Transcript Developing an Institutional Repository at the University

Developing an Institutional Repository at
the University of Southampton
- the TARDis experience
Policy meets Practice in Building a Sustainable Institutional
Repository for Research
Pauline Simpson TARDis Project Manager
Jessie Hey, TARDis Research Fellow
Mark Brown, University Librarian
Open Access Institutional Repositories (OA IRs):
Leadership, Direction and Launch
University of Southampton. 25th and 26th January, 2005
http://eprints.soton.ac.uk
http://tardis.eprints.org/
The Culture, Care, Content
and Continuance of IRs
TARDis in transition
• UK Context (PS)
• Developing policies (PS)
• Working with disciplines and
cultures (JH)
• Continuance - the next stage:
(MLB)
a shared service
IRs : a little history
• 1991 – first author self archiving subject repository (e-Print
archive) Los Alamos High Energy Physics now called arXiv
located at Cornell University. Very successful
• 1994 - Prof Stevan Harnad (Southampton), strong advocate of
author self archiving
• 1997 - more subject archives introduced (Chemistry,
Economics etc) – varying success
• 2000 onwards - complementary model emerging - institutional
repositories with initiative often library-led – many supported by
project funding eg. USA, Canada, Australia and UK.
UK Context
• HEFCE / JISC Focus on Access to Institutional
Resources (FAIR) 2002 - 2005
– To support the disclosure of institutional assets:
To support access to and sharing of institutional
content within Higher Education and Further
Education and to allow intelligence to be gathered about
the technical, organisational and cultural challenges of
these processes…
Inspired by the vision of the Open Archives Initiative (OAI)
that digital resources can be shared between organisations
based on a simple mechanism allowing metadata about
these resources to be harvested into services
? why INSTITUTIONAL
Repositories
• Subject or project repositories often linked to an individual or a group
– can be transitory - collection at risk eg. Paul Ginsparg
• Institutions take responsibility for
– Centralising a distributed activity
– Framework and Infrastructure
– Permanence that can sustain changes
– Stewardship of Digital assets
– Preservation
– Provide central digital showcase for the research, teaching and
scholarship of the institution
UK Context - FAIR
FAIR Programme August 2002 -
• £3 million on 14 projects
• Clusters:
• Museums and Images
• e-Prints
• e-theses
• IPR
• Institutional portals
(New Call for IR Proposals in Feb 2005)
FAIR - ePrints Cluster
• Sharing experiences :
• SHERPA: broader - Consortium of University Research Libraries –
filling archives and joint infrastructure ( some 20 universities led by
Nottingham University)
• HaIRST: A testbed for Scotland for harvesting Institutional resources
led by Strathclyde University (includes 10 FE colleges)
• Daedalus : Glasgow University
• ePrints-UK :harvesting UK e-Print archives
• (E-Theses led by Robert Gordon University & Theses Alive led by Edinburgh
University and RoMEo worked within this cluster)
• TARDis: Targeting Academic Resources for Deposit and dISclosure
TARDis built on Southampton
visions
• EPrints software had been created at School of Electronics and
Computer Science (ECS), Southampton to enable the self
archive vision
• ECS already used the software for a publications database –
now a sustainable repository
• Southampton Oceanography Centre wanted to be an early
adopter of e-Prints culture
• Resulting TARDis Project is the collaboration of The University
Library, School of Electronics and Computer Science, and
Information Systems Services alongside academics as one
institution
TARDis : Targeting Academic Resources
for Deposit and Disclosure – activities
Investigating practical ways in which university research output can
be made more freely available - more accessible, more rapidly –
as a fundamental building block of e-Research
• Creating an IR model
- Southampton University Research e-Prints (e-Prints Soton)
http://eprints.soton.ac.uk
• Refining Software
- feeding back into pioneering EPrints software, good citation
and information management practice experimenting with
best balance of assisted deposit and fast track (functionality,
fields, interface)
• Supporting ease of use for depositors of different
backgrounds with a wide variety of research output
– essential ingredient, working closely with ‘schools’
– identifying barriers
TARDis evolution to e-Prints Soton
• Original intent to provide secure storage for the full
text of Southampton research output (e-Print Archive
including post refereed pre published versions of
papers deposited by researchers)
• Feedback: from our advocacy, pilot and full service
was that e-Prints Soton would provide maximum
benefit if the service also assisted researchers with
time consuming research metrics
• Evolved to ‘hybrid’ publications database for all
research output with full text where available
Policy into Practice (1)
• The Name!
• Mandatory Use – dovetailing with present working practices
• Target - Proof of concept or full-scale service (one leads into the other)
but never a Project
• Scope -
What to deposit - all Research Output, excluding learning objects or
administrative documents (at present). Current research or legacy?
• Who can Deposit – what size of footprint?
• Database - one for ease of maintenance
(Nottingham x 2; Glasgow x 3)
• Software – multiple choices – but Southampton = no contest!
Essential technical support : customization, functionality
• Deposit Options – we offer choice : self, assisted and fast track deposit
• Mandatory Metadata fields – document dependent - sufficient for citation
but too many = barrier to deposit
• Metadata quality – all data is validated.
quality data.
Institutional responsibility requires
QA is labour intensive – what level? Submitted data often poor
Policy into Practice (2)
• Value Added – e-journal URL and abstract
• Full Text v Record – policy linked to Southampton needs, requests for
copies
• Import Records – from subject repositories - arXiv, PubMed
• File Formats – accept a variety – discipline specific, but thinking about
easy dissemination versus preservation.
• File Conversion - Word into pdf, but wish to add conversion tools to
interface with guidance for depositors
• Digitization – offer scanning for illustrations not held electronically if text
deposited
• Copyright - advising and encouraging rather than proactively seeking
permission. SHERPA RoMEO Publishers Copyright Policies & EPrints
RoMEO
• Preservation - secure storage is offered. New Project PRESERV
Legal Issues
• Deposit Agreement and User Agreement
Legal documents?
