The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at
www.emeraldinsight.com/0001-253X.htm
AP
61,5
436
Received 30 May 2008
Revised 11 August 2008
Accepted 30 September 2008
Aslib Proceedings: New Information
Perspectives
Vol. 61 No. 5, 2009
pp. 436-458
q Emerald Group Publishing Limited
0001-253X
DOI 10.1108/00012530910989607
Institutional repositories
in Canadian post-secondary
institutions
User interface features and knowledge
organization systems
Julie Mondoux and Ali Shiri
School of Library and Information Studies, University of Alberta,
Edmonton, Canada
Abstract
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine and provide an insight into Canadian
post-secondary institutional repositories (IRs) with respect to user interface features and knowledge
organization systems (KOS) used.
Design/methodology/approach – The approach is to explore all Canadian post-secondary
institutions and their user interfaces to establish the type of searching and browsing features they
have used and whether or not they have made use of KOS such as subject heading lists or
classification schemes.
Findings – A directory of 27 IRs in Canada is created. Incorporation of KOS in institutional
repository is evaluated. The examination is focuses on accessibility, searching, KOS use, and retrieval.
Evaluation shows that few IRs have incorporated complex KOS such as controlled vocabularies.
Browsing and searching options are available, but user interfaces are usually not modified to enhance
information retrieval.
Originality/value – This is the first paper examining Canadian IRs from the perspectives of
searching, browsing and the use of KOS.
Keywords User interfaces, Knowledge organizations, Knowledge management systems, Universities,
Canada
Paper type Research paper
Introduction and literature review
With the advent of the Internet the world of research was changed and methods for
information dissemination were altered considerably. Periodicals available in
hardcopies and CD-ROMs became easily available to institutions for a fee. With the
further development of free search engines such as Google and the integration of each
articles’ metadata into the web, skeletal information about the articles was made
available to anyone with a simple Internet connection. The push to move from the simple
bibliographic record with abstract to full access has become known as the open-access
movement. The main goal of the open access movement is to “remove price barriers and
permission barriers” (Suber, 2005). With these goals, the new ideology aimed to provide
access to information that was previously difficult to obtain without subscriptions. This
relatively new movement began to take form at the turn of the millennium and formal
positions were established such as the Budapest Open Access Initiative.
Open access and institutional repositories Institutional
The Budapest Open Access Initiative which evolved from a meeting of the Open repositories
Society Institute in December 2001 describes open access as:
in Canada
[. . .] free availability on the public internet, permitting any users to read, download, copy,
distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of these articles, crawl them for indexing, pass
them as data to software, or use them for any other lawful purpose, without financial, legal, or
technical barriers other than those inseparable from gaining access to the internet itself. The 437
only constraint on reproduction and distribution, and the only role for copyright in this
domain, should be to give authors control over the integrity of their work and the right to be
properly acknowledged and cited (Budapest Open Access Initiative, 2001).
The Bethesda and Berlin statements are also corner-stones of the open access
movement. According to these statements, in order to be considered open access, a
publication must meet the following two conditions: authors and copyright holders
must grant free access, permission to “copy, use, distribute, transmit and display the
work publicly” and:
A complete version of the work and all supplemental materials, including a copy of the
permission as stated above, in a suitable standard electronic format is deposited immediately
upon initial publication in at least one online repository that is supported by an academic
institution, scholarly society, government agency, or other well-established organization that
seeks to enable open access, unrestricted distribution, interoperability, and long-term
archiving (Bethesda Statement on Open Access Publishing, 2003).
In order to fulfil these requirements, the usual methods of disseminating research could
not be used. As the internet had allowed users to access bibliographic information
regarding the research, it would also provide the required infrastructure to support and
enhance the open access movement. Open access publications were created and search
engines, such as the Directory of Open Access Journals, grouped together a number of
publications. Institutions saw the open access movement as a possibility to increase the
audience of their research – universities had a new forum in which they could promote
the work of their staff and of their students. The concept of institutional repository
emerged from the ideology of open access and the desire to expand the scope of
research dissemination. The term was coined by the Scholarly Publishing for
Academic Resources Coalition – SPARC (Shearer, 2003). Institutional repositories (IRs)
are characterized by the fact that they are digital, institutionally defined (different than
eprints servers which are discipline based), scholarly, cumulative and perpetual, open
access and interoperable (Crow, as cited in Shearer, 2003, p. 2).
Based on these characteristics, IRs have been defined in different ways. Lynch
(2003) describes them as:
[. . .] a set of services that a university offers to the members of its community for the
management and dissemination of digital materials created by the institution and its
community members. It is most essentially an organizational commitment to the stewardship
of these digital materials, including long-term preservation where appropriate, as well as
organization and access or distribution.
IRs are more than a simple organization tool. According to Crow (2002, p. 4), they also
play an important part in “reforming the system of scholarly communication” through
the expansion of access to research, the reassertion of control over scholarship by
academics, the increased competition and the reduction of the monopoly power of
AP journals, which can bring economic relief and heightened relevance to the institutions
61,5 and libraries that support them. IRs also have the potential to become “tangible
indicators of a university’s quality and to demonstrate the scientific, societal, and
economic relevance of its research activities, thus increasing the institution’s visibility,
status, and public value” (Crow, 2002, p. 4).
The early development of IRs provided a forum to discuss issues such as open
438 access, self-archiving and the promotion of an institution’s research capabilities. The
idea of IRs was not a difficult one to “sell” to most academics. Some of the most
prevalent reasons were to “increase the visibility and citation impact of your
institution’s scholarship; to provide unified access to an institution’s scholarship, to
provide open access to your institution’s scholarship and to preserve the institution’s
scholarship” (Bailey, 2008). The purpose of the IRs, based on the aforementioned
rationale would be to develop “a mature and fully realized IR containing the intellectual
works of faculty and students – both research and teaching materials and also
documentation of the activities of the institution itself in the form of records or events
and performance and of the on-going living of the institution” (Lynch, 2003) which
would provide “a new channel for structuring the university’s contribution to the
broader world, and as such, one that invites policy and cultural re-assessment of the
relationship between the university and the broader world” (Lynch, 2003).
Lynch’s perspective is not shared by all. Steven Harnad disagrees with Lynch’s
definition in which IRs include many different types of publications. Harnad would
prefer IRs that focus on peer-reviewed publications from faculty (Harnad, 2002). The
broad range of information that would be contained in a fully developed IR based on
Lynch’s description would possibly make it more difficult for the IR to replace
conventional research dissemination tools due to the variety of information it contains.
The status of IRs is further confounded by the fact that they can be conceptualized as
three different entities: electronic scholarly communication forums; digital libraries; and
knowledge management systems (Kim, 2007). Many believe that IRs have the possibility
to transform the process by which scholarly communication is done (Chan, 2004, p. 277).
Researchers become more responsible for archiving their work and ensuring that it
reached a larger population. The emergence of these new responsibilities and staff
participation hinged on the platforms developed to house the new IRs.

