Research Article
The Role of Institutional Repositories in the Dissemination and Impact of Community-Based Research
Cara Bradley
Research & Scholarship Librarian
University of Regina Library
Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada
Email: cara.bradley@uregina.ca
Received: 17 May 2021 Accepted: 7 Aug. 2021
2021 Bradley. This
is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons‐Attribution‐Noncommercial‐Share Alike License 4.0
International (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/),
which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium,
provided the original work is properly attributed, not used for commercial
purposes, and, if transformed, the resulting work is redistributed under the
same or similar license to this one.
Data Availability: Bradley, C. (2021). Canadian
community-based research unit outputs, 2010-2020 (V1) [Data]. Scholars Portal Dataverse. https://doi.org/10.5683/SP2/GYVKN6
DOI: 10.18438/eblip29972
Abstract
Objective – The goals of this study were to 1) characterize the quantity and
nature of research outputs created by or in cooperation with community-based
research units (CBRUs) at Canadian universities; 2) assess dissemination
practices and patterns with respect to these outputs; 3) understand the current
and potential roles of institutional repositories (IRs) in disseminating
community-based research (CBR).
Methods – The
researcher consulted and consolidated online directories of Canadian
universities to establish a list of 47 English language institutions. Working
from this list of universities, the researcher investigated each in an attempt
to identify any CBRUs within the institutions. Ultimately, these efforts
resulted in a list of 25 CBRUs. All but 1 of these were from universities that
also have IRs, so 24 CBRUs were included for further analysis. The researcher
visited the website for each CBRU in February 2021 and, using the data on the
site, created a list of each project that the CBRU has been involved in or
facilitated over the past 10 years (2010-2020). An Excel spreadsheet was used
to record variables relating to the nature and accessibility of outputs
associated with each project.
Results – These
24 CBRUs listed 525 distinct projects completed during the past 10 years
(2010-2020). The number of projects listed on the CBRU sites varied widely from
2 to 124, with a median of 13. Outputs were most frequently reports (n=375,
which included research reports, whitepapers, fact sheets, and others), with
journal articles (n=74) and videos (n= 42) being less common, and other formats
even less frequent. The dissemination avenues for these CBRU projects are
roughly divided into thirds, with approximately one third of the projects’
results housed on the CBRU websites, another third in IRs, and a final third in
“other” locations (third party websites, standalone project websites, or not
available). Some output types, like videos and journal articles, were far less
likely to be housed in IRs. There was a significantly higher deposit rate in
faculty or department-based CBRUs, as opposed to standalone CBRUs.
Conclusion – The results of this study indicate that academic libraries and their
IRs play an important role in the dissemination of CBR outputs to the broader
public. The findings also confirm that there is more work to be done; academic
librarians, CBRU staff, and researchers can work together to expand access to,
and potentially increase the impact of, CBR. Ideally, this would result in all
CBRU project outputs being widely available, as well as providing more
consistent access points to these bodies of work.
Introduction
Most
Canadian universities, like similar institutions worldwide, have a tripartite
mandate that includes teaching, research, and service. Some researchers and
their institutions have devoted considerable time and resources to conducting
CBR, an undertaking that combines research and service in an effort to investigate
pressing community issues. CBR (with variations known by names like
community-based participatory research, community-engaged research,
collaborative research, and others) is widely viewed as one way that
universities can build relationships with and have an impact on their wider
communities, and be “of and not just in their community” (Watson, 2003, as
cited in Macpherson et al., 2017, p. 298).
CBR
in its truest form is a partnership between academics and community members to
investigate research topics of common concern. Ideally, CBR sees the
involvement of community partners throughout the entire research process, from
identifying the question or problem, through designing the research study and
collecting data, and on to sharing and disseminating the research findings
widely (not only among other academics, but crucially among the community
participants in the research and the wider population). By addressing real,
local concerns, CBR has the potential to improve the lives of residents. Even a
cursory look at the titles of CBR outputs reveals that many focus
on important social justice issues and that a number of individuals and groups
stand to benefit from broad sharing of these research findings. Access to these
research results or “informational justice” (Mathiesen,
2015) is an important consideration in ensuring that CBR achieves its greatest
possible impact.
