The criteria for enrollment in OpenDOAR and institutional Luso-Brazilian repositories

Abstract

With the worldwide growth in the number of repositories, the international directories, such as OpenDOAR, become important mechanisms for enhancing the dissemination and visibility of stored contents. This study aimed to analyze the use of the criteria adopted by the directory OpenDOAR in relation to Luso-Brazilians institutional repositories. The data collection occurred from January to April 2013 through observations in OpenDOAR’s website and through emails exchange with the responsible team for the directory. Each one of the 91 Luso-Brazilians institutional repositories in the sample was checked manually in order to find out whether they comply with the established criteria for the registration in the directory. For this study, it was not questioned whether the use of the typology used to classify repositories was correct or whether it agreed with the specialized literature. The research detected that some of the criteria are violated, one of the reasons may be the lack of necessary information to understanding these criteria. Directories, such as OpenDOAR are responsible for gathering the open access initiatives. Therefore, the directories are important since they prove empirically the growth of the movement of open access to scientific information in the world.