Implementation of institutional repositories

Since the term institutional repository was coined by SPARC in 2002, a number of
institutions have implemented them, using the different platforms available. A survey
of IRs in the USA was conducted in 2005 by Lynch and Lippincott. Early deployment
was difficult to ascertain and was likely underestimating deployment (McDowell,
2007). Work by Lynch and Lippincott (2005) found that 41 repositories were
implemented in the USA in early 2005. Further work by McDowell (2007) showed
growth in the number of repositories in the USA – in March 2007, 100 institutions now
had repositories. Van Westrienen and Lynch (2005) expanded on Lynch’s earlier work
by surveying deployment status in 13 nations. They found that France, Germany and
Italy had the highest percentage of IRs – with Germany leading the way with more
repositories than universities. Contents of the IRs were also studied and the survey
showed that articles, thesis and books were the most prevalent type of material
included in the IRs (Van Westrienen and Lynch, 2005). Current lists of IRs can be found
in the directory of open access repositories (OpenDOAR, www.opendoar.org/) and the Institutional
registry of open access repositories (ROAR, http://roar.eprints.org/). repositories
Technology and online information retrieval platforms
in Canada
The importance of the technical infrastructure behind the IR has been shown – it is one
of the issues reported by Henty (2007) in Australia and Kelly (2007) in New Orleans.
The user needs are also very important, as illustrated by Krevit and Crays (2007). The 439
steep learning curve was one of the reasons for non-use detailed by Davis and Connolly
(2007) and lacking functionality was also a hurdle in the development of IRs. Tools
required for providing an appropriate technical infrastructure, facilitate the learning,
and ensure that user needs are met through proper functionalities can be knowledge
organization systems (KOS). KOS is the term used to “encompass all types of schemes
for organizing information and promoting knowledge management” (Hodge, 2000) as it
was coined by the Networked Knowledge Organization Systems Working Group.
Knowledge organisation systems “organize, manage and retrieve information” (Hodge,
2000). They include term lists such as authority files, glossaries, dictionaries and
gazetteers. Classification and categories such as subject headings (for example, the
library of congress subject headings), classification schemes (such as the Dewey
decimal classification), taxonomies and categorization schemes are also KOS. More
complex knowledge organisation systems are thesauri (such as the ERIC Thesaurus),
semantic networks (such as Princeton University’s WordNet) and ontologies.
In a digital environment, a KOS “serves as a bridge between the user’s information
need and the material in the collection” (Hodge, 2000). Since the internet became widely
available, a number of studies have looked at how KOS are used online to enhance the
organization, management and retrieval of information.
One of the earlier efforts in this area was the study of the use of classification
schemes, such as the Dewey decimal classification and the library of congress
classification, in a digital environment through the desire project (www.desire.org/).
Thesauri use in online information retrieval systems was reviewed by Shiri et al.
(2002). This early study showed that both research-based and commercial systems
were using thesauri and that the use of this type of KOS was growing. One of the issues
that arose from this study was that although the number of thesauri-enhanced search
engines was growing, few of them had studied the user interaction with the search
engine which imposed limits on the overall performance of the thesauri-enhanced
search engines (Shiri et al., 2002).
Shiri and Molberg (2005) investigated the interfaces to KOS in digital library
collections in Canada. In the 33 digital library collections surveyed, KOS were
evaluated to determine how they allow the user to search or browse the collection.
They found that thesauri, subject heading lists and classification schemes were the
main tools incorporated into the digital library interfaces to support the user fulfil his
or her information need. Through the evaluation of these knowledge organisation
systems, they concluded that “searching, browsing and navigation facilities as well as
bilingual features call for improvements” (Shiri and Molberg, 2005, p. 1).

