The excellence of ULg research just a 'click' away

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In terms of Open Access research publications, the University of Liège is at the cutting edge. With its ORBi repository (Open Repository and Bibliography), created in 2008, the ULg has hit the accelerator in terms of boosting the dissemination and valorization of the work of its researchers.

Open Access, dissemination of research throughout the entire world

ORBi, an immense online catalogue, is based on the principle of Open Access, in other words the dissemination of academic and scientific research articles on the web, freely available throughout the world. The ULg has developed a ‘Liège mandate’, obliging its researchers to place on line the references of all their publication as well as integral versions of their articles. The institution, considered as a figurehead in this area, is being used as a model elsewhere. A partnership has moreover just been signed with the University of Luxemburg, in order to establish an ORBi-Lu there.

Free access by default

Open Access Week, an international event, is on its 6^th edition and is campaigning for open access to academic and scientific information. The slogan for this year’s event, ‘Set the default to Open Access’ refers to an objective: that, in ten years time, open access will constitute the ‘by default’ means to make known and disseminate new research, in every domain and in every country.

What advantages?

• For the researcher and the Institution:
  • Increased valorization and dissemination of research on a global scale
  • Strengthening the Institution’s prestige
  • Boosting of the researchers’ influence and standing
  • Greater and better visibility for research publications
  • Indexing of archived documents on the web by an ensemble of search engines
  • More rapid communication between peers and facilitating the development of networks of experts
  • Long term preservation of the Institution’s research.

• For the user
  • Open access, free of charge and rapid, to quality research publications
  • A means of easily following the Institution’s current research news
  • Access to a basic or advanced research interface, with the possibility of carrying out searches for the integral texts of publications.

ORBi in a few recent figures:

• ORBi has 86,000 references, of which 50,000 with at least one integral version, of which 27,000 are available on Open Access
• Every reference archived on ORBi is visible on Google 1 hour afterwards
• Since its creation in 2008, ORBi has attracted close to 2 million visitors
• Since 2012, over 1,400 article downloads are carried out each day
• According to the Webometrics ranking of April 2012, ORBi is in 26th place amongst the top global institutional repositories from the point of view of integral versions (33rd in 2011), and, more generally, in 18^th place in the top European repositories (27^th in 2011) and 39^th out of 1435 in the world’s top institutions (46^th in 2011).

Find out more

ORBi  
> sur Twitter: @ORBi_ULg
Open Access Week
Portail belge de l’Open Access
> sur Twitter: @openaccess_be
Article du 15^e Jour