The University of Kentucky’s open access institutional repository, UKnowledge, makes scholarship, research data, and creative work from the UK community freely available to a global audience.
As the repository celebrates its 14th anniversary, UKnowledge Library Manager Kyle Bachman-Johnson is marking the occasion by charting its growth, spreading the word about pertinent changes, and envisioning its future.
Join in the fun with free birthday cake, ice cream, and coffee during the UKnowledge Birthday Celebration in The Stacks: Digital Scholarship Center on Friday, February 14 from 2pm to 3:30pm, where you can connect with Bachman-Johnson and learn more about how the repository can serve your research and publishing needs.
Since its establishment in 2011, UKnowledge has grown to more than 52,000 works of scholarship which have been downloaded over 17 million times in 238 countries and territories around the world. Nearly 500 new submissions are published every month, and monthly full text downloads exceed 500,000.
Providing access to materials from hundreds of scholars in departments and research centers across the university, the repository provides an excellent reflection of the broad impact of the university. “Some of UK’s most cutting edge research findings are held in UKnowledge,” said Bachman-Johnson. “The collection gives a snapshot of the many different kinds of work being done here.”
A glance at some of the most popular papers on UKnowledge display this breadth. They include health services commonly provided by local health departments, structural racism and the law, and farm machinery field capacities.
The most-active and -utilized collections, too, span widely divergent fields, including all UK master’s theses and doctoral dissertations, work from the Kentucky Transportation Research Center, and proceedings from the International Grasslands Congress.
The collection is browsable by colleges, departments, or centers, by discipline, and by author.
UKnowledge’s resources are open access, which means that this vast collection of scholarly and creative work can go well beyond academia and be accessed anywhere, anytime.
“As a platform, UKnowledge promotes the free sharing of data, scholarship, and creative works to a worldwide audience. This access is one of the most important features of the repository,” said Bachman-Johnson. “None of this research is behind a paywall. It’s a gateway for sharing that helps scholars to build a readership.”
A versatile publishing platform, the repository accepts virtually all file formats and sizes. It indexes and makes available videos from UK researchers, such as Professor Gregg Rentfrow’s video explaining how to cure a country ham, along with other non-text file formats, including audio, podcasts, and visual media.
In addition to the collections enumerated above, UKnowledge hosts open textbooks, journals and special exhibits, conference proceedings and presentations, and research data.
Digital Commons, the platform vendor, provides support for the publication of open access journals, and the platform includes built-in editorial functions.
UKnowledge is expected to play an even larger role for UK researchers in the coming years.
Updated rules attached to federal grants will require that publicly-funded research be deposited in an open repository. “It’s paid for by the people, so the results should be available to them,” said Bachman-Johnson, explaining the rationale of the new rules. “They shouldn’t be going behind a paywall.”
Each of the federal agencies is releasing their own guidelines and they are in different stages of review. Users looking to track progress on the new guidelines are recommended to check SPARC, an open access advocacy group that provides frequent updates when developments occur.
Open access publishing not only benefits the public by providing high-quality research at no cost, but also helps researchers by increasing the impact and reach of their work.
Work shared through UKnowledge is assigned the work with a digital object identifier (DOI). These unique identifiers remain with a work throughout its lifetime, improving discoverability and allowing close tracking of its impact.
“Depositors can discover highly granular information about where their work goes: we can trace downloads to any city or town around the world, and know whether the downloader belongs to an academic or government institution, a commercial organization, or is unaffiliated,” said Bachman-Johnson. Monthly metrics updates are shared with all depositors via email.
Sharing your work with UKnowledge is a very easy process. Researchers, scholars, and creators need only to fill out a one-page metadata sheet and upload their files. If your needs are more complex, or you want to start a new collection, we will assist you through the design and submission process.
“Importantly,” she stressed, “when you deposit work on UKnowledge, you keep the copyright.” Work in the repository is also indexed on Google, further improving discoverability.
For more information or assistance sharing past or current research, contact UKnowledge@lsv.uky.edu.
Along with changes in federal guidance that will position UKnowledge as a central pillar for all government-funded research at UK, Bachman-Johnson sees even more opportunities for the repository to grow on the eve of its 14th anniversary.
“There is such a wonderful variety of work being done here at the university, and we hope we can continue to grow to reflect that full range,” she said. “We’re getting ready to start hosting work from the College of Design. This is work that is non-text based, which is an exciting growth area for us.”
The repository can host virtually any kind of file, and Bachman-Johnson sees a number underutilized options for the platform.
“There are so many project opportunities, especially in the world of audio, video, and other media that can be more engaging than text. We would love to be the gateway for sharing even more of the creative work produced by the UK community,” she said.
Join the future – and the fun – of the repository and grab a slice of cake on Feb. 14! Or stop by The Stacks anytime to meet your digital scholarship and data librarians and learn about all the ways UK Libraries can help you publish your work and find, organize, and share your research data.
