Socio-Technical Factors of Scholarly Communication in an Institutional Repository Context

This exploratory study uses a phenomenological approach to examine faculty attitudes in an institutional repository context as well as the socio-technical factors that affect scholarly communication and data sharing practices. The author conducts interviews and observations with Environmental Studies faculty at two large public research universities. This article reports preliminary results, though data transcription and analysis are ongoing. The author plans to analyze interview transcriptions to find dominant themes. The themes will inform recommendations to improve institutional repository services for the stakeholders.