New Digital Portal Expands Global Visibility for Kentucky Research

LEXINGTON, Ky. (May 7, 2015) — The University of Kentucky and Western Kentucky University (WKU) announce the launch of Kentucky Research Commons, a new digital portal that presents and provides access to the breadth and depth of research being conducted in at several universties in Kentucky.

The portal features a real-time readership map that visualizes when and where content is being downloaded. The site illuminates the global reach and significance of the outstanding research from Kentucky institutions.

"It is exhilarating to see the scholarly endeavors in the Commonwealth hold broad appeal around the world. This new portal certainly helps researchers and the academic communities develop a clear picture of the reach and impact of their work,” said Adrian Ho, director of Digital Scholarship at UK Libraries. 

The Kentucky Research Commons hosts a wealth of valuable scholarly materials, ranging from faculty publications, to online peer-reviewed journals, to conferences and events, to electronic theses and dissertations, to special archival collections. Users can browse content by institution, discipline or author. They can also type in search terms for easy discovery.
 

Hosted by bepress on its Digital Commons platform, the site aggregates contents from the institutional repositories of a growing number of Kentucky institutions, including Asbury Theological Seminary, Bellarmine University, Eastern Kentucky University, UK, University of Louisville and WKU. Institutional repositories are playing an increasingly significant role in the way universities share, manage and preserve their scholarly outputs. 

Connie Foster, dean of Libraries at WKU, believes there is strength in numbers. "The Kentucky Research Commons brings another dimension to open access, collaboration and the intellectual output of universities in the Commonwealth through a shared research portal. Faculty can showcase their research; students can explore research and creative efforts across Kentucky; legislators, funding bodies and all citizens of the Commonwealth and beyond can visualize the impact of educational outcomes in one place. The Readership Map highlights in real time the use of the portal and dramatically visualizes international reach. While each institution shown in this portal realizes individual growth and impact, the collective strength cannot go unnoticed in this endeavor. The continued commitment by bepress to create new and enhanced ways to support its user community is unparalleled.”

Visit the Kentucky Research Commons at kentucky.researchcommons.us.

For more information, contact Adrian Ho, UK Libraries’ director of Digital Scholarship, at adrian.ho@uky.edu. For more information about UKnowledge, see http://uknowledge.uky.edu/. For more information on WKU's participation, contact Connie Foster, WKU’s dean of University Libraries, at connie.foster@wku.edu. For more information about TopSCHOLAR, see http://digitalcommons.wku.edu

UK, founded in 1865, is the state's flagship research-intensive, land-grant university dedicated to improving people's lives through excellence in teaching, research, health care, cultural enrichment and economic development. More than 30,000 students enrolled as graduate, undergraduate or professional students in Fall 2014. As the premier research library system in the Commonwealth of Kentucky, UK Libraries provides ever-expanding access to quality information resources, teaching and learning programs and services, and excellent learning spaces. UK Libraries plays an essential role in the university's goal to elevate the quality of life and enhance the intellectual and economic capital within Kentucky, and is integral to teaching and learning, research, and outreach. For more information, see http://libraries.uky.edu/.

Established in 1906, WKU today serves more than 20,100 students on its main campus in Bowling Green, Kentucky, and its regional campuses in Glasgow, Elizabethtown-Fort Knox and Owensboro, Kentucky. WKU offers more than 170 undergraduate degree programs and more than 50 graduate degree programs, including doctoral degrees in educational leadership, nursing and physical therapy. More than 75 degrees are available completely online. WKU is home to the state's only independent Honors College with 1,300 students. WKU is guided by the vision to become "A Leading American University with International Reach." That vision is achieved through nationally recognized programs such as engineering, and journalism and broadcasting, and accounting, as well as the internationally renowned forensics team. For more information, see www.wku.edu/.

Founded by professors in 1999, bepress exists to serve academia  by delivering scholarly communications and publishing services for academic institutions, empowering their communities to showcase and share their works for maximum impact. Through their services bepress seeks to link communities of scholars, listen to their needs, and provide solutions to support emerging academic missions and goals.

Bepress is the provider of Digital Commons, the leading hosted institutional repository (IR) software platform. Digital Commons is a suite of tools and services that enables institutions to manage, display, and publish scholarship to the Web in a beautiful, highly visible showcase. Digital Commons offers the features of a traditional IR as well as professional-grade publishing software, management tools, and individual faculty and researcher pages to promote and disseminate scholarship and serve academia.

With Digital Commons, universities can collect, preserve, and make visible all of their intellectual output, including pre-prints, working papers, journal articles, dissertations, master's theses, conference proceedings, presentations, creative works, and a wide variety of other content types.

MEDIA CONTACT: Whitney Hale, 859-257-8716; whitney.hale@uky.edu