Forthcoming project team meeting and report deadline extension

Although we've had a number of Skype calls and informal meet-ups at other events, it's been five months since our last full project meeting - held in Leeds in January. So this week we have our fourth project team meeting, taking place on Thursday 16th June in London. As well as reviewing progress so far, and hopefully resolving any final niggling issues, the two major topics we'll be discussing are: what to put together for our part of the RSP dissemination event and how we want to put together our final project report - once all the findings are in.

Our revised project report deadline is 20th October 2011. Unfortunately, after further delays to the implementations of Repository Tools at Plymouth and Exeter - compounded by the departure of Richard Jones from Symplectic - in discussion with our JISC programme manager, an extension to the deadline for submitting the final project report was agreed to allow extra time so that the Universities of Exeter and Plymouth could also run training and advocacy activities as per their published plans (Exeter and Plymouth). Of course, this extension basically runs through the summer vacation, so there will be different types of opportunities (and possibly fewer of them) to talk to academics compared to term time - something that has to be worked around.


posted by: Lizzie Dipple

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)

JISC Repository Deposit Programme Meeting - 1st March

Last week RePosit was represented at the JISC Repository Deposit Programme meeting in Birmingham. Under the supervision of Balvair Notay, JISC manager for the Deposit projects, the following projects provided updates on their progress:

• DepositMO
• DURA
• Kultivate
• Open Access Repository Repository Junction (OA-RJ)
• Sword v2
• Sonex

As well as providing an opportunity for the projects to learn more about the work of each other, we were all also asked to explore three key questions and to report back, both at the meeting and via blog posts. So, below, are the three points, and my thoughts on them for RePosit!

What actions are required for the success of your project? What are the indicators?

These are based around the core deliverable of advocacy, ensuring the right level of engagement, to the right audience at the right time - moving from the planning of advocacy to the actual delivery and the use of materials developed so far. The delivery of the technical solutions for each partner institution also remains key. The indicators would be increased deposit and a correlation with the release of the embedded deposit tool. More broadly, an increased understanding of deposit, and the reasons for it, would also be an indicator of success.

What strategies are required to spread good practice?

Our strategies include the provision of advovacy materials (including institutional strategies), engagement with other projects and organisations (such as Kultivate and RSP), the provision of this very blog and ongoing testing and evaluation of project outputs.

How are you going to feed data for the evaluation?

RePosit is perhaps fortunate among the projects in that it can gather quantitative data via the monthly repository statistics collection, and can monitor this in relation to the release of embedded deposit tools, and the effect this may have on deposits. However, it is also important to collect qualitative data, via surveys and other similar activity, as a change of culture, of mindset, among academics is also an important output. The project will also make the data available to Evidence Base.

In summary, the programme meeting provided an excellent opportunity to meet the other projects, share good practice and mull over common issues.

For my part, I managed to avoid being photographed, but no such luck for Richard! He can be seen assisting Kultivate with their afternoon report in a very informative blog from the SONEX project.

Posted by: Ian Tilsed

Carrots & Sticks - soliciting engagement

The recent meeting in Leeds, where presentations were delivered to an invited audience of academics, highlighted the ever present issue of 'getting users onboard' or, to put it another way, ensuring 'buy-in' to a project or development. We all know that the involvement of the key stakeholders is essential to the success of an endeavour - if they are not an integral part, or the tool or service being delivered has no real 'application' in their eyes, the exercise is destined to fail.

A key part of the advocacy work being carried out in RePosit relates to this essential topic. With a system like Symplectic, for instance, the main 'touch point' or 'driver' is invariably different for each module or component. Whilst there may be an over-arching institutional or strategic driver (improved visibility of research etc.), the key deliverables of modules are often more granular or specific - supporting pillars of the overall deliverable. Therefore, our advocacy plans seek to identify the key deliverables ('killer connections', if you will) for academics, and to build on them, to ensure effective take up of the embedded repository tools.

For us at Exeter this is probably our third advocacy exercise around our research information management system. The initial rollout (about which I'm often asked to discuss or talk) was fortunate in that we had several key connections. We had central institutional support (via our DVC for research), the project tied in with an existing internal research process (which was predominantly paper based) and we added value by facilitating the re-use of the publications data for other applications. Furthermore, three academic schools worked with us to pilot the implementation before wider rollout - a key point.

The second implementation, around professional activities and esteem data, is currently in progress. One of the pilot schools has, again, been at the centre of the work, in part because of an immediate and direct application of the data that could gathered. Whilst this early engagement has been very productive, the point of connection is not one, unlike previously, that can be used to drive a wider rollout. After much work, and a connection arising from a chance conversation, we now believe that we've identified an institution wide driver upon which to build - one where we can, once again, appeal to the academic by facilitating the re-use of the gathered data and, ultimately, saving effort.

The implementation of the repository tool is our third. Through the RePosit work, our advocacy plan has identified the key drivers for an institution wide roll out. Once again part of the appeal is the simplification of an administrative process, a reduction in effort for the users, and a re-use of data. At Exeter we are now in the process of connecting again with one of our original pilot schools - driven in part by a specific requirement that they have, for which repository tools may have the answer.

From our perspective at Exeter, the willingness of several of the academic schools to work with us has been a significant factor in successful implementations. However, we do not underestimate how difficult this is to achieve. Identifying the 'holy grail' of the 'killer connection' remains key, and can take time.

In the advocacy materials for RePosit, the project now believes that it has identified the key deliverables to academics and is working on the language and style to ensure that connection. The presentations at Leeds helped us enormously in refining this, but more feedback is always welcome!

Posted by: Ian Tilsed

Advocacy presentations

A key project task has been the creation of a bank of advocacy slides that can act as a generic resource for anyone to reuse in their institution. The project team worked together to draw up 2 pilot presentations, one for senior management/academics and the second for the researchers.
These pilots were then delivered to a group of academics and library staff from the University of Leeds and we asked for their feedback. This was a really valuable exercise to roadtest the pilot presentations.
Key messages from the feedback:

• Must have evidence and examples to back up statements eg around citations
• Presentations were too long and needed condensing
• Strong advocacy points were "quick and easy", "one place one deposit" "raises profile" (both individually and as an institution).
• Hot topics - copyright, versions, external/subject repositories, internationalization, how others access repository contents. It was felt that the "public" aspect of access would be more relevant if phrased as "practitioners". Strong view that researchers would want to know "what is in it for them" and this was echoed at the rsp winter school.

It was clear to the project team that whilst we had the basis of the presentations, more work needed to be done especially around the production of "supporting evidence". Also reinforced was the idea that the presentations would need to be more tailored to each institution depending on such factors as maturity of repository/CRIS and particular drivers. However a key aspect of the project outcome is that the slides need to be reusable by other HEIs.

So to achieve this generic but still tailored approach, project partners are going to take the pilot slides and tailor them to their institution. These presentations will then be pooled along with the supporting evidence. Others can then see what points are being made, how they have been made and examples of supporting evidence. There has been other JISC work done on OA answers and this will be drawn upon as well as adding institution specific case studies.

I have completed the 2 presentations for UoP and I will be asking for feedback from the PVC for Research. I also mentioned Pearl, UoP's research repository at the end of a session about our CRIS and this generated lots of questions and comments on a variety of topics and so I know that having the body of supporting evidence will be essential. I see finalising the presentations as an ongoing process as UoP examples and facts are only going to be available after Pearl is launched plus the hot topics here at UoP will also be raised so they will need to be fully addressed.

Nicola Cockarill, Senior Subject Librarian, University of Plymouth

Developing training materials

At the start of the RePosit project (and probably even before then), one of the planned outputs was a set of generic training materials (user based) to help other repository managers should they head down the route of linking their CRIS to their repository.


There is a huge assumption implicit in this however, and one which we as a project group have found difficult to resolve and reconcile. In essence, regardless of the software you are using for either CRIS or repository, there is an assumption that the underlying process is at least similar if not the same. This is perhaps a little naive and has certainly been a bit of a stumbling block.


On a very basic level, when you present this model to your users, what you want to get across is:
Login
Upload
All done through the same interface, no need to toggle between CRIS and repository, all done at the same time in one simple set of steps


In technical terms, this is broadly the case (login, find publication, browse to find file, upload file). However, when attempting to apply this to a simple (generic) how-to guide, it turns out it's not so simple afterall. Really obvious, really basic actions become really important: logging in, for example. How do you describe what actions constitute the logging in process? If everyone used the same CRIS software, this wouldn't be an issue (other than for the Competition Commission), log in would just be 'log in', simply because there would only be one way to do it. Similarly, getting to the point of browsing for the file to upload would be just 'find publication', all actions could be illustrated with a few snappy screenshots and you'd be done. When you're not using the same software though, it's hard to provide a simple set of instructions that doesn't become obsolete by its very vagueness.


There's also the problem of what the 'link' between your systems is called (if it has a name other than 'link thingy') and the fact that we're all using different repository software too.


In reality, whilst it would be nice to say we could produce glossy guides and materials that will just provide you with a complete package for your CRIS-Repository set up project, the honest truth is, some things you'll just have to do yourself or need to be software and local implementation specific and best dealt with by you or your vendors.


We love collaboration, but now and again, it can make something simple really, really complicated!


Sarah Molloy, Research Support Librarian (Repository and Publications System Manager) Queen Mary, University of London

QMUL communication strategy, and a quick update

Along with colleagues in the other partner institutions, I have been working on an advocacy (or in Queen Mary's case a communication) plan. The plan comes in two parts, a strategic document identifying how and who, and a timeline of activities. Part one is below. I'm still drafting part two...

We're making progress with the repository, behind the scenes things are moving well and we're adding new content all the time. Researchers here at QMUL seem fine with the concept of uploading their content via our Elements interface, once they know what to do.

QMRO still hasn't been made public, a source of endless frustration for me, due largely to small bugs and configurations that need to be resolved and which it's proving difficult to find the time to for our IT people to fix. Things are looking up though. We have recently retained the services of DSpace consultancy firm @mire to help with developments, and our own project partner, Richard Jones, is off to see QMULs IT people, so the bugs and configs should hopefully be sorted really soon.

I'm already planning the launch party, so watch this space!

And here is the plan.

SMolloy Queen Mary, University of London

University of Exeter Advocacy Plan available

The University of Exeter has had a publications repository, ERIC (http://eric.exeter.ac.uk/exeter/), since 2007 but in common with many UK repositories after an initial surge of deposits tied in with advocacy submissions have dwindled save for a few loyal enthusiasts. The RePosit advocacy work is therefore a timely opportunity to re-think approaches to boosting repository content and engaging a range of stakeholders.

The UoE Advocacy Plan timetable is fairly detailed – we want the option of reaching as wide an audience as possible and in as many ways as possible. Some of the activities can be achieved quickly, for example, we have already included repository training in a new Deskside Training Service for academics and research postgraduates (we had our first taker last week!).

Others require long-term planning, such as including repository training in the Learning and Teaching in Higher Education Programme that all Postgraduate research students who teach are required to complete. Targeting new Postgraduates and early career researchers is high on our agenda – making sure that Symplectic/repository use is embedded in their research lifecycles and passed on in turn to their students.

We will try to use social media as much as possible - it’s cheap, easy, and has the potential to reach a range of people quickly. The aim is to adapt our message and method of delivery according to the audience we’re addressing: for a senior management group, we will take a more formal approach and perhaps focus our talk on economic benefits; for a group of librarians we might emphasise access and preservation. We’ll be using the generic advocacy materials produced during the RePosit project, tailoring them for our own particular needs.

We envisage the advocacy work kicked off by RePosit continuing far beyond the life of the project and forming a blueprint for an ongoing programme of promotional work.

Posted by: Jill Evans

Advocacy - some further thoughts

At our recent project meeting (more about that in a later post I'm sure) we spent much time testing, exploring and finalising the advocacy materials for the project. As part of that work we 'road tested' two presentations on willing academics from Leeds University. It was an excellent experience, which drew some astute comment and provided much food for thought.

