Scholars and Institutional Repositories : Perceptions of Academic Authors towards Self -Archiving their Scholarly Works in the Bergen Open Research Archive

摘要

This study describes the perceptions of academic authors towards self-archiving; specifically exploring the motivations and deterrence factors influencing decisions to deposit their works in an institutional repository (Bergen Open Research Archive). The study investigates factors influencing self-archiving in general in terms of constructs based on Kim`s (2008) work.The research question addressed is what are the motivation and deterrence factors influencing academic authors to deposit their scholarly works in the Bergen Open Research Archive (BORA). The study participants consist of 50 academic authors from seven departments at the University of Bergen. A questionnaire was used for data collection. Additionally, academic authors from the University of Botswana were also surveyed to contrast the findings with the ones from the University of Bergen.The findings show that altruism is the most motivating factor that influences academic authors to deposit their work in an institutional repository. The academic authors also perceive an institutional repository as a secure place to preserve their scholarly works. However, regarding copyright concerns and additional time and effort required for depositing work to an institutional repository, the results provide evidence that these might be major deterrents to IR contribution. The results of this study will provide insight to BORA administrators in their attempt to improve the services of the repository while supporting open access of scholarly works.