Literature review: CTREP Cambridge TETRA Repositories Enhancement Project

This project was based at the University of Cambridge and the partner institution was the University of Highlands and Islands but UHI found themselves unable to commit to the final stages of the project.

The aims of the project were:
· To increase the number of submissions to the IR, to preserve and disseminate research
· To increase the satisfaction of users with the IR through improving the ease of use and increasing integration with other institutional systems
· To increase the institutionalisation and embedding of the IR
· To develop a technical integration tool which connected the Virtual Research Environment (VRE) to the IR


Outcomes:
- An integration tool was successfully developed and deployed between the VRE and IR. This is a JAVA based open source adaptor which is designed to be reusable in other institutions. A widget, Camtools, was also designed to upload files from the VRE. Background work included the configuration of the widget which enabled metadata cross walking, routing of submissions to communities and collections and user customization of display and process
· Relationships were built between the technical cultural differences between the departments that managed the VRE which were innovation units with a focus on experimentation and rapid development and the Library departments that managed the repository, with a focus on preservation and sustainability. Layered on to this was the academic culture which varied across subject areas
· The number of IR communities has doubled and the number of collections has tripled. As of May 2009, there were 20 000 items in Cambridge’s IR

Lessons learnt which may help to shape RePosit advocacy work:
· Vital to get good working relationships and communications channels between any different teams that are involved in the process eg technical, library and research management. The different stakeholders need to understand the different cultures and focuses and address them
· The project was not allowed to become primarily a software project, the focus had to remain on the institutionalisation of the IR. The tools developed were viewed as a means to achieve this goal.
· The VRE and IR groups presented a “joint offering” to the institution, which hid the artificial barriers of software and management structures. This “joint” approach carried through into other areas such as metrics and other research support topics.
· Ensure awareness of different stakeholder groups specific interests/ concerns
· Need to address issues and concerns around what were considered the key issues: Open Access, dark archiving, research ethics and repository scope
· Advocacy emails about the IR were carefully targeted to groups of staff so people did not get annoyed with duplicate/ irrelevant emails

http://ie-repository.jisc.ac.uk/358/1/ctrep_report.pdf

Nicola Cockarill, Senior Subject Librarian, University of Plymouth