A Causal Analysis of the Progress of Open Access Using Institutional Repositories

Abstract

More than 800 institutional repositories exist in Japan, but only a few institutions are active in registering journal articles. In this study, we analyzed the causal relation between the number of journal articles and librarians' open access promotion activities to provide good practice guidelines to the institutional repository community. Quantitative analysis results using data from 87 domestic institutions showed "request for journal articles", a direct approach to researchers, was estimated particularly influential in increasing the number of journal articles. On the other hand, activities, for instance, in developing an "open access policy" or implementing "self-archiving" were found less influential. Additional collected data from 4 institutions regarding the "request for journal articles" to understand the details of the causal relation revealed an annual success rate averaged 36.32%. Furthermore, the data showed the annual success rate of an institution implementing it most effectively averaged 55.82%, reaching a peak of 73.20%.