Digital Commons offers a variety of reporting tools to help you gather information about your institution’s content and its usage. The different options can be used individually or combined to provide reports to a range of audiences.

When preparing a report, answering these questions can help guide the process:

• Who is the audience for your report?
• What are the primary goals for your report?
• How does the report align with your institutional mission?

Annual Reports and Departmental Reports

Annual reports are one of the most common types of reports that administrators prepare to describe the growth and success of the repository. By demonstrating the value of the repository to stakeholders on campus, annual reports can play a key role in promoting long-term support for the IR. Sharing annual statistics is also an opportunity to convey the work that the administrator (and the entire team, if applicable) has been performing on the IR.

Departmental reports often include information similar to the Annual Report, but with a more focused scope to emphasize content that serves a particular group on campus. The information in this type of report may relate to a specific department’s initiatives or goals, such as local reach. Since the report highlights the intellectual output of the faculty, it can be utilized as part of the tenure review process.

Where to get the data

The Readership Distribution map and Country reports in the Digital Commons Dashboard are flexible tools for demonstrating the impact and geographical reach of the repository. The data they provide can help quantify the value of the IR both locally and across the world.

A Downloads report, also available in the dashboard, can show the number of works that were posted to the IR in the past year, capturing the work that the administrator (and IR team) has done. A Downloads report can also show the number of new structures that were added in the past year. If the repository site has been live for more than one year, comparing the latest year to past years paints a clear picture of how the IR has expanded.

Administrators are able to find out how their IR compares to other DC sites via a benchmarking report, which is available from Consulting Services upon request.

The Content Inventory includes the publication for each item in the repository, allowing for analyses of which publications in the repository hold the most content. This is useful for demonstrating the engagement of your campus or organization with the IR.

Administrators may also include qualitative info such as stories from faculty and users to show how the IR has benefited individuals.

Examples:
Annual Report – Portland State University
Annual Report – Florida International University
Departmental Report – English Department, Eastern Illinois University

Mandated Reports

These reports help demonstrate the quality or compliance of an institution’s research to bodies such as government agencies. For instance, Australian repositories’ FOR (Field of Research) reports are mandated by the Australian government as part of ERA (Excellence in Research for Australia). If research was funded by grants, grant requirements might include that the research be made available online, with reports mandated to prove that this requirement has been met. Often the Digital Commons reports are part of a larger report created by the institution.

Where to get the data

The Content Inventory allows administrators to generate a comprehensive report of the works in the IR, including relevant metadata fields such as FOR (Field of Research), grant number, etc. Administrators can use the report to isolate relevant fields and their publications so the required information can be easily located and assembled.

Benchmarking reports show the accomplishments of the institution, as compared to the rest of the DC community. This report is available on a periodic basis, upon administrator request.

Accreditation Reports

Accreditation reports show the scholarship and teaching materials produced by faculty in order to help support institutional or departmental accreditation. These reports usually include much of the same information as Mandated Reports, but they serve a different purpose and audience.

Where to get the data

The Content Inventory report includes the publication structure and discipline to which each item belongs, for all works published in the IR.

If you are also an Expert Gallery Suite subscriber, the Profiles Report provides information about the SelectedWorks profiles affiliated with the institution, including professional activities such as awards, organizations, and research interests.

Example:
Accreditation Report – Lehigh Valley Health Network

Faculty Bibliographies and Performance Reports

Faculty bibliographies present a comprehensive list of all faculty works hosted in a repository. A performance report measures the contributions of library staff and the success of the institutional repository initiative.

Where to get the data

The Content Inventory contains information on all works in a repository, including bibliographic information captured in metadata fields. The report includes who uploaded each item, which is useful for quantifying the activities of faculty or various team members at the library.

The Digital Commons Dashboard can supply data about the IR’s growth over time. Information about the number of submissions within specific time periods is available in the Works Posted section.

IR Maintenance Reports

Administrators who have large and/or older repositories can have a hard time keeping track of the content in their IR. This can lead to empty structures, structures with pending submissions, duplicate submissions, etc. An IR Maintenance Report provides a clearer view of what might need tidying up.

Where to get the data

The Content Inventory indicates which items in the IR are pending, along with their location, so administrators can identify if any structures have a lot of pending or outdated items. These structures can then be hidden until content is available, or removed if they’re no longer applicable. Since the Content Inventory covers all of the works on an IR and where they are posted, it can help with identifying metadata clean-up needs at the submission or publication level.

Journal Reports

Administrators and editors can run reports on a journal’s workflow in Digital Commons to see how submissions are moving through the submission, review, and publishing process.

Where to get the data

The Administrator Report, available in Manage Submissions, provides journal workflow information in a spreadsheet with flexible options for which data to include. Journal editors can also use this tool to gather up information about their journal’s acceptance rate.

There is also a Workload Report that journals with multiple editors can use to gauge the current activity level and availability of each editor.

Example:
Statistics on Journal About Page – The Open Journal of Occupational Therapy