The Liège ORBi model: Mandatory policy without rights retention but linked to assessment processes

The decision to build an institutional repository at the University of Liège was taken in 2005. It took 3 years to prepare for a faultless start in November 2008. A strong communication campaign conveyed the Open Access concept to the ULg research community. A name was coined to personalise the concept : ORBi (Open Repository and Bibliography, http://orbi.ulg.ac.be/), suggesting an improved worldwide audience. A special effort in internal communication was devoted to acceptance of the mandate. It appeared essential to make it plain that ORBi would offer an unprecedented increase in readership, but that it would only be valuable if all ULg members would abide by the new rules.
Any mandate needs some coercitive persuasion. Rather than resting on advocacy, we linked internal assessment to the scientific production stored in ORBi. Those applying for promotion have no choice but to file all their production in full text. This created waves of progression.
Since then, evidence for a much increased readership (about twice, http://opcit.eprints.org/) has transformed the early participants in strong advocates of the repository. 68,000 items have been filed, 41,000 (60,2%) with full text (only mandatory for documents published later that 2002). According to ROAR (http://roar.eprints.org ), out of 1,568 IRs, ORBi comes 27th for the number of references, 15th for « high activity level » and 1st for « medium activity level » (number of days with 10-99 deposits/day).
ORBi is now considered a success by almost all ULg members. Its advantages to individual authors have become a better incentive than the mandate itself.