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WSU REPOSITORY GRADUALLY GAINING MOMENTUM
A single storage location aimed at consolidating and preserving far-ranging content from WSU’s students and academics is proving a much-needed outlet and making the appropriate strides.
Critical information ranging from dissertations, profiles, inaugural lectures, conferences papers and journal articles is housed on the VITAL platform, whilst on the other hand, the Figshare platform is used by the university community to manage research data, collaborate with others on projects and/or to create personal or group collections of research publications.
“The platform is a portal that acts like a library of all digital media and data files related to research of an institution,” said institutional repository manager Adelin Kantore.
To date, a total of 238 items have been uploaded on the VITAL platform, with Kantore calling on more academics to upload their research and other academic output such as conferences papers and articles, Masters and doctoral manuscripts.
He’s also called on the scholars to upload their grey literature, such as important university and any technical reports that talk to or about the history of the university, including:
- Publications on the history of WSU (post-merger processes namely Gazette, the first institutional operating plan;
- Institutional forum and organized union formation documents.
- Outputs from WSU linked scientific research groups;
- Preprints;
- Working papers from WSU research groups or committees and;
- White papers;
He reiterated that the repository serves as a single point of reference when evidence is needed for postgraduate studies audit and evaluation and it’s thus paramount that the system receives the manuscripts.
Additionally, the repository is a platform to showcase research and other scientific and academic outputs emanating from students and staff members to the university’s stakeholders, both locally and across the globe.
“Certain faculties and departments have shown interest and are engaging on hosting workshops aimed at introducing their members to the repository platforms and offer them training on how to use them,” he added.
However, Kantore is of the opinion that every student, academic and support staff must own this task and be participants in using and building the institutional repository by contributing content to it.
Mr Kantore is available at:
