Project Plan post 1: Aims, Objectives and Final Outputs

The RePosit Project is motivated by the desire to take advantage of the reduction or removal of the significant barriers to repository deposit gained by using a web-based repository deposit tool embedded in a researcher-facing publications management system: to push for academics to deposit their content seamlessly into their institution's open access repository, and to embed deposit of research outputs into the research lifecycle, creating a successful feedback loop.

Project work will include gathering feedback from users and administrators and evaluating the tool's effectiveness; developing general strategies for increasing uptake of embedded deposit tools; compiling a community commentary on the issues surrounding research management system integration; and producing open access training materials to help institutions enlighten their users and administrators regarding how embedded deposit tools are related to the work of the library and the repository.

The intention is to use the reduction in deposit barriers offered by the tool and the activities of this project to enhance open access content, creating more full-text objects available under stable URIs. This will be used to demonstrate that repositories can play a part in the researcher's daily activities, and that a deposit mandate is viable for the partner institutions. Success is measurable by an increase in the number of open access items and unique users which is greater than the expected increase without use of the deposit tool and the advocacy throughout this project. Other outputs will take the form of documentation available freely on the web.

The tangible outputs of the project will include:

1. Open access training materials: generic training materials which can be used to raise awareness of the deposit tool, and what it means for the academic to self-archive.
2. Training strategies for embedded deposit tools: how training proceeded, and any particular challenges and solutions in conveying what it means to deposit in a repository from a different system.
3. User survey report: feedback from the user community on whether this reduced-barrier and embedded approach to deposit is appropriate, and how it could be improved.
4. Advocacy strategies for embedded deposit tools: advocacy materials and lessons learned from making academics aware of the embedded deposit tool; how the feedback loop can be made to best benefit the researchers.
5. A user community space: the consortium will create and host a user community space for repository managers and depositors, with the intention that this will grow to include other consortium-based deposit tool users after the end of the project.

- Posted by: Lizzie Dipple