Benefits

Increased Visibility

Work deposited in the Iowa State University is openly accessible to readers around the world. In 2016, readers from . Since launching in 2012, the repository has reorded downloads in 236 countries and territories—from 2,596,170 downloads in the United States to 12 downloads in the Vatican City.

Search engine optimization means results are rise to the top of Google and Google Scholar searches. When your work is available in the Iowa State University Digital Repository, Google Scholar will highlight the availability of an open access copy by displaying "PDF from iastate.edu" beside the publication title.

Detailed Analytics

The Digital Repository provides authors with detailed analytics, providing insight into who their readers are. Through the repository's Author Dashboard, authors can see:

• How many times their publications have been downloaded, tracked over time;
• Where their works have been downloaded (geographic location and institution), presented via tables and map; and
• How readers discovered their publications (referring links).

This information is available for an author's entire body of work in aggregate, and for individual publications.