This annual report highlights the growth and usage of Digital Repository @ Iowa State University, Iowa State's institutional repository, between July 1, 2014 and June 30, 2015.

Data management and sharing became a national research concern when the National Science Foundation (NSF) began requiring Data Management Plans (DMPs) as part of their grant proposal process in January of 2011. While NSF is not the only funding agency requiring DMPs they are one of the largest and most diverse. As competition for grant funding has become more competitive, what were once considered sideshow documents to the main proposal may now factor into proposal acceptance or rejection. In 2013, Iowa State University received over 38 million dollars in sponsored funding from the National Science Foundation. In order to maintain this level of research investment Iowa State researchers need to be able to write and implement effective data management plans which meet funder requirements. The Data Management Brownbag/Seminar held on Nov. 5, 2013 was organized by the University Library, the Office of the Vice President for Research, and SP@ISU (Strengthening the Professoriate). It was the first university-wide presentation to address data management on the ISU campus.

Digital Repository @ Iowa State University launched in April 2012, with the deposit of over 2,000 graduate theses and dissertations completed between December 2008 and December 2011. In its full fiscal year of operation (July 2012–June 2013), the repository grew by adding university publications and scholarship of Iowa State’s faculty, students and staff.

Iowa State University has contracted Thomson Reuters to provide expertise and data analysis on the top, peer-reviewed journals in multi-disciplinary subject categories from the Web of Science. Each of the 22 reports supplied has been categorized using subjects in the Web of Science and are mapped to broader subject categories that come directly from Essential Sciences Indicators (ESI). With each report, the subject mapping scheme has been provided to highlight exactly what subjects from Web of Science are included in the broad category. With each subject discipline, a chart has been provided for the breakdown on a corresponding year: 2009, 2010, and 2011. The last 3 years have been provided so that any changes within the rankings can be considered when deciding on which top tier journals to publish within a researcher’s specific subject discipline.

Additionally, the journals have been filtered to show those with the top impact factors and their rank in subject category in the 1st quartile. We have provided the data extract from the Journal Citation Reports to support each subject report delivered and to provide additional context and metrics to help support Iowa State in their analysis and recommendations for publishing in top tier journals.

This annual report highlights the growth and usage of Digital Repository @ Iowa State University, Iowa State's institutional repository, between July 1, 2013 and June 30, 2014.