Objectives and methodology

Although studies have already looked at the impact and usefulness of KOS in an online
environment, there has yet to be one that focused on IRs. The present work will look to
AP determine whether Canadian IRs have incorporated KOS on the search and browsing
61,5 interfaces and will examine the search interfaces with the objective of providing
insight on the optimal design from a user perspective. Implications of this research will
contribute to the design of the search interface and on the ways in which KOS can be
incorporated in order to facilitate information retrieval. The following methodology
was used to conduct this research:
440 .
Review the literature related to the use of KOS on the web.
.
Identify IRs, focusing initially on Canadian universities and expanding if
necessary.
.
Identify and analyze interface features supporting searching and browsing in
IRs.
.
Create a directory of IRs with KOS.
.
Identify which repositories have incorporated KOS and how they are
incorporated in their search and browsing interfaces.
.
Identify main characteristics of KOS used in IRs and compare the different
platforms.

Institutional repositories in post-secondary institutions in Canada

In order to identify all the institutions with IRs, the OpenDOAR and the ROAR were
consulted. Table I summarizes the information on deployment of IRs in Canada.
Interestingly, some of the universities had more than one repository registered to
their institution. For example, Dalhousie University administers the D-Drive document
server for its Faculty of Computer Science and DalSpace for the university as a whole.
This illustrates one of the challenges associated with implementing an institution-wide
repository: some faculties may already have a successful system in place and may not
want to change to the new all-encompassing system which may not be designed to suit
their personal needs in the same way as their unique repository. Therefore, in the
Dalhousie example cited above, the D-Drive Document Server may not correspond to
the accepted definition of an IR – if it is discipline-based, it would be considered an
eprint server in the framework of this study.
Table II describes the details of the different IRs implemented in Canadian
post-secondary institutions. The table does not include some of the department-based
IRs such as the D-Drive repository at Dalhousie but rather focuses on the IRs that
accept contributions from the complete institution – or are set up to do so. The web
sites for all the IRs evaluated in this study are found in the Appendix, Table A1.
Statistically, the mean number of entries is 3,130 with a median of 829 items. The
University of Windsor had the least amount of entries at five but that was likely due to
fact that the IR seemed to be in its initial phase of implementation. The largest IR was
found at Memorial University followed by the University of Calgary. The number of

List Total IRs Post-secondary education institution Other institution or group

Table I.
Intuitional repositories OpenDOAR 41 33 8
in Canada ROAR 44 31 13
 No. of
Institutional
Institution Institutional repository name Platform entries repositories
Athabasca University AUSpace DSpace 733
in Canada
University of Alberta University of Alberta Institutional DSpace 130
Repository
University of Calgary University of Calgary Institutional DSpace 16,147 441
Repository
University of Lethbridge University of Lethbridge Institutional DSpace 578
Repository
Simon Fraser University Simon Fraser University Institutional DSpace 1,706
Repository
University of British cIRcle DSpace 412
Columbia
University of Victoria UVicDSpace DSpace 186
University of Manitoba MSpace DSpace 2,424
University of Winnipeg eCommons Research Digital 159
Commons
University of New UNB Digital Repository DSpace 903
Brunswick
Memorial University Memorial University Digital Archive Creative 25,281
Initiative Commons
Dalhousie University DalSpace DSpace 5,379
Acadia Divinity College Digital Collection Other 233
McMaster University Digital Commons @ McMaster Digital 5,059
Commons
Laurentian University LUZone DSpace 134
Queen’s University Qspace DSpace 637
University of Guelph University of Guelph Institutional DSpace 1,370
Repository
University of Toronto T-Space University of Toronto Research DSpace 9,776
Repository
University of Waterloo UWSpace DSpace 2,230
University of Windsor WinSpace DSpace 5
York University YorkSpace DSpace 636
University of Prince Edward Rspace DSpace 2,215
Island
McGill University eScholarship@McGill eScholarship 755
Université de Montréal Papyrus DSpace 2,086
Université du Québec à Archipel eCommons 325 Table II.
Montréal Overview of institutional
Université Laval Archimede Other 1,868 repository in Canadian
University of ETD Other – post-secondary
Sasakatchewan institutions

