How do you know when you have achieved increased engagement?

Way back at the start of the project, one of the aims we set ourselves as project partners was to be able to demonstrate increased engagement with repositories as a result of our simplified deposit model. In order to show increased engagement, we needed to be able to calculate numbers of unique depositors (so who is doing the uploading), but this wasn't the simplest data to be able to extract.

DSpace doesn't have a report with which to provide this data, and it isn't possible to extract it from the Elements database. However, we knew that when an item was uploaded, along with the metadata for the item and the file, data about who had made the submission was entered into the dc.description.provenance field. How to get at this and turn it into useful numerical data took a little time to work out.

Our IT Services systems administrator performed a search within DSpace looking for matching text strings within the dc.description.provenance field. Once he had this, he provided me with a (very much tidied up) text file which I was able to import into spreadsheet software to begin turning into numerical values. Since the data we wanted was cumulative, it didn't take long to make the appropriate calculations (especially since the number of depositors is relatively small at the moment).

This was a messy process, with some risk of inaccuracies because of the manual extraction process, fine as an interim whilst something better is investigated perhaps (hello DSpace developers?), and I do have to wonder if there is an easier way to get at the data. It also occurs to me that this time consuming process might work for one-off data extractions, but would be unsustainable over longer periods for regular collection of data. However, we do now have statistics on how many people are actually engaging with our repository (not to pre-empt the final report of the project but: July 2010 = 24, April 2011 = 61), and this gives us some evidence of how well we're doing; not only in terms of new users, but also with sustained engagement.

With many thanks to my IT colleague, David Goddard, for handling the extraction and cleaning up of the data.

Sarah Molloy (Queen Mary)

A Queen Mary update

In recent weeks, the repository here at Queen Mary has been having a bit of work done 'under the bonnet'. In preparation for a proposed official launch during this month of 'May-ing', we have upgraded DSpace from version 1.5.2 to version 1.6.2, and upgraded Repository Tools into the bargain. Top marks to the IT guru for having achieved this without a hitch (he was somewhat smug).

Elsewhere in Research Publications world at QM, we have recently launched a public 'shop window' of our research output. Research Publications will eventually link to Queen Mary Research Online, is already automatically updated every day (overnight) and is proving somewhat popular with our academics and administrators alike who want to link to it from department websites. We'll be monitoring the traffic to/through this site over the coming weeks and months to see what impact it has on exposing research outputs more widely, and whether it too could drive engagement with Open Access.

In a related matter, we are now working with departments to provide data from PubLists (our local name for the Symplectic Elements system) to departments to populate their own academic web pages. This is a very big deal here, with lots of academic staff keen to have this set up quickly (no pressure then). Again, this will provide a direct link to full content in QMRO, so this could be an additional driver for engagement but it's early days at the moment.

The major focus for me over May and June is to begin seriously promoting and advocating: Open Access, self deposit, repositories and in particular QMRO, using the model that we've adopted here to demonstrate the ease with which this can be achieved.

Sarah Molloy (Queen Mary, University of London)

Progress Report - Queen Mary

The battle to launch QMRO goes on here. Frustration is beginning to kick in due not to lack of interest by academics, but actually in our seeming incapacity to reach the end stage. Whilst we have academics really interested in helping to get things moving, not least the Principal himself, we have gotten a little stuck with the final technical issues. Working closely with our IT Services team, we are getting ever closer to launching the repository, something I have been looking forward to for some few years now. Whilst a lot of work has gone into making this happen, we seem to have fallen foul of the summer holiday black hole, when other projects got prioritised, and which (over-running as they always do) meant that we also fell into the start of term black hole immediately afterwards.

However, it's not all bleakness. We're currently working on using the data from PubLists to provide a Publications web site and this is nearing completion at last. With links to the repository and published versions on publisher web sites, this should be a really good way to promote the repository and open access, and therefore drive engagement. Having worked out a few kinks, we're at the stage where we'll be able to launch the site soon and this is really exciting!

I'm currently drafting a communications strategy for QMRO, which will help us to plan our advocacy and training strategy over the coming months and will help to formalise ways of highlighting the work we are doing.

I've also recently attended a meeting with some of the Sherpa-LEAP partners and this has got me thinking about how we can tap into/share knowledge and expertise. So lots to do!

Sarah Molloy (QMUL)

What data can Research Management Systems and Repositories exchange for mutual benefit?

We're thinking about our stakeholder groups and how and when to target them about the Symplectic to repository connector. Understanding how users interact with a CRIS or similar (in this case Symplectic but could be other platforms) may help target advocacy materials more effectively. From the CRIS it would good to profile:

• what proportion of content is deposited or approved/declined by authors and what proportion is deposited/approved/declined by delegates (ie someone "impersonating" the author)?
• usage patterns over time, by department - do some departments interact regularly whilst others batch up work to deal with once or twice a year?
• what proportion of staff in a department have logged in to the CRIS - ever/in the last six months/this month? Are there many known "non-users"?
• proportion of research outputs in a department which have been "harvested" automatically and which have been added manually

What data would a CRIS be looking for from a repository? Perhaps download statistics could be fed back for incorporation in CRIS reports or displayed as part of the author's publication list - ideally not just downloads but some geographical and domain data as well.
Would it be interesting to compare the journal impact factor - often included in a CRIS - with individual paper hits and downloads?

Are there other areas of data exchange that would help improve the service we offer to depositors?

Conversation with Pablo de Castro

I had a very interesting conversation with Pablo de Castro about the Sonex initiative last Wednesday (6th October 2010). Our discussion centred around crossover in research between our two projects into ways of depositing into repositories from other information sources, and this how model of deposit could be used as an advocacy tool.

Pablo and I discussed whether we might approach advocacy in different ways, not just in the context of a specific audience but also to the content itself; for example, would the emphasis of any advocacy materials need to be different if all publications data were to be deposited into a repository, including metadata-only records, as opposed to full text only?

We discussed the slow uptake of deposit to repositories in Spain, and how it was hoped that initiatives and projects like ours might help to engage more researchers and demonstrate the benefits of repositories, and the ease with which content can be deposited using different sources to automate and facilitate metadata creation and file upload.

We also talked at the new BioMed Central Automated Article-Deposit feed which uses the SWORD protocol to deposit content automatically into institutional repositories from BioMed Central, increasing deposit to compliant repositories, and decreasing workload for repository staff.

For me, this was particularly interesting because it threw up questions about whether this model would work with our own deposit model. Could these models be made to work together, and indeed should they? Thoughts?

It was a fascinating conversation, serving to highlight for me how the same issues around engagement are repeated, regardless of country. A big thanks to Pablo for taking the time to speak to me, before heading off to the 10th Rebiun Workshop (for those of you able to read Spanish!). It was a real pleasure.

Sarah Molloy (Queen Mary, University of London)