I'm sure that the detail will be covered in a more comprehensive post, but some key points emerged:

• it's easier to identify and convey the end benefits (greater deposit to the repository) than the benefits of the actual process (utilising an existing process to address another);
• that whilst some audiences (e.g. senior managers) want to know about the broader benefits rather than the process per se, others (e.g. those actually submitting full text materials) are more likely to be concerned about the actual process and what it means for them.

We spent some time trying to articulate the essence of the process and the benefits in the form of a strapline, for use in the advocacy materials. Looking for inspiration from the world of advertising, we recalled a certain campaign about a universal shampoo and it triggered some useful 'brainstorming'.

However, thinking further about that particular advertising campaign I think we can learn much from it as it addressed the two key aspects identified above, with the strapline ("Wash & Go") and the commentary (why use two bottles when you need only use one) highlighting both the ultimate benefits and the improved process.

Whether this thinking is on the right lines, or not, we can't deny that the 'Wash & Go' campaign has been a massive success! So, why use two systems to record and deposit your outputs, when you need only use one?!

How does our progress match the original project plan?

We are almost at the halfway stage in the RePosit project, having officially started on 20th July 2010, and with our next big project team meeting tomorrow, it's a good time to pause and take stock. So how is the project progressing and how does that match up to the original timeline we gave ourselves in the project plan work packages?

There are five project outputs in the plan: open-access training materials, training strategies, user survey report, advocacy strategies and a user community space. What became clear as we started fleshing out our approach to advocacy planning is that the line between advocacy and training is actually a blurry one and that it doesn't make sense to keep them apart. Therefore, each of the partner institutions now has an advocacy plan (i.e. a strategy document) which covers all types of communication around the subject of repository use - both advocacy activities and training activities. A short high-level presentation to a pro vice-chancellor is clearly an advocacy activity, but is a discussion with a group of researchers about the reasons to embrace the repository (via the RMS link) with a demo of how to do it at the end also advocacy or has it turned into a training workshop? In a similar way to how the advocacy and training strategies have ended up morphing into one, the materials we're producing have turned out to be a mixture of both training and advocacy materials. At the moment we have the content of the advocacy materials (as per the schedule), and our friends in the QMUL Creative Services team are producing some fantastic draft designs to make everything look slick, and really be useable.

One area where we are a little behind schedule is with creating the user survey. According to the work packages timeline, we aimed to create a draft survey by the start of January, having done some testing in November and December, and thus be ready to start this month. Unfortunately, the amount of input required to get the advocacy strategies in place meant that we had to postpone the work on the survey, since it was less time critical at that point. However, this will not have an impact on the overall project outputs because we have given the survey top billing in tomorrow's project meeting, with feedback on our ideas from real-world invited guests the following day, so we will still produce the survey in time for when the advocacy and training activities start in earnest.

Given that the RePosit project has an ambitious timeline of just one year from start to finish, I am very pleased that we are managing to keep the pace going, despite the pulls of other work commitments.


posted by: Lizzie Dipple

First advocacy plans made public

One of the key milestones along the path of the RePosit project for the individual partner HEIs is the creation of an advocacy plan for each institution (or review and updating of an existing plan within the RePosit framework). These plans describe the overall strategy for communications around awareness of, engagement with and deposit into the institutional open-access repositories (including specifically via the link from the CRIS/RMS), and these are the plans that will be followed for the second half of the project's life to hopefully produce the results we are anticipating - increased deposits and increased users. In some cases, the plans include the detailed timetable of activities that will be undertaken, in other cases these timetables are stored in a separate document - mainly because such detailed activities lists are by their nature more fluid and need to be revisited and updated regularly, in comparison with the overall advocacy strategy documents.

At the moment, those advocacy plans available to view are for the University of Plymouth, Keele University and the University of Leeds. Of course, these plans will potentially be revised as the project progresses and the experience at each institution grows.

All the plans have been drawn up individually but with the sharing of ideas and help across the whole project team. The plans also use the lessons learned from our literature review of previous JISC projects in and around this area.


posted by: Lizzie Dipple

Meeting with QM Creative Services, 13th December 2010

So, after all our hard work coming up with contextual and content ideas for our advocacy materials, these were dutifully sent off to Queen Mary Creative Services (thanks Lizzie). In a follow up to this, QMCS asked to meet with us to get a clearer idea of what we wanted.

