Karin Sohler and Valérie Lanier
ArchINED, INED’s open archive, opened to the public in March 2019. Interview with ArchINED administrators Karin Sohler and Valérie Lanier.
(Interview conducted in November 2024)
Who can access ArchINED?
ArchINED is a public archive*, anyone can use it to consult, search for and read research studies and to download publications, all free of charge. However, only INED members can upload—deposit—material in the archive and access certain functions and limited-access documents.
What sorts of publications and documents are available to the public?
All types of scientific research work can be found on ArchINED: journal articles, entire books, book chapters, reports, working papers, etc. We are working to deposit all published work of active INED researchers and to get documents onto open access as quickly as possible: immediately or just after embargo expiration. In all cases where the author publishing contract and France’s “Digital Republic” law permit, authors can upload either the published version of their scientific text or a version already accepted for publication.
From 2019 to 2023, we’ve compiled 7,734 references, 2,903 of which were published during that period; the other 4,831 are earlier publications all uploaded retrospectively in 2021. Today, as 2024 comes to an end, the number of documents on ArchINED has risen to 11,000, 57% of which are on open access. The majority—88%—are journal articles, book chapters, and working papers. An increasing proportion of recent documents, all published since 2019, are now available on open access. For example, 72% of research published in 2023 and deposited on ArchINED is on open access.
How have you been developing ArchINED in the five years since it was launched?
Comments from ArchINED users have enabled us to make a considerable number of changes, e.g., improving the ergonomics of the upload form, adapting data export and bibliographic management tools, and making simple and advanced search and save- file functions easier to use. We have also developed tools to make uploads administration easier. And followed technology and software developments closely, revising our Open Source Polaris OS solution to ensure interconnectivity and interoperability with other OpenScience infrastructures such as HAL. We’ve also worked to improve search engine and web harvester referencing of ArchINED material by other open databases and archives. Most important, in addition to technological developments, are the changes in INED practices achieved over the last five years. In this connection we’ve designed activities and materials for assisting users (trainings, guides) and worked to broaden diffusion of all documents on open access.
What’s next for ArchINED?
Among our projects for 2025 is norming the system to ensure disabled accessibility. Another project concerns the uploading of PDF publications and accepted author versions of articles whenever possible.
* An open archive is a digital reservoir of documents related to scientific research studies. In most cases the documents are formally deposited by their authors, thereby enabling the public at large to access them free of charge and without any obligations.
