Scientific publications now stored in DSpace repository

Publications by Tilburg researchers will now be stored in the open-source repository DSpace. With this move, the university takes another step towards open science and reduces its dependence on commercial parties such as Elsevier. However, a complete break from commercial software is not yet in sight.

The choice for the open source application DSpace is not a coincidence. More than two years ago, Professor Juliëtte Schaafsma already warned in Univers that universities were too dependent on commercial publishers. Due to the open access movement, which makes scientific publications freely available to a broad audience, publishers like Elsevier are earning less from publications. As a result, they are developing new revenue models.

Schaafsma pointed out that university software such as research information system Pure is owned by commercial publishers, who, according to her, can profit from collecting and trading data on researchers’ reading and downloading behavior. For this reason, the professor advocated for a swift break with commercial parties.

Better archiving and version management

The beginning of that break is now a reality. Since February 3, Tilburg University has been using DSpace as its institutional repository. According to Daan Rutten, head of the Library Office and Research Support Team, DSpace functions as a ‘digital depot’ where all files and data of scientific publications are stored.

In addition to reducing dependence on commercial parties, functionality also played a major role in this decision. While Pure is mainly intended for finding and downloading publications, DSpace offers the possibility to manage and archive multiple versions over the long term. This aligns well with the university’s open science principles and was a decisive factor in choosing DSpace, according to Rutten.

Not a single party

However, the university is not yet free from commercial parties. Researchers still enter their work into Pure, after which the information is automatically transferred to DSpace. Functional administrators Frank Diepmaat and Maarten Leenders describe this as ‘a first step towards becoming less dependent on large commercial publishers.’

Schaafsma is pleased that her call has been acknowledged, although she finds the decision to retain Pure ‘deeply regrettable.’ She hopes that the university will fully abandon Pure in the near future. Schaafsma: ‘I believe universities should join forces to break free from major commercial data harvesters by developing alternatives themselves. This is more urgent now than ever.’

Alternatives

Whether the university will completely phase out Pure in the long run remains uncertain. Rutten: ‘We want to be less dependent on commercial parties as a university, but the most important thing right now is that all our data is no longer confined to a single commercial system. Additionally, we need software like Pure to ensure the findability of our scientific publications.’ Rutten expresses hope that open source alternatives will be convincing enough in the next procurement round to make the switch.

Diepmaat and Leenders also emphasize that alternatives are still in their early stages. Eventually, DSpace could fully replace Pure, but according to the functional administrators, the software still lacks essential functionalities. Because its development relies on a group of non-commercial developers, it is less responsive to new advancements.

Developing software in-house, as Schaafsma suggests, is also not so simple, according to the functional administrators: ‘This requires significant software development capacity, something universities have had less and less of in recent years due to budget cuts. As a result, we have become even more dependent on commercial parties that do have these capabilities.’