Transcript Rumours, Bargains, Lies, & More Lies…. RSP Summer School Thornton Manor, June 2008 Mary Robinson SHERPA European Development Officer SHERPA, University of Nottingham, UK [email protected] http://www.sherpa.ac.uk.

Rumours,
Bargains,
Lies,
& More Lies….
RSP Summer School
Thornton Manor, June 2008
Mary Robinson
SHERPA European Development Officer
SHERPA, University of Nottingham, UK
[email protected]
http://www.sherpa.ac.uk
Preaching to the converted!
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Problems
Stakeholders
Plan- for the Depot
Lessons from Europe
Case Studies
http://www.sherpa.ac.uk
Problems & Barriers
• Awareness of OA, the repository and
relevant services
• Cultural change is needed to develop and
populate repositories
• Being heard!
Promotion, RSP Briefing paper
http://www.rsp.ac.uk/pubs/briefingpap
ers-docs/repoadmin-promotion.pdf
http://www.sherpa.ac.uk
Stakeholders
• Who are they?
– University administrators, senior management and policy
makers.
– Academics as authors and researchers
– Others including technical support staff and library staff
• What are their questions and motivations?
– This influences the aspects and benefits to emphasise.
Key Stakeholders & Benefits, RSP briefing paper
– http://www.rsp.ac.uk/pubs/briefingpapersdocs/repoadmin-stakeholders.pdf
http://www.sherpa.ac.uk
Stakeholders
•Appeal to the child in all of us:
“No use to shout at them to pay attention.
If the situations, the materials, the problems
before the child do not interest him, his
attention will slip off to what does interest
him, and no amount of exhortation of
threats will bring it back.” John Holt
(Although the REF might!)
http://www.sherpa.ac.uk
The Depot
http://www.depot.edina.ac.uk/
The Depot has two main services to offer:
• A deposit service for e-prints, with the Depot
acting as a national repository for researchers not
yet having an institutional repository in which to
deposit their papers, articles, and book chapters.
• A re-direct service, with the Depot acting as a
gateway, especially to repositories at UK
universities (institutional repositories)
http://www.sherpa.ac.uk
The Depot and the Plan!
Goal of advocacy:
To ensure that those who need the Depot, know it
exists and use it.
• Who are the key stakeholders for the Depot?
– Researchers
– Potential / existing repository managers
– University research / grants offices in
institutions that do not have repositories
http://www.sherpa.ac.uk
The Depot and the Plan!
• Rumours
– incorrectly seen being in competition for content
with institutional repositories
– common concerns
http://www.sherpa.ac.uk/documents/15concerns.html
• Bargains - other projects, RSP, EThOS, Intute RS,
• Lies - Listen to Institutions and Evolve Strategies
• & More Lies – keep listening!
http://www.sherpa.ac.uk
Core Message: Put it in the Depot
“Or else!”
http://www.sherpa.ac.uk
Approach
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Strapline- “Put it in the Depot”
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Materials- Depot leaflet, user guide, poster, FAQs and
helpdesk, RSP Key Services briefing paper, RSP website,
etc.
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General awareness - Advert in Times Higher, mailshot to
researchers (with Intute RS)
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Events- RSP Services day, OR08
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Collaboration with others trying to reach the same
stakeholders e.g. Intute RS, JISC Scholarly
Communications Group, HEA
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Contact stakeholders directly
http://www.sherpa.ac.uk
Approach: contact stakeholders directly
Who and How to contact stakeholders?
• Which institutions do not have repositories
• Which institutions receive a lot of research
funding
• What contacts do we have already in those
institutions?- researchers, repository
managers? Etc
• What is the best way to contact them?email initially then phone call or visit?
• What key questions are they likely to have
and do I have relevant material I can send
them?
http://www.sherpa.ac.uk
Approach: contact stakeholders directly
What do I want to achieve from the meeting?
• To have the researcher deposit more
material?
• To encourage their peers to deposit?
• To promote the Depot internally?
• To suggest a suitable university newsletter
where I could submit an article on the Depot?
• To suggest an event or meeting that I could
attend?
http://www.sherpa.ac.uk
Approach: contact stakeholders directly
Follow-up:
Did they find the material useful, have they deposited
any material, have they forwarded the information
to their colleagues, do they have any questions?
“Promotion is an ongoing effort”
RSP Briefing paper
http://www.rsp.ac.uk/pubs/briefingpapersdocs/repoadmin-promotion.pdf
http://www.sherpa.ac.uk
Outcomes
• Experience suggests most people in the UK that are
aware of OA or repositories have heard of the Depot
but may not know exactly what it does or who it is for
• continued need for advocacy
• Times Higher advert helped raise awareness of the
Depot in the UK
• directly resulted in at least one researcher depositing
papers in the Depot
• International interest in the Depot model.
http://www.sherpa.ac.uk
Outcomes
• Actual Deposits – disappointing!
– 28 items deposited, up from approx 19 at the start of the year
But!