Widespread
dissemination has frequently been highlighted as an area where CBR falls short,
but there have been few efforts to objectively assess what happens to CBR
outputs upon completion, and no studies on how academic libraries (who
routinely assist researchers with dissemination to academic audiences)
contribute to CBR dissemination efforts. Thus, the goals of this study were to
1) characterize the quantity and nature of research outputs created by or in
cooperation with CBRUs at Canadian universities; 2) assess dissemination
practices and patterns with respect to these outputs; 3) understand the current
and potential roles of IRs in disseminating CBR.
Literature Review
Several
studies highlight both the importance and difficulty of communicating the
results of CBR beyond academia. Most of these studies question key stakeholders
in CBR to collect their assessments of the challenges and state of CBR
communication. Bodison et al. (2015) provide an
example of this type of work. They conducted a discussion forum with multiple
stakeholders in CBR and found that “research findings are rarely meaningfully
communicated back to those who participated, if communication about the
findings occurs at all” (Bodison et al., 2015, p.
817). Such studies are useful and provide direction for improvements, but they
do not provide objective assessments of current CBR dissemination practices.
One exception is Chen et al. (2010), who conducted a systematic review of CBR
publications to assess efforts in disseminating findings beyond scholarly
journal articles, in order to find out what is really happening regarding wider dissemination. They found that
despite the fact that widespread dissemination of findings is a key tenet of
CBR, “substantial challenges to dissemination remain” (Chen et al., 2010, p.
377). To date, this is one of very few studies assessing what actually happens
to CBR results once projects are concluded. Even less has been written about
what role academic libraries might play in the dissemination of CBR. The most
relevant literature investigates library contributions to increasing research
impact within the academy. This is supplemented by more recent work that has
started to consider the role of academic libraries in dissemination outside of
the academy and contributions to public engagement and the common good.
Recent
years have seen academic libraries expand from primarily supporting teaching
and learning in their universities, to an increased emphasis on support for
faculty and graduate student research. As recently as 2011, MacColl
and Jubb noted that “it is hard to avoid the
conclusion that libraries in recent years have been struggling to make a
positive impact on the scholarly work of researchers, but having relatively
little effect” (p. 5). This is gradually changing, driven in no small part by
increasing requirements around national research impact assessment initiatives
like the Research Excellence Framework requirements in the UK and the impact
assessment requirement as a component to the Excellence in Research for
Australia (ERA) national framework. Librarians are increasingly called upon to
assist their organizations in demonstrating the impact of their research
through using conventional and alternative (“alt”) metrics. Corrall
et al. (2013) surveyed academic librarians in four countries to better
understand the scope and nature of their support for research activities in
their institutions. The results confirmed that national research assessment
exercises had breathed new life into bibliometric services in many libraries
and that “the focus of bibliometric activity . . . has shifted from collection
development to research evaluation and impact assessment for individual
researchers, academic groups, organizational units and whole institutions” (Corrall et al., 2013, p. 666). They concluded, though, that
there remain “significant opportunities for further engagement” in this type of
work (Corrall et al., 2013, p. 666).
In
2014, Kennan et al. revisited their results to further analyze the skills
required for librarians to succeed in supporting both research impact
assessment and research data management. They found that many librarians
reported needing additional training and skills development to undertake this
work with confidence. Nicholson and Howard (2018), in their study of the gap
between core competencies required for research support work (as evidenced in
position postings) and the skills of library and information professionals,
similarly found that “it would be beneficial to build upon the skillsets of
current and new LIS professionals” regarding research engagement and impact
topics (p. 144).
