The digital commons are a form of commons involving the distribution and communal ownership of informational resources and technology. 
Resources are typically designed to be used by the community by which they are created.
Digital repository: A system that can organize, store, and retrieve digital assets. More specifically used within the library/ information science field than digital asset management systems. Within this context, it also incorporates the suite of services associated with the curation of digital objects such as digital preservation and ongoing metadata work.
Understanding Repositories: Important Definitions
Self-Archiving & Citation Advantage
Using Open Access to make your research more visible
Rhodes Digital Commons (Repository)
Institutional Repository
Green Route Open Access
Copyright Compliant
What can be uploaded to the Rhodes Digital Commons (Repository)?
Publishers' permissions to deposit articles in the Rhodes Digital Commons
Meredith Wisner (Pratt Institute)
Open access institutional repositories were created to promote access to information, encourage scholarly communication, and demonstrate institutional prestige. While these repositories have been widely adopted, the quality of their contents often fails to represent their institution’s scholarly output. Moreover, current research uses measurements of quantity, not quality, to assess their value. In response, this article opens new areas of scholarly inquiry by assessing the quality of contents. This is accomplished through a cross-sectional study of repositories at American colleges...
The Rhodes Library’s primary function is to aid in fulfilling the scholarly values and objectives of Rhodes University through its rich collection of information resources, both print and electronic, its information portal, and institutional repository. It is imperative that the Library is able to meet the information needs of the university’s students and staff, to support and enhance high standards of teaching, research and scholarship.
The Rhodes Digital Commons is a collective responsibility of the institution, library, Research Office, and academics. The primary role of the Library in this endeavour is the hosting; managing the repository; selection; strategy; human capital; marketing; and scholarly communication.
The value of the Rhodes Digital Commons is that it:
For more information, visit the Scholarly Communication: Rhodes Digital Commons page
The SEALS Digital Commons contains the digital collections of the academic institutions in the Eastern Cape, South Africa.
In 1998 the South East Academic Libraries System (SEALS) was established by the academic libraries as an informal academic library forum in the Eastern Cape Province, South Africa. SEALS became a formal academic library consortium in 1999, with the vision to create a virtual library for the Eastern Cape. The member libraries are from the Nelson Mandela University, Rhodes University, University of Fort Hare, and Walter Sisulu University.
Repositories are a vital element of the scholarly communication infrastructure. However, the community needs to work hard to get the actual content.
This report describes a number of profiles of sustainable practices for populating repositories. The practices described here are based on a review of repository activities around the world, and represent a variety of institutional and jurisdictional contexts.
The practices fall into three broad categories:
The repository community was born out of an environment of cooperation, openness and innovation. The practices profiled here reflect these traditions and represent creative approaches to staffing, imaginative software developments, and adoption of novel policies.
Read the Report Here: http://www.coar-repositories.org/files/Sustainable-best-practices_final.pdf.
