ASSESSMENT OF INSTITUTIONAL REPOSITORY INITIATIVES AND DEVELOPING A LOCALIZED KNOWLEDGE REPOSITORY FRAMEWORK FOR ETHIOPIAN HIGHER EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS

Alemseged Kassahun; Habtamu Temesgen

Alemseged Kassahun Lecturer, Faculty of Computing and Software Engineering, Arba Minch Institute of Technology, Arba Minch University, Arba Minch, Ethiopia.
Habtamu Temesgen System Administrator, Information Communication Technology Directorate, Arba Minch University, Arba Minch, Ethiopia.

Keywords: Institutional Repository, Higher Education, Framework, Availability, Open Access, Open Source

Abstract

This study’s interest is to assess the present status of Institutional Repository (IR) in Ethiopian Higher education institutions for its Existence, Usage, Policy issue, Content variety, Availability, and Software Type of digital repository collections available to academic community and industries as open access. For this purpose, selected Ethiopian higher education institutions have been consulted to assess their digital strategies through wide- ranging data collection approaches. Subsequently the paper focuses to design and develop a cloud based Knowledge Repository System’s Framework for institutional repositories in Ethiopian context. Results showcased few operational institutional repositories, which were in place at some institutions, but the majorities were not experiencing such a system. The study contributes to a more informed understanding of the development of IRs and identifies a framework for better availability of existing institutional repositories and for future IR developments. For the functionality and validity assurance, the prototype has also designed and tested in real world scenario for virtualized cloud environment and found practical and useable.

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