Access to the research and expertise of faculty members will be greatly increased through an initiative underway in York’s Faculty of Education. Its DSpace Repository project will create links to a virtual space where faculty can house their electronic assets (journal articles, grey literature, e-books, PDFs, MP3s, videos and the like), thereby providing open access to their work.
The first phase of the repository project is underway. It will deposit digital assets into York’s institutional repository known as YorkSpace and then create links from the faculty profiles on the Faculty of Education Web site to YorkSpace. In the second phase of the project, faculty profiles will be linked to electronic assets held on the Internet if copyright restrictions prevent the electronic assets from being placed in YorkSpace.
The Faculty of Education’s project is part of the York University Libraries institutional repository project, a partnership between York University communities and the York University Libraries. YorkSpace content consists of collections produced by York University communities. These collections are managed, preserved and made accessible by the York University Library through DSpace software
“This is a great project that is going to be of benefit to everyone in the Faculty of Education – 
educators and students alike. Our Faculty is well known for the rich and diverse research that it produces," says Professor Steve Gaetz (left), associate dean of research & field development. “One of the challenges we have faced is making this wonderful research more visible to a wider audience and this DSpace Repository project will be an important means of reaching this goal.”
Both YorkSpace and the faculty profiles can be viewed by the public. The Faculty of Education already has a virtual community on YorkSpace, called “Faculty of Education”.
Some of the additional benefits of using YorkSpace as a repository are:
- It creates a permanent place to house the important work of faculty members; it is not dependent on York’s subscription to a journal that contains a faculty member’s work.
- It provides indicators of research results.
- It enables faculty members to link their personal Web sites to this resource containing their work to provide access for potential collaborators or students.
- It can be used with course management systems.
In addition to linking the faculty profiles to YorkSpace, links will be made to the York libraries. Access to publications that are contained in York’s electronic library will require a Passport York authentication and cannot be viewed by the general public.
For more information, visit the Faculty of Education Web site.