Hi All,

Just a note that as of DSpace 1.7.0 (released Dec 2010), DSpace  ships 
with Google Scholar recommended metadata enabled out-of-the-box.

For that release, DSpace developers at MIT actually worked directly with 
the technology lead for Google Scholar to ensure DSpace content could be 
more discoverable via Google Scholar.

However, it is worth noting that institutions may need to modify the 
configuration of the DSpace Google Scholar "mappings" if they have 
customized their local DSpace metadata schema in any way. Those 
instructions are in our DSpace Documentation at: 
https://wiki.duraspace.org/display/DSDOC18/Google+Scholar+Metadata+Mappings

DSpace also provides general hints/tips on ensuring that your 
institutions' DSpace installation is indexed/discoverable via Google 
(and other search engines) in general. Many of these tips were actually 
written/provided by Robert Tansley at Google (initial creator of DSpace).

https://wiki.duraspace.org/display/DSPACE/Ensuring+your+instance+is+indexed

- Tim

-- 
Tim Donohue
Technical Lead for DSpace Project
DuraSpace.org

On 2/15/2012 5:31 AM, Stevan Harnad wrote:
> Can we enhance the google-scholar discoverability of EPrints (and
> DSpace) repositories?
>
> http://linksource.ebsco.com/linking.aspx?sid=google&auinit=K&aulast=Arlitsch&atitle=Invisible+Institutional+Repositories:+Addressing+the+Low+Indexing+Ratios+of+IRs+in+Google+Scholar&title=Library+Hi+Tech&volume=30&issue=1&date=2012&spage=4&issn=0737-8831
>
>
> Kenning Arlitsch, Patrick Shawn OBrien, (2012) "Invisible Institutional
> Repositories: Addressing the Low Indexing Ratios of IRs in Google
> Scholar", Library Hi Tech, Vol. 30 Iss: 1
>
> Purpose - Google Scholar has difficulty indexing the contents of
> institutional repositories, and the authors hypothesize the reason is
> that most repositories use Dublin Core, which cannot express
> bibliographic citation information adequately for academic papers.
> Google Scholar makes specific recommendations for repositories,
> including the use of publishing industry metadata schemas over Dublin
> Core. This paper tests a theory that transforming metadata schemas in
> institutional repositories will lead to increased indexing by Google
> Scholar.
>
> Design/methodology/approach - The authors conducted two surveys of
> institutional and disciplinary repositories across the United States,
> using different methodologies. They also conducted three pilot projects
> that transformed the metadata of a subset of papers from USpace, the
> University of Utah's institutional repository, and examined the results
> of Google Scholar's explicit harvests.
>
> Findings - Repositories that use GS recommended metadata schemas and
> express them in HTML meta tags experienced significantly higher indexing
> ratios. The ease with which search engine crawlers can navigate a
> repository also seems to affect indexing ratio. The second and third
> metadata transformation pilot projects at Utah were successful,
> ultimately achieving an indexing ratio of greater than 90%. Research
> limitations/implications - The second survey was limited to
> forty titles from each of seven repositories, for a total of 280 titles.
> A larger survey that covers more repositories may be useful.
>
> Practical implications - Institutional repositories are achieving
> significant mass, and the rate of author citations from those
> repositories may affect university rankings. Lack of visibility in
> Google Scholar, however, will limit the ability of IRs to play a more
> significant role in those citation rates.
> Originality/value - Little or no research has been published about
> improving the indexing ratio of institutional repositories in Google
> Scholar. The authors believe that they are the first to address the
> possibility of transforming IR metadata to improve indexing ratios in
> Google Scholar.