entries in the different IRs varies greatly. Figure 1 is a graphical representation of the
distribution of entries for the different IRs.
In Canadian post-secondary institutions, data collection seemed to indicate a
significant preference for the DSpace platform. As summarized in Table III, DSpace
was used in 20 of the 27 repositories. It is interesting to note that DSpace was not used
for the largest IR found at Memorial University. The Creative Commons platform was
used to showcase the university’s Digital Archives. The University of Calgary and the
AP 8
61,5 7

442 5
Number of IR

0
Figure 1. 1-5 6-100 101-500 501- 1,001- 2,501- 5,001- More
IRs as a function of 1,000 2,500 5,000 10,000
number of entries
Number of entries

Software used Number of universities

DSpace 20
eCommons 2
Table III. Digital Commons 1
Platform used in Creative Commons 1
post-secondary IRs in eScholarship 1
Canada Other 2

University of Toronto do have active and large IRs which use DSpace but there are a
number of smaller IRs that use DSpace, even if the institution itself is rather large and
likely generates a very large amount of research that could be showcased in an IR.
This survey information provides an overview of the platforms and contents of IRs
in post-secondary institutions in Canada. The next step of this research was to study
the use of KOS in the different IRs. The first step was to identify which IRs had
incorporated KOS and to evaluate how successfully it had been done.

Examination of institutional repositories in Canada

The examination of Canadian IRs will focus on the platforms used to determine if there
are significant differences. It will then progress to the KOS in place in the different IRs.
The KOS evaluation will review accessibility, searching options, KOS, retrieval and
display and dissemination and maintenance.

Examination of knowledge organization systems in institutional repositories

After locating the different IRs, the next step was to determine if these provided the
user with KOS to facilitate information retrieval and management. Each IR was
evaluated according to 20 criteria to determine if KOS were not only present but useful Institutional
to the user. The evaluation criteria selected were based on those used by Shiri and repositories
Molberg (2005) in their study of KOS use in digital library collections in Canada. The
criteria were separated into five general categories: accessibility, searching in Canada
capabilities, knowledge organization, retrieval and display and maintenance.
Appendix 2 contains the complete results of the initial evaluation.
443
Accessibility
The first evaluation criteria was determining how easily accessible the IR was. The
goals of IRs, as per Crow (2003), are to enhance access to research. If the IR is difficult
to locate, the information it contains would be even more difficult to find. In order to
evaluate how easily accessible the IR was, a search for “institutional repository” or
“digital repository” was conducted for each institution from its homepage. An IR was
deemed difficult to find if the search could not produce a hit for the IR or if the IR could
not be accessed from the library web site. A total of 13 of the IRs were considered “hard
to find” whereas 14 were found relatively easily through a site search from the main
university site or on the library’s web site.

Searching options
All of the IRs had both simple and advanced search options as well as a browsing
option. The layout of these varied greatly depending on the IR. The simple search was
found on the homepage of the IR, as shown in the different IRs represented in
Figures 2-7. The simple search, although it was not indicated to the user, performs a
full-text search of all the items in the digital collection and does support Boolean logic.
The DSpace advanced search interface is represented in Figure 2. The advanced search
enables the user to search a specific section of the IR and search specific fields of the
metadata. DSpace (and other platforms as well) organizes its digital collection in
Communities and Collections. These represent a high level classification system and
usually represent the different faculties or document types. The advanced search is
also set up to enable the user to incorporate Boolean logic and different search fields.
The search fields available in most DSpace platforms are keyword, author, subject,
title, abstract, series, sponsors, identifier and language. The advanced search does not
specify to the user that keyword and abstract are full-text searches.
The McMaster advanced search uses a format similar to DSpace where fields can be
searched and Boolean logic can be added to the search string. One noticeable difference
is the possibility to expand the number of search fields. The fields that can be searched
are also different. The McMaster search engine enables the user to search by all fields,
full text, keyword, subject area, first name, last name, institution, corporate author,
date, title, abstract, publication title and discipline.
The eCommons advanced search interface is significantly different. Figure 4 shows
the Université du Québec à Montréal form that the user can fill out to search the
different fields. The user must fill out a form to perform his or her search. There is no
indication if the search engine supports Boolean logic and the form may seem
overwhelming to the user. The fields included in the form are full text, title, author,
abstract, keyword, faculty, document type, state (published, pre-publication, etc.),
peer-reviewed, name of publication, date and title/abstract/author/keyword.
AP
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444

