On 6 November 2023, the University launched a new repository system, Figshare. As Lincoln approaches its first anniversary with Figshare, the Research Data and Systems team would like to share some reflections on the progress and usage of the platform since its introduction.
Since the launch of the new repository, Figshare data confirms that records deposited by Lincoln authors have received a total of over 2.1 million views. Available files have been downloaded over 742,809 times. The most popularly viewed item types are journal contributions, with 1.2 million views, and conference contributions, with 337,717 views.
| Item type | View count (correct as of 17/10/2024) |
| Journal contribution | 1,247,327 |
| Conference contribution | 337,717 |
| Book chapter | 198,200 |
| Book | 116,501 |
| Thesis | 60,737 |
| Media | 60,827 |
| Report | 53,391 |
| Online resource | 37,661 |
| Figure | 28,776 |
| Dataset | 13,888 |
The team are pleased to report that Lincoln research has been viewed all over the world. The University’s repository was most commonly accessed by users in the United States, France, United Kingdom, Indonesia, Ireland, and Singapore. Research tagged with the following JACS Codes was viewed by the most users respectively: C800—Psychology, I100—Computer Science, L300—Sociology, N100—Business Studies and A300—Clinical Medicine.
| Country | View count (correct as of 17/10/2024) |
| United States | 1,675,266 |
| France | 320,237 |
| United Kingdom | 40,589 |
| Indonesia | 31,905 |
| Ireland | 29,334 |
| Singapore | 14,264 |
| Japan | 6,276 |
| Germany | 5,497 |
| Australia | 4,673 |
| India | 2,408 |
| China | 2,078 |
| Canada | 1,992 |
| Finland | 1,977 |
| Netherlands | 1,715 |
| Denmark | 1,592 |
| Russia | 1,515 |
| South Korea | 1,350 |
| Sweden | 1,248 |
| Brazil | 1,163 |
| Turkey | 1,138 |
| Philippines | 1,125 |
| Lithuania | 1,113 |
| Italy | 943 |
In the last six months alone, the Repository Team have processed 1,302 deposits (roughly 54 items weekly) from colleagues across the institution. Deposits were primarily comprised of journal contributions (62%); however, the team are excited to continue embracing data archiving, especially in relation to the funding landscape, where a growing number of bodies mandate open data requirements in line with the terms of their grants.
As of October 2024, JISCs tool Sherpa Juliet (which archives funder’s open access requirements) revealed that 55 funders require data archiving, whilst a further 33 encourage this. Data archiving can also offer researcher benefits, with an article published by PLOS ONE finding an association between articles that include statements that link to data in a repository and up to 25.36% (± 1.07%) higher citation impact on average, using a citation prediction model.
A record containing archived data, Supplemental files for: Separate and combined volatile profiles produced by Hanseniaspora uvarum and Metschnikowia pulcherrima yeasts are attractive to Drosophila suzukii in the laboratory and field, is one of the most viewed and downloaded items on the repository. This data was uploaded to the previous EPrints repository in 2020 and, since its migration to Figshare less than a year ago, boasts an impressive 348 views and 264 downloads.
The data, gathered by Matthew Goddard (Professor of Population and Evolutionary Biology at the University), Rory Jones (a Lincoln PhD student), Michelle Fountain and Paul Eady, underpins this article, published open access in Springer’s Scientific Reports. The output explores ways to control agricultural pests without the use of chemical pesticides. The Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board (AHDB) and the University of Lincoln funded this project, in collaboration with NIAB-EMR. According to Springer Nature’s Altmetric data, the open access article has been accessed 2530 times, cited on 17 occasions and is in the 88th percentile of the 511,613 tracked articles of a similar age in all journals.
As our previous system did not provide usage data, we are unable to tell how often the files were accessed historically. However, we hope that Figshare’s Usage Metrics and grant database (powered by Dimensions) offers colleagues across the institution an exciting opportunity to track the visibility and dissemination of their items published on the repository.
Datasets are not the only outputs which benefit from repository dissemination. Some of the most viewed items on the University’s Figshare repository are theses.
Alison Raby (Senior Lecturer in Study Skills and Business English Communication and Programme Leader for International Year One Business and Management) added her PhD thesis, An Exploration of the Relationships between Chinese Students and their Personal Tutors: An IPA Study, to Figshare in December 2023. In only 8 months, the thesis has garnered almost 500 views and over 100 downloads.
Alison has kindly granted permission for us to spotlight her thesis, adding that opportunities have arisen as a result of the thesis being available on the repository. Since the record was made live on the repository, Dr Raby was asked to lead a webinar at Bristol University, alongside being invited as a guest on a podcast, which is being recorded this month. Alison is also co-authoring a second edition of a seminal book on personal tutoring and has seen her thesis’ recommendations used in staff training for personal tutoring at another institution.
If you are interested in adding your thesis to the repository, please complete this MS Form, and a member of the team will upload this on your behalf.
Over the next year, the team will be continuing to develop additional resources for Figshare users as well as including the development of institutional guidance for the deposit of practice-led, non-traditional, and multi-component research. This will be led by feedback from a new Non-Traditional Research Outputs Working Group (NTROWG). The details of this group, including information on how to participate, will be circulated by the end of 2024.
If you would like to know more about Figshare, please visit the Repository Help Blog, which contains a suite of resources, including deposit guidance for both routes (“Deposit Research” and “Deposit Data”) and FAQs.
This contribution was authored by Jade King, Research Repository and Research Data Officer.