Given
et al. (2015) looked more specifically at the need to disseminate scholarly
research and expand its impact to those outside of the academy; they
interviewed 10 Australian academics in an effort to better understand their
conceptions of research impact in both academic and non-academic settings, to
gain participants’ insight into “existing or needed university-based supports
to foster societal engagement” (p. 4). They found that academics generally felt
ill-equipped to disseminate their work beyond traditional channels (scholarly journals
and conferences) and these academics “did not identify any existing library
supports that could be applied to their work in the societal impact space”
(Given et al., 2015, p. 6). The researchers encouraged further efforts,
commenting that “academic librarians and information science researchers can be
proactive . . . to ensure that researchers and institutions are well-informed
and well-prepared to engage with their communities in appropriate and
productive ways” (Given et al., 2015, p. 8).
One
of the most common ways for researchers to extend the impact of their work
beyond the academy is through the creation of research outputs that differ from
traditional journal articles and scholarly books. More accessible outputs like
whitepapers and policy documents are increasingly likely to reach and impact
policy makers, just as videos, recordings, fact sheets, websites, and blog
posts may be more easily accessed and readily understood by the general public.
Many of these outputs fall under the broad category of grey literature and some
researchers have started to investigate the role of IRs in collecting,
providing access, and preserving these outputs. Searle notes that “librarians
involved in scholarly communication must move quickly beyond a limited set of
formal publication types towards a wide range of more complex and arguably more
at-risk research outputs” and that “grey literature struggles to find a place
in library strategies despite the evidence of its high value to communities
outside academia” (Agate et al., 2017, p. 2). The following year, Marsolek et al. (2018) conducted a study of the
discoverability of grey literature in IRs and commercial databases; they found
that 95% of the 115 IRs included in their study contained grey literature, but
concluded that only 63% of IRs seemed to be actively working to collect it (p.
15). Theses and dissertations were the most commonly collected grey literature
found in IRs, while others like technical reports, working papers, blogs,
standards, and protocols were much less likely to be included. Marsolek et al. (2018) concluded that:
The marriage between IRs and grey
literature could elevate the value of IRs to the research community. IRs could
make a substantial difference in ensuring grey literature’s preservation,
increasing its reach, and, in many cases, providing a form of legitimacy to
these items published outside traditional realms. (p. 17)
Moore
et al. (2020) explored how use of IRs to provide access to grey literature can
also help universities increase public engagement and achieve community service
goals; they saw an important role for IRs in the “recognition, dissemination,
and preservation of the outputs of community-based research”, outputs which are
often grey literature (p. 117). Moore et al. (2020) state how a repository
containing grey literature produced during the course of CBR helps the
university to “present a more holistic picture of its community partnerships
and institutionalize public
engagement into something much more integral and essential to campus (and
local) culture” (p. 117). They describe how the repository at the University of
Minnesota became a “conduit between campus units and community partners” (Moore
et al., 2020, p. 117). In the process, the IR began to “play a strategic role
in public engagement . . . by acting as a common good to showcase,
contextualize, disseminate, preserve, and institutionalize this content” and
came to “support the research, teaching, and outreach mission of an engaged
campus, provide a service as a public good, and contribute to an informed
citizenry in society” (Moore et al., 2020, p. 126). This echoes Makula’s (2019) description of the University of San
Diego’s repository as moving from its position as “primarily a platform, a
system, or a service” to becoming “a bridge between the University of San Diego
and the outside world, an instrument helping to build and nurture
institutional-community relationships, foster collaboration, and cultivate good
will” (para. 12).
