Effective Ingestion of Digital Objects in Institutional Repositories Using Subject Repositories

Institutional Repositories (IR) are set up by Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) to facilitate the collection, long-term preservation and effective access to scholarly research output. One of the most common challenges faced by HEIs is ensuring regular ingestion of digital objects in IRs. In order to address this challenge, we propose the use of subject-specific IRs. This study outlines a case study, conducted at The University of Zambia (UNZA), aimed at determining the feasibility of using subject repositories at relatively large HEIs. A situational analysis was conducted to determine the relative effectiveness of ingesting digital objects at UNZA, and additionally, a subject repository was implemented in order to determine the feasibility of implementing subject repositories. The results suggest that it is feasible to implement usable subject repositories, presenting opportunities to decentralise the ingestion of digital objects at large HEIs. This has the obvious benefit of facilitating effective self-archiving of digital objects.