Repository ranking underlines Southampton’s global influence

The University of Southampton’s School of Electronics and Computer Science (ECS) EPrints repository of research publications is now one of the top ten in the world, according to the official world ranking of institutional repositories (published this week).

Southampton ECS EPrints is ranked number 10 in the world, just behind MIT and the combined campuses of the University of California. The University of Southampton’s university-wide EPrints repository (excluding ECS) is ranked number 27 and University College London’s repository is ranked number 79 – the only three repositories in the UK to rank in the top 100. There are 80 UK institutions in the top 800 institutional repositories.

The rankings are based principally on the number of links into the repository from external websites, demonstrating the impact of an institution’s research on the rest of the Web.

Dr Les Carr, EPrints Technical Director, comments: “This is excellent news for Southampton, since it clearly demonstrates the value of being able to archive all our research publications on the Web and provide open access to them.

“It also underlines the success of the Open Access Initiative which, together with developments in semantic technologies in which Southampton is also in the forefront, will help ensure in the future that the world can have access to all its scientific research and that the results can be analysed and linked through the World Wide Web.â€?

The aim of the global ranking is to support Open Access initiatives which provide free access to scientific publications in an electronic form. The School of Electronics and Computer Science at the University of Southampton is a world-leader in the technology and design of open access repositories as well as in the design of institutional open access policy.

The University of Southampton institution-wide mandate was introduced in 2008. Wendy White, Repository Manager of University of Southampton EPrints, comments: “Providing global open access to our research ensures that a range of sectors including governments, charities and businesses can make full use of this work.â€?

“The Ranking Web of World Repositoriesâ€? is an initiative of the Cybermetrics Lab, a research group belonging to the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC), the largest public research body in Spain. The rankings have been published since 2006.

Not only was ECS the first academic institution in the world to adopt a self-archiving mandate (2001), it also created the first repository-creating software (EPrints), now used by institutions worldwide. The School’s digital library researchers have also demonstrated the citation-impact advantage of self-archiving, and continue to maintain the Registry of Open Access Repositories (ROAR), tracking the number, size and growth of institutional repositories worldwide, as well as ROARMAP, tracking the global growth of self-archiving mandates by institutions and funders. Professor Stevan Harnad, the leader of the global “greenâ€? open access self-archiving movement, holds a Chair in the School.

For further information contact Joyce Lewis; tel.+44(0)23 8059 5453.