Heller
and Gaede’s (2016) work expands the notion of the IR as a common good by
emphasizing that “libraries must move beyond pragmatic justification for
institutional repositories . . . [and] understand their work in the context of
social justice, lest they become complicit in unjust scholarly communication
systems” (p. 3). They articulate a “social justice impact metric” based on
search engine access to social justice-related repository content, as well as
access to all repository content by developing countries, to express the social
justice impact of IRs (Heller & Gaede, 2016, p. 3). They offer this metric
as a way for other librarians to assess their own open access activities in
terms of their level of success in contributing to the public good, by reaching
members of the public who would not otherwise have access to this important
content. Perhaps even more important than the metric they offer, though, is the
insight that:
Open access to the scholarly and
creative output of our institutions contributes a vital academic good insofar as
prestige and reputation are concerned, but the social good is something
extraordinary and should excite us more. In reclaiming our role as facilitators
of democratic discourse, we demonstrate the change we believe in and live out
our bibliography. (Heller & Gaede, 2016, p. 15)
Mathiesen (2015) offers
the theory of “information justice” as a framework for better understanding the
contributions of library work to social justice. She describes “informational
justice” as a facet of social justice concerned with people as “seekers,
sources, and subjects of information” (p. 199). She notes that:
What makes informational justice of
central concern, and thus why libraries and other information services are
particularly important, is the fact that informational injustice produces and
reinforces other forms of social injustice, while information justice
undermines systems of social injustice. Indeed, informational justice serves as
a good proxy for social justice writ large, because opportunities to receive
and share information are central means for enhancing all aspects of people’s
lives. (Mathiesen, 2015, pp. 204-5)
Mathiesen’s (2015)
elaboration of “iDistributive justice”, which is
terminology for “equitable distribution of access to information” is
particularly relevant when thinking about the library’s role in making CBR more
widely available to those who may benefit from but lack access (p. 207). For
librarians engaged in the many facets of research impact work for institutions,
it is important to ask whether they are doing all they can to extend research
impact to the broader community beyond academia and contribute to informational
justice.
Methods
University
involvement with CBR is difficult to quantify and track. Some is coordinated by
units, either at the department, faculty, or institutional level, that
facilitate partnerships between community organizations and researchers.
Research associated with CBRUs was chosen as the subject of study for this
paper because it provides a manageable starting point for exploring the nature
and accessibility of CBR outputs.
Even
this approach is not without its challenges. The language for referring to this
type of research varies and seems to be in transition, including names such as
“research shop”, “community-based research”, “community-engaged research”, and
“community-based participatory research”, among others. As well, there is no
comprehensive list of department, faculty, or university CBRUs in Canadian
universities. As such, the researcher consulted and consolidated online
directories of Canadian universities to establish a list of 47 English language
institutions. Universities or colleges that are smaller affiliates of larger
institutions were excluded based on difficulties distinguishing their
contributions from those of their larger partner or parent organizations.
Working
from this list of universities, the researcher investigated each in an attempt
to identify any CBRUs within the institution. This involved viewing lists of
research centres and institutes on each university’s
webpage, searching these institutional webpages for variations of
“community-based research”, and conducting Google searches combining this
concept with the name of each institution. Multi-institution CBRUs (for
example, Nova Scotia’s CLARI) were excluded due to the anticipated difficulty
of tracking outputs in the repositories of specific institutions at later
stages in the research process. Ultimately, these efforts resulted in a list of
25 CBRUs. All but one of these were from universities that also have IRs, so 24
CBRUs were included for further analysis.
The
researcher visited the websites for each CBRU in February 2021 and used the
data on the websites to create a list of projects that the CBRUs had been
involved in or facilitated over during the past 10 years (2010-2020). The
researcher used an Excel spreadsheet to record variables relating to the nature
and accessibility of outputs associated with each project. These variables
included:
-
Type
of outputs (document, video, website, and others)
-
Availability
of output in its entirety (i.e., full-text, entire video, journal articles, and
others) on:
o
CBRU
websites
o
IRs
(the names of projects and lead researchers were also searched in the IRs, even
in instances where there was no link to the IR from the CBRU webpage)
o
Third
party websites
o
Dedicated
project websites
The
researcher then analyzed the findings to learn more about the dissemination of
CBR and, in particular, the role of the IR in disseminating the results of this
research.