Figure 2.
DSpace advanced
search interface

Figure 3.
Digital Commons
advanced search interface
 Institutional
repositories
in Canada

445

Figure 4.
eCommons advanced
search interface

Figure 5.
Memorial University
digital archives initiative
advanced search
AP
61,5

446

Figure 6.
University of Calgary IR
subject search and browse

Another different type of search interface is the one proposed by Memorial which is
shown in Figure 5. This type of search interface provides the user with the opportunity
to select the specific collections to search – DSpace permits the selection of one
community or collection whereas the Memorial search can be done over multiple
collections. It also provides the user with the possibility to search in a selected field and
also provides a proximity search option. The user can know what type of search they
are performing, which provides additional information lacking from the DSpace
interface.
Most of the search interfaces do not provide search tips to the user. Memorial
University informs the user how to select more than one collection; Université du
Québec à Montréal details the appropriate format for the name search. For an
inexperienced user, the lack of search tips may prevent the completion of a successful
information retrieval. There are search tips included in the help files but not all users
take the time to consult the help file. Without appropriate instruction on how to search
the IRs, they will probably not be used to their full potential. Wildemuth (2006, p. 827)
studied the impact of search support based on user behaviour (such as Google’s
implicit AND) and she noted that “this type of support, may be natural for the user but
not necessarily helpful in achieving the best search outcomes”. A better alternative in
her eyes would be to “consider ways to encourage users to employ strategies that are
more effective” (Wildemuth, 2006, p. 827). The search interfaces of IRs look to simplify
the search for the user which may be counter-productive.
 Institutional
repositories
in Canada

447

Figure 7.
University of Toronto
IR subject search

Knowledge organization systems

Another aspect that is greatly lacking with the search capabilities of the IR is the lack
of flexibility. This lack of flexibility shows that KOS are minimally incorporated in the
IRs. Following the evaluation of the searching options, KOS in the different IRs were
evaluated.
Once the search has been performed, most IRs do not let the user modify the search.
Memorial University’s Digital Archives Initiative is the only one providing that
functionality to the user. In terms of achieving the best search outcome, when the lack
of flexibility is coupled with the lack of search history, it shows a significant deficiency
in the IR platform. The user must start with a new search each time – this puts a large
responsibility on the user to record their searches and try to find appropriate
descriptors. Many casual searchers will not take the time to do this and may find that
using an IR is a frustrating experience. Although primitive forms of KOS are
implemented through the collections/communities (a high level classification) and the
AP subject assigned to each item, the IRs are not set up to permit the use of the KOS at
61,5 different steps of the information retrieval process. Each search is independent and
cannot be modified or saved which is very problematic.
One of the important search options is the subject search which could also be
considered a high level KOS if it is implemented properly. As shown in the Advanced
Search discussion, most IRs provide the user with the option to do a subject search. By
448 assigning subjects to the items contained in the IRs, a KOS is provided to the user. But
solely assigning a subject does not necessarily equate to a productive KOS. Most IRs
provide a list of the subject terms included in their collection. The quality of these lists
is what determined if the KOS will be useful. If the items are catalogued according to
the LCSH, the KOS is more developed than if author-supplied keywords are used. One
of the big issues with the use of KOS in IRs arose when the subject fields were studied
in more detail. Table IV shows how the different IRs assign subjects to the items in the
collection.
Most IRs do not use formal subject headings to describe their items. The structure
for subject headings search is included in the platform but the institutions themselves
rarely choose to use it to its full potential. Even with the IRs that do use LCSH terms,
most of them do not use it uniformly for all of the items. Figure 6 which represents the
subject search function of the University of Calgary IR shows an alphabetical list of
LCSH subject headings assigned to the items in the repository. There is also no
indication of how many items have been assigned a specific subject term which could
be very useful to the user. There are some IRs that indicate the number of items
associated with each subject: the University of Manitoba, Queens’ University and the
University of Guelph. Although there is a structure to include subject headings, there is
no hyper navigation between the different items which have been assigned the same
subject headings.
The University of Toronto has an additional tool to search/browse subject headings
in a more hierarchical way. Figure 7 shows the structure of the subject search. It
provides the user with search tips (i.e. it is trying to provide tools for a more efficient
search) and shows the users the general area in which the subjects are. It also provides
a browsing option (not shown) and a filter search. The classification shown in the
subject search is also found in the items. The DSpace platform can be configured to
include controlled vocabularies (http://wiki.dspace.org/index.php/Use_controlled_
vocabularies_(JSP)) but that function is disabled in the default platform because the
use of controlled vocabulary is incompatible with WAI guidelines. DSpace does have a
license to distribute the Norwegian Science Index (http://gammel.uhr.no/utvalg/
forskning/dokumenter/forskdokNorskvitdisinnst.htm) and the Swedish Research
Subject Categories (www.ub.uu.se/epub/categories/) which are represented in the
University of Toronto’s subject search. The University of Toronto is the only IR in

