This document discusses cIRcle, an open access institutional repository at the University of British Columbia (UBC). cIRcle provides open access to published and unpublished scholarly works by UBC researchers and students. It increases the visibility, readership, and impact of works. The document highlights usage statistics, examples of digitized theses, and testimonials from faculty on how cIRcle benefits their work. It also describes the GSS cIRcle Open Scholar Award which recognizes innovative ways of communicating research.

1. Coming out of your silo
Leveraging cIRcle to increase your academic impact
Hilde Colenbrander, Francisco Grajales, & Meghan Radomske
October 21st, 2010 | UBC Open Access Week
Inspiring Knowledge Creation, Exploration and Discovery
FROM HERE

2. What is your place of mind regarding your
research?
How many papers do you write in a year?
How many of these get published?
What happens to all the others?
Is this fair to you, your colleagues, and your
faculty?

3. cIRcle
Experiences from the field
The GSS cIRcle Open Scholar Award
The Innovative Dissemination of Research
Award
Future Directions
Discussion

4. A database for the UBC community and its
partners:
◦ for the published and unpublished scholarly
materials that you create
All materials in cIRcle are openly accessible
on the web
cIRcle is a service of the UBC Library

5. circle.ubc.ca/

7. Pilot project in Spring 2007
Full Library service in Spring 2009

8. Openly accessible on the web
Increased visibility and readership
Improved indexing and hence findability
Multidisciplinary inquiry
Serendipitous discovery and collaboration

9. Recruiting tool
Classroom teaching tool
Stable URLs / links
Management and preservation of digital
materials
Open Access mandates (e.g. CIHR)
With acknowledgements to SMARTech at Georgia Tech

10. A database built on Open Source software
(DSpace)
Organized into Communities and Collections
Files are uploaded into Collections
Indexed by Google and other search engines
cIRcle tracks usage statistics

15. Usage stats

16. The vision: to create an international,
publicly available showcase for UBC
research
It’s part of Place and Promise, UBC’s
strategic plan

17. ROAR (Registry of Open Access Repositories)
currently lists 1920+ repositories around the
world
Australia: 61
Brazil: 73
Canada: 59
Germany: 123
India: 58
South Africa: 28
UK: 179
USA: 343
http://roar.eprints.org/

18. Digital materials:
◦ Research papers
◦ Conference and workshop papers
◦ Theses and dissertations
◦ Exemplary student projects (selected by
academic units)
◦ Unpublished reports and working papers
◦ Books, chapters and sections
◦ Datasets
◦ Learning objects
◦ Multimedia and audio-visual materials

19. Atlas of BC record
https://circle.ubc.ca/handle/2429/21647
Next screen: cover page of Atlas

29. Copyright owner retains copyright
cIRcle requires a non-exclusive license to
distribute (from rights holder)
Optional: attach a Creative Commons license
to your work in cIRcle

31. More than 28,500 items
26,100+ theses and dissertations
Top item in cIRcle has been viewed
more than 4,000 times
(since December 2009)

32. Retrospective Digitization Project
◦ More than 33,500 UBC theses and
dissertations since 1920s
◦ Showcase past UBC students’ unique projects
& promote contemporary research
◦ Currently includes over 22,800 theses &
dissertations from 1974-1987 & 1992-2006

33. ◦ First graduate degrees issued in 1919 to
Ruth Fulton and Isobel Harvey
◦ 6 out of first 10 UBC Masters degrees were
earned by women
◦ Fulton’s thesis has been viewed nearly
200 times from the US, Canada, China,
Austria, Switzerland, & Kenya

35. ◦ All UBC theses & dissertations encouraged
to be submitted electronically to cIRcle
◦ Over 3200 available
◦ Most accessed? “Canadian women and the
(re)production of women in Afghanistan”
by Melanie Butler with over 2500 views
since April

38. Social, Ecological, Economic, Development
Studies
◦ Unique academic program
◦ Students, staff, & faculty collaborate on
campus sustainability issues from climate
change to waste management
◦ Over 500 student projects featuring 3000
contributors since 2000—saved UBC
$200,000

41. ◦ cIRcle preserves and showcases over 170
of these projects
◦ Adam Rucker’s project has been viewed
over 650 times in the last 6 months

43. Professor Judith Lynam
School of Nursing:
◦ “As an investigator who is taking up an ‘integrated
KT’ approach to dissemination—it is helpful to have
some additional ways to refer to work (e.g. reports)
that are developed for a broader audience than the
typical audience for peer reviewed publications”.

45. Emeritus Professor R.G. Matson
Laboratory of Archaeology:
◦ “cIRcle is searchable, has good use information,
and, above all is reliable, in our world of constantly
changing URLs.”
◦ “We are impressed [with] the number of downloads
recorded in cIRcle, indicating that it has a far wider
circulation than we realized.”

51. The GSS cIRcle Open Scholar Award

52. Recognizes and rewards innovative ways
of communicating research
Students, faculty and staff are eligible
First winner, March 2010: Cycling Route
Planner, Michael Brauer and his team
Awarded annually by UBC Library

54. Enabling you to use cIRcle as your database
management system:
◦ Store your research output in cIRcle
◦ Create easy access to your research from your
web site
◦ We take care of long term accessibility and
preservation
Streamlining uploading procedures
Making all UBC research publicly available
through a single web portal

55. How many papers have you written and saved
in your hard drive?
What is stopping you from adding them to
cIRcle?
What would it take for you to put them up?

57. Hilde Colenbrander
◦ hilde.colenbrander@ubc.ca
Francisco Grajales
◦ cisco@franciscograjales.com
Meghan Radomske
◦ meghanradomske@gmail.com