Results
As
mentioned above, this methodology produced a list of 47 English-language
Canadian universities, within which 24 CBRUs were identified in institutions
that also have IRs. As shown in Figure 1, these CBRUs were housed in 19
institutions, with some having 2 distinct CBRUs. Sixteen of the CBRUs were at
the institutional level (that is, not located within a specific faculty or
department); 7 were housed within faculty or departments, and 1 was a faculty
member’s laboratory.
Between
them, these 24 CBRUs listed 525 distinct projects completed during the past 10
years (2010-2020). Projects that were clearly still underway or in progress
were excluded from the analysis, given they could not yet be expected to have
produced outputs for analysis. The number of projects listed on the CBRU sites
varied widely from 2 to 124, with a median of 13. Figure 2 shows a breakdown of
outputs by type. The number of outputs exceeds the number of projects because
some projects produced more than one output type.
As
Figure 2 clearly shows, reports (which includes research reports, whitepapers,
fact sheets, and others) was the largest category of outputs (n=375). “Unique”
(n=13) includes output types that only appeared once across all the data (e.g.,
electronic book, blog, storytelling event, among others), while “unclear”
(n=36) includes projects whose description suggests that there was an output
generated, but its nature is not specified nor is the work provided.
Figure 1
Type of community-based research unit.
Figure 2
CBRU outputs by type.
After
characterizing the types of outputs emerging from CBRUs, the study sought to
assess if and how research outputs were made accessible to interested readers.
Some outputs were available in more than one place (e.g., IR and CBRU
websites), so the total output locations in Figure 3 exceed the 525 projects
included in the analysis. The “CBRU website” includes outputs (n=197) available
in their entirety (full report, entire project video, and others) on the units’
webpages. “Institutional repository” similarly indicates that an entire output
has been deposited in the IR (n=193). “Third-party website” describes instances
where the CBRU websites link to a third-party website where the research output
can be found (n=104). “Project website” indicates that the CBRU site links to a
stand-alone website, created to share the results of that particular project
(n=19). “Available for purchase” refers to instances where the CBRU websites
either link to (n=22) or provide citations without links (n=9) to a journal
article that requires an institutional subscription or personal purchase to
access the research output. Sixty-five projects are categorized as “Not
available” because the CBRU websites suggest that there have been outputs from
the research, but there is no access information provided or the only method
provided is a dead link.
Figure 3
Dissemination of research outputs.
Figure 4
Journal articles by publication type and IR
availability.
Third-party
websites figure prominently in the dissemination of research outputs from the
CBRUs, with 104 of the projects (19.8%) using this as a means of sharing
results. These third- party sites can be divided into three broad categories:
video sites like YouTube and Vimeo (37 videos), journal websites (74 articles),
and websites of partner or funding organizations that contain the research
outputs (n=24). Another 19 projects (3.6%) have separate project websites to
share results. Importantly, in terms of access, there were 10 dead links from
projects listed on CBRU websites to third-party or project websites.
Outputs
were not freely available for 72 of the projects (13.7%). This included 65
projects that indicated reports or other outputs existed and either did not
provide access or a link, or else provided a dead link, as well as 7 for which
outputs could only be viewed by purchasing access to paywalled journal articles
that were not available in the corresponding IRs. Overall, there were 31
paywalled articles identified as sites for research output, but most
supplemented other output methods and did not therefore impede access to the
outcomes of the project, except for the 7 highlighted above. This compares to
43 open access articles listed as outputs of these research projects. Figure 4
shows the breakdown of journal articles by publication type, as well as the
portion of each type that are also deposited in the IRs (4/31 or 12.9% of
paywalled articles and 12/43 or 27.9% of open access articles).