Subject scheme Number of IR

Library of congress subject headings 6

Table IV. Author supplied 21
Subject heading use in IRs Other 1 (UVic subject headings)
Canada incorporating the controlled vocabulary option in its search options. The only Institutional
other IR using the classification Dublin Core element is the University of Calgary repositories
which assigns an LCC number to their items.
Although the subject search is included in most IRs, it can produce some interesting in Canada
results. For example, the search for “abnormal loads” in the University of Waterloo’s IR
returns four titles – with only two having the subject “abnormal loads” assigned to
them. One of the lacking functionalities of IR is also the lack of highlight of the search 449
term. There are some searches that return items where it is very difficult for the user to
determine where the search word appears. It often seems that a full text search is
performed no matter what field is searched.

Retrieval and display

Even with the issues associated with the search, users will be able to find some items
related to their information need. The users can also browse the IRs – by community
and collection, by title, author and title (and some by subject). An example of browsing
by title is shown in Figure 8.
Once the item has been located, either through the search function or the browsing
function, the user has a few options to visualize the results. As stated previously, there
is no option to modify the search after the results are obtained for most of the IRs. The
norm is to provide two different results display once the item has been selected. The
default is the simple item record which is reproduced in Figure 9. It provides
bibliographic information to the user along with a link to download the information.
When the “Show full item record” button is clicked, the full record appears in Dublin
Core, as shown in Figure 10. A record from the University of Calgary is shown as it is
the most complete. The KOS used in the University of Calgary’s IR, as indicated in the
Dublin Core tags: subject.lcc and subject.lcsh, are the library of congress classification
and the library of congress subject headings. The full item record shows the metadata
and depending on how developed the IR is, the metadata is richer, like at the University
of Calgary or can even be non-existent. The University of Windsor’s IR does not
provide the user with the link to the full item record but since the IR is in its early
development stages, it may be because it is yet to be populated. The item in Figure 10

Figure 8.
QSpace title browse
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450

Figure 9.
Simple item record from
DSpace platform

Figure 10.
Full item record
includes the physical description of the thesis, even if it is an online file. It is likely that Institutional
the University of Calgary simply adapted the catalogue record for the physical repositories
dissertation to format required by Dublin Core.
The displays are user friendly and easy to navigate but the main missing element is in Canada
the option to modify the search once it has been done. The full item record illustrates
the fields that would be used by search engines to find the document located in the IR.
But is the metadata significant enough to enable the user to find the information from 451
another search engine, like Google for example? Margaret Markland undertook a study
where users were asked to search for IR documents using keywords and titles in
Google and Google Scholar. She found that better results were obtained when the title
of the work was known (Markland, 2006). One of the main goals of the IR is to
disseminate information to a larger population. To determine if it would be possible to
find a particular work using Google, a search was performed using the subject terms
for a University of Calgary document (LCSH) and for a University of Alberta document
(which did not use LCSH). Figure 11 shows that entering the LCSH subject heading
returns the item (whose full item record is known in Figure 10) as the first item. This
represents a successful search and would seem to broaden the dissemination of this
work which fulfils the foremost goal of the IR.
The full record for a University of Alberta item is shown in Figure 12. Although it
contains many of the same fields as the University of Calgary records, it does not
include the dc. prefix.
A search was performed in Google using the two subject terms included in this
record. In order to increase the likelihood of retrieving the document, both subject
terms were included and brackets were used to combine all the terms found in the two
subject terms. Figure 13 illustrates that the Google search did not produce that specific
item in the first three hits – it was actually not included in the first three pages. This
illustrates the importance of using the Dublin Core capabilities of the IR platform and
of using LCSH instead of author-supplied keywords.
When the complete title of the work was searched in Google using brackets, it did
come up as the first result but it was not through the IR but rather through the faculty’s

Figure 11.
Google search using
LCSH from IR item
AP
61,5

452

Figure 12.
University of Alberta
full item record

Figure 13.
Goggle search for
University of Alberta item

web site (see Figure 14 for result of Google search) – the IR location was actually
second. Unless the title was known, it would be challenging to locate that particular
work – the dissemination of the University of Alberta’s work does not seem to be
significantly increased by the implementation of an IR.

