Adriana Popescu
Interim Dean of Library Services
California Polytechnic State University
Radu Popescu
Lecturer
California Polytechnic State University
In the context of the ongoing conversation surrounding the role of institutional repositories (IRs), Kennedy Library at California Polytechnic State University initiated a study to investigate if the library’s open repository focused on stewarding, preserving and disseminating materials created by the student community has a positive impact on the overall visibility and impact of faculty scholarship, independent of faculty’s participation in the repository. This is done by analyzing two distinct samples of publications: 1) a group of faculty publications from six academic departments for which research impact is calculated based on Web of Science citation data; and 2) a group of student publications (senior projects), from the same six academic departments, that are deposited in an open repository (Digital Commons). The main conclusion of the statistical analysis is that student repository activity, quantified through undergraduate senior student projects deposited in an open IR and their download counts, is significantly correlated with the research impact of faculty publications, expressed as a measure of the citation counts. This preliminary finding provides the foundation for further analysis to demonstrate the value of preserving and disseminating student research through institutional repositories.