During 2016, the Unisa Institutional Repository (UnisaIR) recorded over 10 million full text views globally. It is also ranked third out of 74 institutions in Africa according to the 2017 Ranking Web of World Repositories, following closely behind the University of Pretoria and the University of Stellenbosch, which came in first and second respectively. UnisaIR continues to make huge strides, achieving a ranking of 197 out of 2 284 global repositories.

The Ranking Web of World Repositories is an initiative of the Cybermetrics Lab, a research group belonging to the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC), the largest public research body in Spain.

Since its inception in 2009, the UnisaIR has been setting high standards in enhancing global e-visibility for Unisa’s researchers and the dissemination of their publications.

The UnisaIR wishes to invite more Unisa researchers and academics to submit their work to the UnisaIR because “the UnisaIR boosts the potential for citations, NRF ratings and contributes to the further prestige of the researcher and the institution,” said Ansie van der Westhuizen who manages UnisaIR, adding that the repository benefits researchers beyond Unisa students and staff, boasting almost 18 000 articles, theses, and dissertations, and counting.

In 2016, a screencast, Unisa Institutional Repository Guidelines: archiving policies, copyright and open access, was launched. It contains useful examples, links to resources to help authors with copyright issues and submission guidelines. The screencast is available online.

*By Natalia Molebatsi