28/5/2008

An online tool which will allow people all over the world to access research at the click of a button has been launched by the University of Glamorgan.

Glamorgan's online Research Repository is the first in Wales to be launched as part of the Welsh Repositories Network programme, which began in April 2007.

The newly launched digital repository gives worldwide access to the University's published research and already the system has attracted some 450 visits from 30 countries across the world.

The DSpace software on which the repository is based gives the research it contains heightened visibility to search engines, resulting in major increases in numbers of readers for work that was formerly mainly accessible in learned journals.

Dr Douglas Houston who manages the repository project at Glamorgan said, "Online research repositories are emerging as a worldwide phenomenon aimed at giving open Internet access to published research in order to accelerate the dissemination of information. As such, they extend the original purpose of the Internet, which was developed by Tim Berners-Lee in the early 1980s as a global information resource for researchers. The network of repositories in Universities throughout the world gives free access to research that would otherwise only be available in journals which in many cases have prohibitively high subscription rates."

Glamorgan's newly launched system will enhance the University's research profile and accelerate the exchange of ideas and information within the global research community.

The system is very easy to use and a research paper can be uploaded along with the bibliographical information search engines look for in as little as two minutes.

The research repository is at
http://dspace1.isd.glam.ac.uk/dspace/