Institutional repositories (IRs) are a set of services that an educational institution offers the members of its learning community for the management and dissemination of the digital materials created by its members. The organizational commitment to the stewardship of these digital materials usually includes providing long-term preservation, organization, access, and distribution services.

The MIRACLE (Making Institutional Repositories in A Collaborative Learning Environment) Project funded by the IMLS (Institute of Museum and Library Services) investigates the development of institutional repositories in colleges and universities to identify models and best practices in the administration, technical infrastructure, and access to repository collections. The main goal of the project is to identify specific factors contributing to the success of institutional repositories and effective ways of accessing and using repositories.

Achieving project goals requires the following five activities during the period from October 2005 to September 2008: (1) survey institutional repositories in the United States to identify the wide range of practices; (2) conduct follow-up phone interviews with the staff members; (3) conduct case studies at five institutional repositories that we select as models; (4) survey current and prospective repository users to learn about their use of, expectations, and needs with respect to institutional repository system functionality and content; and (5) investigate how people search, retrieve, and use institutional-repository resources through an analysis of transaction logs and experimental search test tasks.

The results of this project will increase understanding of the development of institutional repositories for both practitioners and researchers and will assist repository administrative staff and executive officers at institutions of higher education in their planning and decision-making processes. Specifically, the project outcomes include: case studies that illustrate key elements contributing to their success; specification of variables that influence success factors; evaluation of institutional repositories based on user studies; instruments and protocols for re-use by other investigators and repository staff.