Arca is a collaborative project of British Columbia post-secondary institutions to provide anytime, anywhere access to research created at BC post-secondary institutions. Arca is a province-wide network of digital repositories that:
- provides access to faculty and student research output across multiple post-secondary institutions via a cross-repository search layer;
- supports the management of institutional digital assets;
- showcases BC as a hub for knowledge creation across Canada and around the world.
Arca is powered by Islandora, a Canadian-developed open-source platform currently in use at over 100 public and private institutions worldwide. This shared platform provides post-secondary institutions with open-access repositories for research, theses, and any other digital assets they wish to make available to the wider community.
Arca is made possible by a partnership between the British Columbia Electronic Library Network (BC ELN) and Charlottetown, PEI-based software firm discoverygarden, supported by a grant from the Ministry of Advanced Education. The other participating institution's Arca sites are accessible from here.