Lizzie and I have therefore spent a very fruitful meeting with members of the design team this afternoon, from which the following has been agreed:

1. The first priority is to design a brand and theme that will be carried across all materials.
2. QMCS will then work on the slide library template ready for the next project meeting on 13th/14th January 2011 (when the first trial-run presentations are to take place).
3. QMCS will also begin developing some of the early design ideas for other materials once the theme and brand have been agreed.

I am providing a demo to Creative Services on Thursday morning (16th December) to give them a better idea about the repository and research publications management systems and how they work, what they are for, etc. This should hopefully help to clarify what we as a project partnership are doing and also tie in with the outlines that we have sent them.

They've also given us things to think about in terms of running our advocacy/communication campaigns. For example, our web presence, which could be providing somewhere quick and easily accessible to get up to date information, not just about the JISC project but about the messages that we are trying to communicate in our advocacy plans. They've also suggested some other mechanisms by which we can give our project a higher profile (for example, year planners on walls are a cheap way to put up information - and have it there all year!) in order to drive users to the project and get the message out more widely.

Whilst we will not be able to do all these things due to time and money constraints, they are useful things to think about for the future, perhaps once we have gone our separate ways. So lots to mull over, and definitely lots of things for me to add to my own shopping list (if I can but find the money). The Head of Creative Services did ask me if I was planning to move in...

Sarah Molloy (QMUL)

Wireframes

Now that we have a set of user stories, as discussed in a previous post, we can look at turning these outline stories into concrete instances which can be presented to users. In order to achieve this, we are employing a technique used in graphic and website design called "wireframing". In this process we decide what materials we would like to produce, and then we layout content in the space with little to no emphasis on how the final product will look. Instead we are simply looking at what information we wish to present, and roughly where on the page we want that content to appear.

We chose two of our user groups to be the focus of advocacy materials: academic authors and senior managers (it is assumed that librarians are mostly already sold on this technology, and don't need the same level of persuasion). For each of these groups we chose a couple of advocacy mediums, thus:

• Academic authors:
  
  
  
  • Postcards; to be handed out at events, available for collection at library front desks, attached to pay cheques, etc.
  
  
  • DL (0.3 A4 size) How-To leaflet; to be handed out at events, available for collection at library front desks, etc. Ideal for pinning next to your computer monitor.
  
  
  • Poster; to be pinned up all over campus
  
  
• Senior managers:
  
  
  
  • Postcards; to be handed out at events, available for collection at library front desks, etc.
  
  
  • A4 product sheet; to be handed out at events, or delivered directly to senior manager's offices
  
  

Below is a screenshot of one of the wireframes in progress, showing the DL size leaflet which contains the How-To for the academic author on depositing their full-text into the digital repository via their CRIS.




Each of these wireframes can then be taken by the project partners and instantiated in their institutional colours, designs, fonts and so forth. This process ensures that the generic project outputs are appropriate for all institutions undertaking a CRIS to Repository link, irrespective of their software solution, and also does not enforce any kind of branding upon the adopting institution.

- Richard Jones, Symplectic Ltd

User Stories

In a previous post we discussed the fact that there are many reasons why someone might care about a link existing between their CRIS and their Digital Repository. We identified upwards of 20 such reasons, and alluded to the fact that each of these reasons resonates more with some people than it does with others, and emphasises more the CRIS or the Repository.

In this post we're going to have a look at some concrete examples of the user stories that we have developed from the "Whys", to give you a flavour of what the project outputs will contain.

A story for academic authors: how can this help me raise my research profile?

CRIS and Digital Repository integration is all about raising your research profile. This happens by enhancing your research's visibility through your digital repository and increasing your potential for being cited. This is not only in the public interest - the people who ultimately funded your work - but it also increases how easy it is to find and read your work, and therefore also increases its re-usability. By ensuring that your research information and full-text content is available, it will be easier for your institution to assemble high-quality REF returns, while also making it easy for you to meet your funder mandates on open access deposit. As an additional advantage, your research will be cared for and preserved for future readers. As a result your research presence is significant, and remains so for longer.