Conclusion
This study looked to determine if IRs were implemented in Canadian post-secondary
institutions and if they were, what type of KOS were also incorporated in them. The
survey phase of this work identified 28 IR in post-secondary institutions – most of
these used the DSpace platform created by MIT and Hewlett Packard. The state of the
 Institutional
repositories
in Canada

453

Figure 14.
Google title search for
University of Alberta item

IR varied greatly from one institution to another. Some institutions had large
repositories with a constant rate in material being submitted, whereas others had IRs
with a few documents submitted in the early days and very little being submitted in
the recent past. The ROAR web site identified the submission date of the documents.
The University of Calgary shows a relatively constant submission of documents. When
the IR itself is scrutinized, the University of Calgary employs Dublin Core and LCSH
for their items and the Google search returned one of their documents when the subject
was searched. A successful IR, with appropriate support and funds, becomes more
popular which in turn enhances the dissemination of the institution’s research, which is
one of the main goals of the IR. On the other hand, a hastily constructed IR with little
modifications from the open-source platform can be more difficult to “sell” to the
faculty for many reasons: added work required to submit the work; low possibility of
work being retrieved from a non-traditional source (Google instead of a
subscription-based database) and lack of support from the administrators of the IR.
Overall, most large Canadian universities had implemented IRs. The largest, the
University of Toronto, had one of the most developed IR and the contents were seen to
be increasing instead of stagnating. It also incorporated some very basic KOS, such as
the hierarchical subject search. But many other institutions seemed to launch their IR
using an open-source software and then providing little support or few modifications.
The inclusion of KOS is not inherent in open-source repository platforms and many
institutions seemed to rush to provide this new platform to their community with little
thought as to what would be required to sustain, promote and adapt the IR should it
not meet with instant success. Most institutions have faced challenges when launching
the IR – some associated with the technological aspects but many associated with the
perception of the system. The lack of functionality of these systems may make it a
AP challenge to convince faculty that the IR would help their research reach a larger
61,5 population.
IRs are viewed as research repositories; the goal is to provide open-access to papers
and other types of publications. Currently, fee-based services provide that to
academics. These services have complex and ever-evolving KOS integrated and
optimized to facilitate information retrieval by the user. In contrast, IRs provide few
454 KOS and many institutions do not wish to provide support to staff assigned to
maintain the KOS which results in very low user-friendliness for most IRs. This survey
of KOS in IRs in Canada shows how little work has been done to incorporate them. In
terms of user interface work, this study highlights the need to overhaul many
interfaces to the IRs found in Canadian post-secondary institutions to provide users
with context (through a search history, options to modify the query following a first
search for example) in order to enhance their information retrieval experience. The use
of controlled vocabularies should be further explored along with the use of thesauri
and taxonomies for domain specific repositories. Many digital library collections
include thesauri – granted the implementation is simpler as digital collections can
often focus on a single subject – IR developers should explore the ways in which
controlled vocabularies can be incorporated as knowledge organization tools. For
instance, Strathrints, the University of Strathclyde institutional repository in Glasgow,
Scotland has made use of the Library of congress classification scheme to organize the
information in the repository. IR developers should look to KOS, as the bridge between
a user’s information need and the material in the collection (Hodge, 2000), to help
propagate the information contained in the collection and ensure that an institution’s
body of work reaches as large an audience as possible. Much work still needs to be
done for IRs to facilitate the process of scholarly publication and communication, as
had been envisioned by SPARC when the term was coined in 2002. But since the idea of
an IR is recent, it is encouraging to see how many institutions have developed IRs.
Further research should be carried out to investigate information organization and
representation issues in the context of institutional repositories. This research should
focus both on the use of existing controlled vocabularies as well as user-generated
metadata.

