DEMOCRATIZING ACCESS TO RESEARCHUSING REPOSITORY ANALYTICS & METRICS PORTAL (RAMP) DATA TO COMPARE TRENDS IN IR USAGE BETWEEN THE GLOBAL NORTH AND SOUTH

Jonathan Wheeler, Data Curation Librarian, University of New MexicoMinh Pham, PhD Candidate, University of MissouriKenning Arlitsch, Dean of the Library, Montana State UniversityNikolaus Parulian, PhD Candidate, University of Illinois Urbana Champaign

CNI Virtual Spring MeetingMay 20, 2019

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

Measuring Up: Assessing Accuracy of Reported Use and Impact of Digital Repositories. IMLS: LG-06-14-0090, 2014-2017.

Data Driven Improvement to Institutional Repository Discoverability and Use. IMLS: LG-72-18-0179, 2018-2020.

RAMP is one product of a collaboration between Montana State University, the Association of Research Libraries, the University of New Mexico, and OCLC Research. RAMP and related research is funded by the IMLS.

RAMP DATA SHOW

MOST IR TRAFFIC COMES FROM THE GLOBAL

NORTH

MOST TRAFFIC FROM MOBILE DEVICES COMES

FROM THE GLOBAL SOUTH

DEVICE USE AFFECTS EQUITY OF ACCESS

CURRENT RAMP RESEARCH

Public data release (35 participating IR)

Wheeler, Jonathan et al. (2020), RAMP data subset, January 1 through May 31, 2019, v6, University of New Mexico, Dataset, https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.fbg79cnr0

Repository of analytic code: https://github.com/imls-measuring-up/ramp-analyses-scripts

Augmenting RAMP data with open & publicly accessible data

IR information – item counts & counts of ETD

Global region & population data How do devices used to access IR content affect search behavior?

How is IR content accessed differently between nations in the global north and global south? (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North%E2%80%93South_divide)

RAMP includes 60 participating IR. All major repository platforms are represented.

RAMP data provide a unique opportunity to test assumptions about access & use of IR content.

RAMP DATA: KEY POINTS

Data for participating IR are harvested daily from Google Search Console.

RAMP captures click activity on IR pages and content files that appear in search engine result pages (SERP) on Google properties, including web search and Google Scholar. Click events are recorded even if users do not actually visit the IR.

Search engine performance data for URLs pointing to IR content. Metrics include the URL's position in the SERP, number of impressions, and the number of clicks on a URL.

Data are harvested in two sets per IR. One set includes search engine performance data for individual URLs. The other includes information aggregated at the IR level about the country from a which a user conducted a search, as well as the user's device type.

Detailed documentation is included with the published dataset.

RAMP data contain no personally identifiable or sensitive information.

RAMP captures user activity not reported by server logs or services like Google Analytics.

The same reporting method is used for all repository platforms.

SAMPLE COUNTRY/DEVICE DATA

CTR Country Device Position Date Impressions Clicks

0 hrv DESKTOP 31 3/8/17 1 0

1 pan MOBILE 6 3/8/17 1 1

0 fra DESKTOP 24 3/8/17 1 0

0 chn DESKTOP 13 3/8/17 2 0

1 gbr DESKTOP 10 3/8/17 1 1

1 kwt MOBILE 3 3/8/17 1 1

0 gbr DESKTOP 9 3/8/17 1 0

0 egy DESKTOP 44 3/8/17 1 0

1 twn DESKTOP 14 3/8/17 1 1

0 tur DESKTOP 128 3/8/17 1 0

0 usa DESKTOP 7 3/8/17 2 0

DEVICE USE & PATTERNS OF IR ACCESS ACROSS GLOBAL REGIONSAN INITIAL OVERVIEW USING ONLY RAMP DATA

RAMP: SUM OF CLICKS BY COUNTRY

RAMP: SUM OF CLICKS BY DEVICE

RAMP: SUM OF CLICKS BY COUNTRY, SORTED BY DEVICE

ANALYSIS OF AUGMENTED RAMP DATARAMP + COUNTRY POPULATION + GLOBAL REGION CLASSIFICATION

World Population

DATA AUGMENTATION

Regional Classification

RAMP data can be augmented through mapping to other interesting datasets.

Mapping RAMP data to global region and population data

RAMP IR are primarily located in the Global North

TOTAL CLICK ACTIVITY AGGREGATED BY GLOBAL REGION

There is a disparity of access to IR content: 20% of the global population is driving 57.6% of clicks.

A MORE DETAILED VIEWWhen weighted by population, trends in click activity change.

This suggests disparity of access at global, regional, and national scales.

RANKING COUNTRIES BY CLICK ACTIVITY: TOP 10

Here again, weighting click activity by population suggests a disparity of access both regionally and nationally.

RANKING COUNTRIES BY CLICK ACTIVITY: BOTTOM 10

Before and after weighting click activity by population, the bottom ten countries are all from the global south

DEVICE USE BY COUNTRY AND GLOBAL REGION

Use of mobile devices for accessing IR content is much more common in the global south.

Use of tablets is generally limited to the global north.

SEARCH ENGINE PERFORMANCE MATTERS

Intuitively, mobile device users do not go as far intro SERP.

This presents usability and search engine optimization implications for IR.

CORRELATIONS

Desktop users in the global north are most likely to access IR content.

CONCLUDING THOUGHTS

Limitations RAMP participants are mainly from the US and other countries

in the global north. This may result in language barriers and other factors that bias our search engine performance data.

GSC is the sole RAMP data source. Among other limitations, users may not have access to Google services.

Emerging Questions

What are the causes of the suggested disparities in access to IR content? Research culture, economy, online access, and intellectual freedom may all contribute.

How can IR address usability and discoverability challenges faced by users of mobile devices?

COMMUNITY PARTICIPATION

• System Administrator uploads an html verification file to the IR root URL.

• Contact us at ramp.msu@gmail.com for this file.

• Within Google Search Console settings, provide at least "restricted" permissions for two RAMP users/roles.

• Confirm all repository root URLs that you want to track (be sure to include both HTTP and HTTPS versions).

• Let us know when we can access the RAMP verification file at your IR root URL.

RAMP is free and works with all major IR platforms.

Getting configured in RAMP usually takes less than a day.

QUESTIONS?

DATA AUGMENTATION: DATA SOURCES

"ISO 3166-1 alpha-3," Wikipedia, last modified May 6, 2020, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_3166-1_alpha-3.

"List of countries by regional classification," Wikipedia, last modified April 1, 2020, https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_regional_classification.

World Population Review, accessed May 19, 2020, https://worldpopulationreview.com/.