(Taken from the RU Open Access Policy document)
Digital repositories function as "storehouses" of publications organized around an institution or discipline.
For example, Rhodes Digital Commons hosts scholarly and creative works, research, publications, and reports contributed by faculty, students, staff, and administrative units of Rhodes University while arXiv.org hosts papers (mainly) in the physical sciences. Content in repositories often includes peer-reviewed content (publisher's version or post-prints) as well as pre-prints, the version of an article before it under went peer review.
Please Note: Rhodes University requires its researchers to deposit in the Rhodes Digital Commons, a digital copy of the full text, as well as the related metadata of all publications (author final manuscript of publisher version) upon acceptance for publication. See the Rhodes Open Access Policy for more information.
Why Contribute to a Repository?
The publication and peer review process can take months if not years. Sometimes research results will prompt important changes before publication occurs. Depositing a pre-print into a repository is one way to share important results without waiting for publication.
Green OA compliments Gold OA by providing authors a way to share their work with others, even if they publish in a journal that is not OA.*
Repositories usually have stable sources of funding so works deposited into them remain accessible even if the authors are not. They are also often affiliated with well-known institutions such as universities or government agencies which makes them easy to find.
*There are still publishers who do not support any type of OA, Green or Gold.