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Redesigning the Open-Access Institutional Repository: A User Experience Approach

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Digital Libraries: Knowledge, Information, and Data in an Open Access Society (ICADL 2016)

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Abstract

This paper details how a university library evaluated its institutional repository using a user experience design (UXD) methodology and redesigned it based on the findings. The online repository, running on DSpace, was not being utilized as expected by academics and researchers, so a detailed user evaluation and usability study was undertaken to find out the reasons why. Findings showed lack of usability and a mismatch between user expectations and system architecture. Hence, significant improvements were made to the user interface, and in communicating the status of items held in the repository (open or closed access). The authors assess the impact of these changes and argue that better usability results in greater visibility of the open-access repository, and hence, greater visibility for the university’s researchers. Other challenges regarding the adoption of open access by academics and researchers at the university are also discussed.

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Acknowledgments

We thank the UTS Library for their support of this paper.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Technology Sydney, Sydney, Australia

    Edward Luca & Bhuva Narayan

Authors
  1. Edward Luca
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  2. Bhuva Narayan
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Correspondence to Edward Luca .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Tsukuba, Tsukuba, Japan

    Atsuyuki Morishima

  2. Vienna University of Technology, Vienna, Austria

    Andreas Rauber

  3. Victoria University of Wellington, Wellington, New Zealand

    Chern Li Liew

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Luca, E., Narayan, B. (2016). Redesigning the Open-Access Institutional Repository: A User Experience Approach. In: Morishima, A., Rauber, A., Liew, C. (eds) Digital Libraries: Knowledge, Information, and Data in an Open Access Society. ICADL 2016. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 10075. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-49304-6_33

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-49304-6_33

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-49303-9

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-49304-6

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