Abstract

ANDRES, Gonzalo; CORTASSA AMADIO, Carina; WURSTEN, Andrés  and  LEGARIA, Juan Ignacio. Open access institutional digital repositories: a socio-technical approach. A case study of the repository of the Universidad Nacional de Entre Ríos - Argentina. Inf. cult. soc. [online]. 2020, n.42, pp.35-52. ISSN 1514-8327.  http://dx.doi.org/10.34096/ics.i42.7404.

A description and analysis of the socio-technical development of the Universidad Nacional de Entre Ríos (UNER, Argentina) Institutional Repository (IR) is presented. The study is part of a wider research project, focused on a variety of institutional strategies and practices devoted to promote science communication and the open access to knowledge. Relying on the Social Studies of Technology broad perspective, IRs are conceived as complex devices, whose design and implementation show tight links among technical means and artifacts, institutional decisions, norms, cultural habits, use practices, group affinities, interests and disputes. Qualitative data gathered through documentary sources, in-depth interviews and focused groups discussions, lead to identify a set of possibilities and difficulties involved in the diffusion strategy adopted by the University in the development of its digital repository. While allowing the institution to comply with applicable legal and technological requirements, that course of action also overlooked the internal relevant actors’ particular needs, practices and habits – all of them key dimensions for IR’s group appropriation and socio-technical sustainability.

Keywords : Institutional repositories; Open Access; Socio-technical approach; Sustainability; Universidad Nacional de Entre Ríos.

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