Acceptance by click or proceeding through
- Withdrawal of records
- Quality assurance - not of content
appoint editors within research
groups
- IPR
• Important to link with your Legal Affairs Office
Policy into Practice - summary
• Choose optimum time to introduce
- Southampton restructuring
• Interface aesthetics - look and feel is important
• Metadata quality is a huge issue
• Assisted deposit is time consuming
• Dedicated Technical, Advocacy & Admin support
• Sophisticated software functionality expectations
by researchers
• Need Champions within your organization …..
Working with disciplines and
cultures
• Advocacy Policy defined
• Medium to Long Term support required
• Sensitive to organizational culture and
background
• Enthusiasm
• Presentation and debating skills
Jessie Hey ……..
Working with disciplines and
cultures for full representation
• Began with initial knowledge of some areas of
a large organisation
• Advocacy/solutions most effective when you
know the background and tailor to suit
• Key ingredient - exploration of web sites and
discussions
Sampling of faculty websites
– assessing current practice
Department
Total number
of publications
listed on Web
Full text on
Web
Percentage of
Publications
with full text
Faculty of Law, Arts and Social Sciences
Archaeology
252
2
1%
English
243
3
1%
Modern Languages
160
0
0%
Music
280
5
2%
Politics
138
6
4%
Economics
357
89
25%
Maths Education
170
34
20%
Faculty of Medicine, Health and Life Sciences
Biology
796
24
3%
Medicine
1603
247
15%
Health Professions and
Rehabilitation Sciences
332
0
0%
Nursing and Midwifery
439
0
0%
Faculty of Engineering, Science and Mathematics
Chemistry
1128
111
10%
Electronics and Computer
Science
7008
866
12%
Mathematical Studies
849
310
37%
Ocean Circulation and
Climate Group, SOES
286
9
3%
68
9%
James Rennell Division, SOC 792
University central recording of
research
Central recording mechanism via Corporate and Marketing Service – MS Word lists
“the Research Report provides a comprehensive list of publications by University
staff “
Progressed to pdfs - 1998 to 2002 on the web
Need an easier, more proactive way with full text potential
Fundamental impact on policy
of current practice
Hey, Jessie M.N. (2004) An environmental assessment of
research publication activity and related factors impacting
the development of an Institutional e-Print Repository at the
University of Southampton. Southampton, UK, University of
Southampton, 19pp. (TARDis Project Report, D 3.1.2)
http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/archive/00006218/
With much support from Natasha Lucas who has since provided
invaluable assisted deposit support
See also TARDis article in Ariadne
http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/8986/
Feedback: Perceived benefits to
University, Schools and Researchers
• University profile
• School and
discipline visibility
• Researcher profile
• Full text content
freely accessible
• link to learning and
teaching
• Increased citations
•
Secure storage of
publications
–
•
•
•
including also theses
and dissertations,
technical reports
Links to projects and
web pages
Research reporting
Interdisciplinary
research
Articles freely available online are more highly cited. For greater impact and faster
scientific progress, authors and publishers should aim to make research easy to
access
Nature, Volume 411, Number 6837, p. 521, 2001 Steve Lawrence
“Online or Invisible?”
Benefit of high profile of e-Prints Soton
– Google and Google Scholar ………..
Creating exemplars
• Helping individuals with their CV –
potential for additional tailoring
• Developing visibility aids for individuals
and ‘schools’
• Updating home page and group
research pages
• Humanities require ‘hybrid’ database to
represent all work
• Interdisciplinary work – saving deposit
time
Real benefit of adding a link to
your web page – auto update
Secure storage and visibility –
from e-Prints Soton to S3RI brand
Advertising research – by web
site and screen at entrance
Is my paper here?
Hot off the screen
Linking to bookseller –
‘search inside’ bonus
Interdisciplinary research –
enter once only
Next phase includes shared
preservation services
• Act of creating database anticipates future
preservation decisions
• Gained valuable practical experience with IR usage
e.g. metadata quality/variety and file formats – Word
and pdf v. LaTeX communities but shared services
useful for common problems
• PRESERV (Preservation Services for EPrints) - part
of new £1m UK JISC funding – partnering with
National Archives File Format Registry (PRONOM)
and the British Library
• http://www.jisc.ac.uk/index.cfm?name=project_preserv
Current transition
• Gaining experience on managing input on increasing scale –
seeking smart solutions and developing ongoing ‘school’
partnerships e.g.
– school research office - Education, Humanities
– web master – Southampton Statistical Sciences Research
Institute
– library - Southampton Oceanography Centre
– academic and librarian – Health Care Innovation Unit
• Continuing dialogue with individual schools and individuals –
building up exemplars within schools and evolving processes to
suit
• Building sustainability
Practical level
Management level
Mark Brown ………
From TARDis to Southampton
University Research e-Prints
• Sustainable Institutional Repository – final deliverable of
TARDis
• Service rather than Project
• Advocacy
• Multi-Levels
• The Hooks
• Led by University Library
• Phased Business Plan
• Next Steps
To become an integral part of
the research infrastructure
Developing an Institutional Repository at
the University of Southampton
- the TARDis experience
Policy meets Practice in Building a Sustainable Institutional
Repository for Research
Pauline Simpson TARDis Project Manager
Jessie Hey, TARDis Research Fellow
Mark Brown, University Librarian
Open Access Institutional Repositories (OA IRs):
Leadership, Direction and Launch
University of Southampton. 25th and 26th January, 2005
http://eprints.soton.ac.uk
http://tardis.eprints.org/