Overall,
a total of 193 (36.8%) of the projects resulted in research outputs than can be
found in the institutions’ repositories. Figure 5 shows that there are some
notable differences in the rates of outputs deposited in IRs when the data were
further broken down. The 7 faculty or department-based CBRUs had an IR deposit
rate of 69.4% (154 of 222 projects), while the institutional-level CBRUs only
had an IR deposit rate of 13% (39 of 299 projects). None of the projects
emerging from the faculty member research laboratories were captured by their
IRs. Thus, although only 7 of the 24 CBRUs (29.2%) were faculty or department
based, they accounted for 154 of the 193 (79.8%) projects for which research
outputs were deposited in IRs.
Figure 5
IR deposit for projects, by CBRU type.
Interestingly,
only 177 of the 193 projects found in IRs contained a link from the CBRU
websites to the relevant repository contents. Thus, the output of 16 projects
(8.2%) are in fact held in IRs but would not be found by readers or researchers
viewing the CBRU websites.
While
36.8% of research outputs from these CBRUs can be found in the corresponding
IRs, Figure 6 shows that the frequency with which these outputs are deposited
varies widely depending on the nature of the output. 48% of reports (n=180)
have been deposited, while the same can be said of 21.6% of journal articles
(n=16). Deposit rates are much lower for items that are not typical Word or PDF
files; only 9.5% of videos (n=2) and 5% of posters (n=2) have been deposited.
Discussion
The
dissemination avenues for these CBRU projects are roughly divided into thirds,
with approximately one third of the project results housed on CBRU websites,
another third in IRs, and a final third in “other” (third party websites,
standalone project websites, or not available). This demonstrates a level of
inconsistency among dissemination practices that would make it difficult for
individuals interested in this type of research to know how to proceed in
locating it. Although posting research outputs on CBRU, third-party, or
standalone websites may aid findability in the short term, sole use of these
sites generates problems over the long term. The problems of “content drift,”
where the contents of webpages change over time and “URL decay” (i.e., URLs no longer
active) have been well-documented (Jones et al., 2016; Oguz
& Koehler, 2016). IRs, by contrast, provide “safe storage, persistent URLs,
backup, and possibly migration if it is needed in the future” and reduce CBRU website
and file hosting workloads (Marsolek et al., 2018, p.
5). Many CBRU-involved outputs remain relevant over the longer term, and
continued access is important for faculty members seeking to include these
materials in promotion and tenure applications.
Figure 6
IR deposits by output type.
There
was also a marked difference in the deposit rate for different output formats.
“Reports” which included Word and PDF text files, were deposited at a much
greater rate than alternative formats like videos and posters, among others.
The reason for this is unclear but warrants further investigation, since
research has shown that some of these alternative formats have the greatest
potential to impact the general public. Possible explanations include IR
collection policies that align with traditional (print) collection policies,
the failure of librarians to actively collect materials in these formats, or
lack of awareness among the campus community (CBRU staff and researchers) that
other formats are also welcome in IRs. It was somewhat surprising that journal
articles emerging from these CBRU projects were not more consistently included
in the IRs (only 21.6% had been deposited), given that the collection of
journal articles has long been a priority for many IRs and many libraries have
developed policies, workflows, and advocacy tools to support journal article
collection.
Cost
was less of an access barrier to CBRU-involved work than expected; while 31
paywalled journal articles emerged from the work of these CBRUs, there were
only 7 cases where this prevented all access to the research findings. The
other 24 paywalled articles were supplemented with freely available reports or
summaries available elsewhere (IR, CBRU site, third-party site, standalone
site). The lack of availability of any findings associated with a research
project was, conversely, more of a problem that anticipated, with 65 (12.4%)
projects providing no information about outputs or providing only a dead link.
There were also instances where the output was available, but findability was
an issue. In several instances, CBRU outputs could only be found in IRs, but
there was no indication on the CBRU site that this was the case. This has
implications for accessibility, as only those who thought to conduct a separate
search of the IR would have access to the full research output. Also
interesting was the discrepancy between the IR deposit practices of
institutional vs. faculty or departmental CBRUs. Faculty or department CBRUs
deposited at a far greater rate than institution-level CBRUs (69.4% vs. 13%).
