Glossary of terms
On this page, an A-Z glossary of terms related to institutional repositories,
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
A
B
Bibliometrics
Bibliometrics is a set of methods used to study or measure texts and information. Citation analysis and content analysis are commonly used bibliometric methods.
Born digital
Born digital relates to a document that was created and exists only in a digital format.
Bundling
Bundling is a business practice of many large commercial journal publishers that entails offering universities access to a large group of journal titles at a discounted price. Can lower the average cost of access per journal, but reduces library control over collections and increases publishers' market power over libraries.
C
D
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)
A Digital Object Identifier (DOI) is a persistent unique code used to identify and retrieve a specific publication on the Internet, usually a journal article, web document, or other item of intellectual property.
Delegated management
This is the mechanism whereby an individual gives the rights to another so that they may manage their scholarly work on their behalf. An example is a researcher delegates to a clerical member of staff who can then manage the researchers scholarly work without necessarily seeking permission for every update.
E
Embargo
An embargo in academic publishing terms is a period during which access is not allowed to certain types of users. The purpose of this is usually to protect the revenue of the journal publisher.
Endnote
Endnote is a software tool for storing, managing literature references and creating bibliographies.
E-print
An e-print is a scholarly work that has been deposited in a digital repository. Also the name of a leading producer of digital repository software [eprints.org].
F
Fedora Commons
Fedora Commons is a digital asset management (DAM) architecture, upon which many types of digital library, institutional repositories, digital archives, and digital libraries systems can be built. Manchester eScholar utilises this repository architecture.
G
Grey literature
Grey literature refers to material that is not formally published, such as institutional or technical reports, working papers, business documents, conference papers...etc.
H
I
Impact factor
Impact factor is a quantitative measure of the frequency with which the 'average article' published in a given scholarly journal has been cited in a particular year or period; this is used in citation analysis. The impact factor is a measure of importance of scientific journals.
Institutional repository
An institutional repository is a type of digital repository that is designed to collect the work of a particular institution (usually a university), as opposed to a discipline specific repository. Manchester eScholar is the institutional repository of the University of Manchester.
Intellectual property
Intellectual property is any product of someone's intellect that has commercial value, especially copyrighted material, patents, and trademarks.
International Standard Book Number (ISBN)
An International Standard Book Number (ISBN) is a unique, numeric commercial book identifier which is usually found on the back cover or back of the title page of a book.
ISI Web of Knowledge
ISI Web of Knowledge is a multi-disciplinary online academic database provided by Thomson Scientific. It contains links to over 23,000 journals.
International Standard Serial Number (ISSN)
An International Standard Serial Number is a unique eight-digit number used to identify a print or electronic periodical publication.
J
K
L
M
Metadata
Metadata literally means "data about data". It is information about an informational resource, be that a document (such as a webpage), image, dataset or other resource. Metadata is valuable in the storage and retrieval of information. Resources supported by good quality, structured metadata are generally more easily discoverable.
N
O
OAI-PMH
Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting (OAI-PMH) is a protocol developed by the Open Archives Initiative which enables the harvesting of metadata records. OAI-PMH allows online services to be built using metadata from many different archives.
OAI-ORE
Open Archives Initiative Object Reuse and Exchange (OAI-ORE) defines the standards and exchange of collections of web resources such as repository metadata records. OAI-ORE allows large collections of metadata records to be exchanged on the World Wide Web.
Open access (OA)
Open access (OA) is free, immediate, permanent, full-text, online access, for any user of the World Wide Web, to digital scientific and scholarly material.
Orbeon
Orbeon is an open-source software used to create comlpex forms on the World Wide Web. Manchester eScholar uses Orbeon to create many of its user interfaces.
P
Persistent Identifier (PID)
A Persistant Identifier (PID) is a unique alpha-numeric code allocated to every object stored within Manchester eScholar. A PID allows for the easy identification of individual objects within Manchester eScholar.
Portable Document Format (PDF)
A Portable Document Format (PDF) is a file format created by Adobe Systems in 1993 for document exchange. PDF is used for representing two-dimensional documents in a manner independent of the application software, hardware, and operating system.
PubMed
PubMed is a free search engine for accessing the MEDLINE database of citations, abstracts and some full text articles on life sciences and biomedical topics.
Q
R
Research Assessment Exercise (RAE)
The Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) assesses the quality of the research undertaken by UK universities. The results of the RAE are used by the government when determining how much funding a particular university should receive.
Research Excellence Framework (REF)
The Research Excellence Framework (REF) is the new system being developed by the four UK higher education funding bodies to assess research quality after the 2008 Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) has been completed. The aim is for REF to make more use of quantitative evidence such as bibliometric indicators.
Reference Manager
Reference Manager is a software tool for storing, managing literature references and creating bibliographies.
Repository
A repository is an online, searchable, web-accessible database containing works of research deposited by scholars. Its purpose is to increase access to scholarship and ensure the long-term preservation of scholarly works. Digital repositories are often built to serve a specific institution's community of users, in which cases they are called institutional repositories.
S
Self-archiving
Self-archiving refers to a researcher placing a copy of their own article (or other scholarly work of research) in a digital repository.
T
U
Uniform Resource Identifier (URI)
A Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) is the generic term for all types of names and addresses that refer to objects — text, graphics, audio, video, and so forth — on the World Wide Web.
V
Virtual Journal
A Virtual Journal (or overlay journal) is an online development in which discipline-specific articles from various web-based sources are linked together to form a single virtual portal.
Versions
Versions is used in this context to describe one or more instances of a research output that is closely related to another in terms of its intellectual content.
Virtual Research Environment (VRE)
A Virtual Research Environment (VRE) is an online resource designed to help researchers in all disciplines manage the increasingly complex range of tasks involved in carrying out research. A VRE will provide a framework of applications, services and resources to support the underlying processes of research.