In the United States, college accrediting commissions now require that reports submitted by their member colleges must be completely digital and presented online with all citations online. Kapiolani Community College is a 2-year college that is part of the University of Hawaii System, which is comprised of three 4-year/graduate school universities and seven 2-year community colleges. Kapiolani Community College took a novel approach by using its DSpace repository to house both the evidence documents and the report itself; essentially DSpace content references DSpace content. The expectation is, with DSpace’s commitment to long-term accessibility of its content, the college will build a reliable, long-lasting resource of accreditation reports. The challenge of writing the report and uploading all the evidence to DSpace at the same time will be discussed. The challenge of building an understanding, with the college's administration, of the usability of DSpace for critical organizational documents will also be addressed.

The presenter is both the repository manager and was the co-chair of the 2012 Self Evaluation Report for the college. Currently she is the Accreditation Liaison Officer and continues to use DSpace as the college’s library for accreditation reporting.

Presentation at Open Repositories 2014, Helsinki, Finland, June 9-13, 2014

DSpace Interest Group Presentations