This large difference warrants further investigation, as it may provide
insights into how deposit rates by institutional CBRUs can be increased. Many
Canadian academic libraries still operate with some variation of a subject
liaison librarian model, usually supplemented by functional positions
(scholarly communications librarian, systems librarian, among others). It would
be valuable to better understand whether the relationship between the subject
liaison librarians and faculty or departmental CBRUs is important to achieving
this relatively high rate of deposit, and how this success could be transferred
to institutional CBRUs, whose staff may not have (or be aware of) a connection
with a subject specialist.
There
were a few instances of institutions that had adopted unique practices of
dissemination that do not fit neatly into the results above, but are relevant
to note as examples of possible approaches to expanding the reach of CBR. The
University of British Columbia’s DTES Portal (https://dtesresearchaccess.ubc.ca) is an
impressive effort to expand access and awareness to research results relevant
to the issues facing Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. The mandate of the DTES
portal differs somewhat from that of the CBRUs included in this study, in that
they aim to collect material of interest to the community regardless of creator
or origin (not necessarily involving academia) and to profile this material in
a standalone database. Their curatorial statement (https://infohub-2019.sites.olt.ubc.ca/files/2020/07/Curatorial-Statement-2020-Final.pdf), however, also
indicates that they collaborate with the UBC IR in their collection of relevant
UBC research outputs. Many institutions lack the resources to create a
standalone topic repository of this nature, but the DTES Portal does provide a
model that might be embedded within existing IRs. At another institution, the
CBRU website simply links to the relevant section of the IR that lists all of
the CBRU projects (including the full outputs). This means that all CBRU items
are included in the IR, saving the CBRU the work of creating and maintaining a
list of projects and associated outputs. These are examples of different ways for
academic libraries to approach utilizing their IRs to collaborate with CBRUs in
the dissemination of CBR.
There
are some limitations to the methods used in this study. CBRUs represent only a
portion of the CBR undertaken at Canadian universities. It would be useful
conduct a study of researchers doing CBR without the involvement of CBRUs in
order to understand if their dissemination practices differ from those observed
in this study. Another limitation is the reliance on the CBRU websites to
identify projects as well as outcomes. It is possible that some CBRU-involved
projects were not listed on the websites and therefore these outputs were
excluded from the analysis. A future study might reduce this risk by asking
CBRUs to provide a list of all the projects in which they were involved over a
given time frame. Additionally, it is possible that in some instances CBRUs or
researchers have chosen to communicate results to community members in other
ways that would not be captured in this type of study (e.g., a seminar
presenting results to community members or a report sent directly to a
partnering community organization). This would be a suitable way to communicate
with research participants and community stakeholders, but it prevents other
individuals and organizations from benefiting from the results of the research.
Surveys, interviews, or focus groups with CBRU staff and affiliated researchers
might be the best way to supplement the results of this study and deepen
understanding of CBRU research dissemination practices and the role that
academic libraries and their IRs might play in this process.
Conclusion
The
results of this study indicate that academic libraries and their IRs play an
important role in the dissemination of CBR outputs to the broader public. The
findings also confirm that there is more work to be done; academic librarians,
CBRU staff, and researchers can work together to expand access to and
potentially increase the impact of CBR. Ideally, this would result in all CBRU
project outputs being widely available, as well as providing more consistent
access points to these bodies of work. IRs are not, by any means, the entire
solution to the complex issues of CBR dissemination, but their more consistent
use would be one piece of the puzzle. Additional services and supports for CBR
could build upon the relationships established in implementing such a service,
providing a way for academic librarians to contribute to the common good and
amplify the social justice efforts of their universities. This work is one way
to “reclaim . . . our role as facilitators of democratic discourse” (Heller
& Gaede, 2016, p. 15) and contribute to the realization of what Mathiesen (2015) termed “informational justice” (p. 199).
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