In an institution's ecosystem of information services, the institutional repository, and the research information management (RIM) system, are two services focused on identifying and aggregating information. In both cases, these systems collect information on publications and resources found either in public sources, or those found solely at their institution. While an institutional repository is focused towards sharing outputs from its institution openly, it can be daunting to enter metadata at-scale or confirming the appropriate rights permission for what can be shared openly. Likewise, while the RIM system aggregates information from various external sources, it might not be aware of locally produced content, including gray-literature, whitepapers, locally published open access content, etc., which may not be yet indexed in broader information services. Additionally, the RIM system may not be able to serve as a content aggregation service to house the physical content represented by the metadata.
In the most recent 2022 OCLC report on Research Information Management in the United States, the report identified several discrete use cases for RIM systems, including the support of open access workflows and metadata reuse. So rather than seeing these systems as siloed resources focused on their own discrete missions, these tools should be bilaterally integrated.
This session will explore the needs, use, and strategic vision for an institutional repository and RIM system from panelists that represent two separate academic institutions. The session will focus on how these organizations utilize their IR and RIM systems, and how they have currently integrated them. Additionally, the panelists will discuss “the places they hope to go” and the future need for further integration to enhance the potential outcomes of RIMs and IR systems, to provide their maximum return on investment and reuse of institutional data, while also decreasing the level of burden for both researchers and administrators.
