study allows us to conclude that it is at universities that researchers are less familiar with the dynamics of repositories, they publish less in them. These are the ones that suggest more communication and diverse norms, which encourage greater use of IR.

Keywords:
institutional repositories; open access; file; researchers; document deposit policy