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456 Corresponding author

Ali Shiri can be contacted at: ashiri@ualberta.ca

Appendix

University Web site

Athabasca University http://auspace.athabascau.ca:8080/dspace/about.jsp?about

University of Alberta
University of Calgary
University of Lethbridge
Simon Fraser University
University of British Columbia
University of Victoria
University of Manitoba
University of Winnipeg
University of New Brunswick
Memorial University
Dalhousie University
Acadia Divinity College
McMaster University
Queen’s University
University of Guelph
University of Toronto
University of Waterloo
Laurentian University
University of Windsor
York University
University of Prince Edward Island
McGill University
Université de Montréal
Université du Québec à Montréal
Université Laval
Table AI.
Institutional repository
addresses University of Sasakatchewan
http://repository.library.ualberta.ca/dspace/handle/10048/188
https://dspace.ucalgary.ca/
www.uleth.ca/dspace/
http://ir.lib.sfu.ca/index.jsp
www.library.ubc.ca/circle/faq.html
https://dspace.library.uvic.ca:8443/dspace/
https://mspace.lib.umanitoba.ca/index.jsp
http://ecommons.uwinnipeg.ca/
http://dspace.hil.unb.ca:8080/
http://collections.mun.ca/
http://dspace.dal.ca/dspace/
http://divinity.acadiau.ca/dspace/
http://digitalcommons.mcmaster.ca/
http://library.queensu.ca/webir/planning/qspace.htm
http://dspace.lib.uoguelph.ca/
https://tspace.library.utoronto.ca/
http://uwspace.uwaterloo.ca/
https://zone.biblio.laurentian.ca/dspace/
http://winspace.uwindsor.ca/dspace/
www.library.yorku.ca/dspace/handle/123456789/899
http://dspace.roblib.upei.ca:8080/dspace/
http://digitool.library.mcgill.ca:8881/R/
https://papyrus.bib.umontreal.ca/dspace/
www.archipel.uqam.ca/
http://archimede.bibl.ulaval.ca/archimede/pages/exploration/
PageNotFound.jsf;jsessionid ¼ A31765A0EE2D5EF46A06
DBC1EB4D704 F
http://grad.usask.ca/etd/

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 Criteria for evaluation of KOS in IRs
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z AA

IR accessibility
Is the IR easy to find? y n n n y y y y n y y y n y n y y n n n y y n n y n
Is there a help page? y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y n n n
Is the help page useful? y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y n n n
Is there a description of the IR? y n y y y y n y y Y y y y n y n y y n y y y y y n n
Is there a simple search? y y y y y y y y y Y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y
Is there an advanced search? y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y
Is there a browsing option? y y y y y y y y y Y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y n
Are there indications for submitting documents? y y y y y y y y y y n n y y y y y y y y y y y n y
IR searching
Alternative term suggestion? n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n
Possible to expand/refine search? n n n n n n n n y n y n n n n n y n n n n y n y n n
Supports Boolean logic? y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y
Term re-direction when searching with subject terms? n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n
Search history? n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n y n n n n
Personal account? y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y n y y n n
Search tips? y y y y y y y y y y y y n y y y y y y y y n y n y n
Full-Text Search? y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y
IR KOS
Is the KOS explained to the user? y n n n n n y n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n
Can the user search by subject term? y y y y y y y y y y y y n y y y y y y y y y y y y y
Is there a list of subject terms? n n y y n n y n y y n y n n n n y y n y n n n n n n
(continued)
repositories
Institutional

in Canada

Evaluation of IRs
Table AII.
457
 AP
61,5

458

Table AII.
Criteria for evaluation of KOS in IRs
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z AA

Does the KOS include hierarchical relationships? n n n n n n y n n n n y n n n n n n n n n y n n n n

Is there hyper-text navigation for subjects? n n n n n n n n y y n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n
Display number of hits for each descriptor? n n n n n n n y n y n n n y y y n n n n n n n n n n
Is it possible to search terms with no documents attached to
them? n y y y y y y n y y y y n y n y y y y y y n y n y n
IR retrieval and display
Possible to modify query after documents have been
retrieved? n n n n n n n n y n y n n n n n y n n n n y n y n n
Is search term highlighted in result display? n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n
Is there the option to modify the item display? y y y y y y y y n y n y y y y y y y n y y y y n n n
IR maintenance
Last update? y n n y y y n n y y n n n n y n y y n y y y y n n n
Broken links? n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n
Selective dissemination? y y y y y y y y y y n y y y y y y y n y y n y n n n
Notes: A, Acadia Divinity College; B, Athabasca University; C, University of Alberta; D, University of Calgary; E, University of Lethbridge; F, Simon
Fraser University; G, University of British Columbia; H, University of Victoria; I, University of Manitoba; J, University of Winnipeg; K, University of New
Brunswick; L, Memorial University; M, Dalhousie University; N, McMaster University; O, Laurentian University; P, Queen’s University; Q, University of
Guelph; R, University of Toronto; S, University of Waterloo; T, University of Windsor; U, York University; V, University of Prince Edward Island;
W, McGill University; X, Université dé Montréal; Y, Université du Québec à Montréal; Z, Université Laval; AA, University of Saskatchewan
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