An institutional repository is a service provided by a university to manage and disseminate digital materials created by the institution and its members. It helps preserve these materials long-term and make them organized and accessible. Submitting articles to an institutional repository increases the visibility of a faculty member's research and benefits the university by increasing its visibility and attracting more students and scholars. However, some obstacles include faculty's limited time and copyright concerns, but solutions involve libraries assisting with submissions and providing copyright guidelines.

1. Maintaining and Growing
ScHOLAR, Texas Tech School of
Law’s Institutional Repository

2. “a university-based institutional repository is a set of
services that a university offers to the members of its
community for the management and dissemination
of digital materials created by the institution and its
community members. It is most essentially an
organizational commitment to the stewardship of
these digital materials, including long-term
preservation where appropriate, as well as
organization and access or distribution.”
Lynch, Clifford (2003). Institutional Repositories: Essential Infrastructure for Scholarship
in the Digital Age.
A bimonthly Report on Research Library Issues and Actions for ARL, CNI, and SPARC

3. What is “Open Access”
“Open-access (OA) literature is digital, online, free of charge,
and free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.”
Peter Suber (2004, revised 2010; http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/overview.htm)

4. Benefits of submission of articles
to institutional repositories
 Benefits to faculty member/author
 Benefits to the University
 Benefits to the end-user

5. Benefits to Faculty Authors
 Increased dissemination and readership of research
 Increased citation
Laurence, Steve (2001). Free online availability substantially increases a paper's impact, Nature, 411, 6837, p. 521, 2001.

6. Benefits to the University
 Increases University visibility
 Attracts potential scholars, donors, and students to the University
 Preserves “gray matter” of the University
Donovan, James M. and Watson, Carol A., Behind a Law School’s Decision to Implement an Institutional Repository (March 4,
2008). Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1676223 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1676223

7. Obstacles to Submission
 Law faculty have many competing demands for their
time
 Some Law faculty may be concerned with possible
copyright issues

8. Solutions
 Provide library assistance with the submission process
 Provide faculty with Sherpa- Romeo journal list