ORBi : an institutional repository to promote Open Access

Since 2008 the University of Liège as implemented an institutional repository - ORBi - based on a strong mandate. Every member of the ULiège must upload the bibliographic references of all of his/hers scientific publications and communications. The deposit of full text is also mandatory for scientific articles published since 2002. The internal evaluation at ULiège will only take into account publications deposited in ORBi.
More than a repository, ORBi has become a tool to develop and inform on the concept of Open Science and Open access by allowing researchers to be part of the movement and to actively participate in the diffusion of their own production. By demanding authors to check by themselves the publisher’s policies and author’s copyright, ORBi has contributed to raise awareness on the unfair practices of big publishers. It has also demonstrated the need to rebalance a publication model that is no longer affordable by those who produce the main information. Additional tools developed by the ORBi team (statistics, request-a- print system, automated publications list) also help to give substance to the many benefices of open access (increase of citations, visibility, contacts and connections).