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Interest from various groups for the Depot to host collections of
materials, unfortunately none so far have been appropriate/within the
remit of the Depot
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Interest from researchers wishing to use the Depot to deposit ethesesunfortunately outside our remit
•
Several repository managers with repositories under development have
said they will direct users to the Depot until their own repository is live
•
The advocacy continues….
http://www.sherpa.ac.uk
Examples from Europe
• “A DRIVER’s Guide to European Repositories”
– Edited by Kasja Weenink, Leo Waaijers & Karen van Godtsenhoven
http://www.driver-support.eu/linkspubs/driverpubs.html
• Chapter 3 “ The population of repositories”
• Written by Vanessa Proudman
• Drawing on experiences from
– University of Minho
– HAL
– CERN
– University of Southampton, UK
• Incentives to deposit
• Seventeen pointers for stimulating the population of repositories
(pages 93-97)
http://www.sherpa.ac.uk
Incentives to deposit
Services can drive deposit:
• Cream of Science, 9 months project to showcase “prominent
research” in The Netherlands. Contains work from 217 scholars,
27,5000 full text, 80% are articles.
http://www.narcis.info/index/tab/keur/Language/EN/
• Connecting Africa, web portal for African studies in The
Netherlands and recently expanded to include material from
elsewhere. http://www.connecting-africa.net/
Both services give the author visibility as a “leading light”
in their field.
http://www.sherpa.ac.uk
Incentives to deposit
Services can drive deposit:
• HAL- can be searched by author and/or disciplines to
uncover networks of researchers and institutional
collaborations. (page 64)
• HAL- the development of a sub-portal devoted to
mathematics, social sciences and humanities
encouraged these disciplines to be early adopters.
(page 71)
http://www.sherpa.ac.uk
Incentives to deposit
• When you promote your repository, do you also
promote related services?
– If so, which ones?
• Is there any way you can use your repository to
highlight the research of authors who deposit articles
in your repository? e.g. through articles in University
news letters?
http://www.sherpa.ac.uk
Incentives to deposit
Involvement of research departments:
• Minho Library
• Have departmental repository coordinators in place to support
researchers (page 68-69)
• Allow some autonomy to their researchers.
• Has wide departmental uptake and success.
• CERN
• Have a similar approach and have made departments
responsible for content deployment (page 68-69)
• School of Electronics and Computer Science, Southampton
• Established and run their own repository (page 69).
• This feeds in to Soton, Southampton’s institutional repository
http://www.sherpa.ac.uk
Incentives to deposit
– Do you have departments willing to promote and
support the deposit of articles into your repository?
– What form of promotion or support does the
department provide? Departmental
recommendation or mandate? Mediated deposit
support?
– Have you done anything with your repository to
specifically meet the needs of a particular
group/department?
http://www.sherpa.ac.uk
Seventeen pointers for stimulating the
population of repositories (page 93-97)
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Know your research community
Target advocacy activities
Be clear what Open Access stands for and the benefits to the depositor
Collection development choices should reflect academic output
Provide added value services
Take an active role in improving information retrieval and discovery
Push out your content to the global research community to show your commitment to increasing the impact
of your researchers’ work.
Showcase your efforts and achievements
Be innovative as to how you acquire your content
Provide IPR support
Consider the organisation of the repository with respect to the institution.
Ensure the repository infrastructure is in place to deliver
Use repository networks to assist you where possible.
Have a strong knowledgeable repository team
If developing regional or disciplinary services choose prominent/influential partners
Strive for cost-effectiveness
Challenge yourself.
http://www.driver-support.eu/linkspubs/driverpubs.html pages 93-97
http://www.sherpa.ac.uk
Other case studieshttp://www.rsp.ac.uk/repos/cases
• CERES, Cranfield University
• Experiments with producing multimedia podcasts to
enhance content.
• Linking to other related resources e.g. researcher profiles,
related papers, datasets.
• ORA, University of Oxford
“Asking users what they require can be difficult if they do not
actually know what they want or what is possible…. …and it
is important to manage expectations and not promise more
than we can deliver in the timeframe.”
http://www.sherpa.ac.uk
Other case studieshttp://www.rsp.ac.uk/repos/cases
• UNED, National Distance Education University of Spain
“ we did not carry out an outreach or marketing campaign after the release of
the "Institutional Open Access oriented Repository". What happened was
that the technology we were using was just the right answer at the right
moment to the problems of the different Departments generating digital
content at our university. So it was they who contact us looking for a
solution.”
• Tufts Digital Repository (TDR), Tufts University, US
“Faculty were initially not attuned to the need for a repository at the university.
Our initial conversations with potential early adopters revealed a nearly universal
lack of understanding of digital preservation needs and almost no interest in
depositing publications in a repository….”
“We therefore started by questioning faculty about the existing management of
digital assets resulting from their research. While most were unfamiliar with the
challenges posed by digital preservation, the realities of hardware failure,
software obsolescence, and for some, personal knowledge of data loss due to
these issues, made an excellent context for discussing the role of a repository at
the university.”
http://www.sherpa.ac.uk
Thank you!
http://www.sherpa.ac.uk