A story for librarians: using research information management to drive institutional strategy

Shrinking library budgets mean that it is important to find cost-effective solutions to support your institution's strategy, and to participate in the global research economy. By providing public access to publicly funded research through your Digital Repository, you are provisioning for long-term storage and preservation across time and software advances of institutional assets, which are valuable in this economy. This benefits the institution's standing by increasing the amount of research content which can be made available through the repository, the CRIS and any other systems which build institutional web-presence from the information held there.


A story for senior staff: increasing citations in support of the REF

Increasing the visibility of your research is going to be extremely important in the next round of metrics-based research evaluation. You can increase the visibility of your research by improving its online discoverability. This is not just in the public interest (although it is), but will provide you with the opportunity to raise your institution's profile in areas such as HE rankings, and Student Surveys. Ultimately, this increased discoverability and visibility increases the opportunity for citations to your researcher's work, which will support a high quality REF return.


There are a number of other stories that we are working on, and as you can see from the above we are still in the early period of refining them into something which can be clearly presented. In time we will develop and make available advocacy material wireframes and slide-decks in support of these stories, and we will shortly be publishing blog posts on those topics.

- Richard Jones, Symplectic Ltd.

The Why of the "Whys"

At the heart of the RePosit re-usable advocacy materials is a core list of reasons why connecting your Research Management System to your Digital Repository is a Good Thing. Why you should care. Why it is good for you. Why it is good for your institution. This list of "Whys" contains the following arguments, in no particular order:

1. Library budgets are shrinking
2. It will raise your research profile
3. It gives you the potential for increased citations
4. It increases the discoverability/visibility of your research
5. It's quick and easy to use
6. It will allow you to improve the business decisions of your institution through business intelligence
7. It's a single point of entry to all research management needs
8. It can provide research statistics and analysis
9. It improves the reusability of your content
10. It's in the public interest
11. It supports research into teaching
12. It enhances your ability to return to the REF
13. It improves the student experience of the institution
14. It provides full-text content storage
15. It can help inform institutional strategy
16. It can help inform competitive parity analysis
17. It can enhance your institution's overall profile
18. It can help manage institutional assets
19. It can help you meet funder deposit mandates
20. It improves the discoverability of your research via search engine
21. It increases your ability to comply with copyright requirements

It is worth noting that the emphasis of RePosit is not on the repository or the RMS but on the link between them. Some of these "Whys" are more weighted towards one side or the other, as you would expect. We have attempted, when developing arguments behind each of these points, to balance the emphasis between these two systems appropriately, in order to try to draw out what is relevant to the integration itself.

Each of the different "Whys" on this list is relevant more to one group of people than another. For example, that it provides an opportunity to generate a more complete picture of an institution's research output is far more relevant to senior staff than it is to academic researchers, while the fact that it is integrated with SHERPA RoMEO is something which appeals mostly to librarians. We therefore identified three groups of people to whom we would be pitching the idea:

• Academic authors
• Librarians
• Senior management

Then we took each of the "Whys", and we constructed more substantive arguments underneath the short descriptions above, and we looked at which reasons were closely related together (e.g. business intelligence and institutional strategy). It is from this matrix, then, that we will construct the advocacy materials which will be one of the re-usable outputs of the RePosit project.

In future posts we will discuss the User Stories that emerge from the above matrix, as well as the advocacy material wireframes which tell those user stories, and the slide-deck that can be used to present those stories to our target groups.


- Richard Jones, Symplectic Ltd

Update from Exeter

We have had a very constructive set of discussions within the local project team in Exeter and have made substantial progress towards our advocacy plan. Two documents form the foundation for this work:

• the communications and key messages plan that was used during the initial rollout of Symplectic in 2009
• a newer breakdown of key stakeholders, message types and appropriate delivery vehicles, that reflects the changed organisational structure introduced this year

Going forward, we will be merging elements of these two documents, as well as identifying key individuals and dates. In addition we are reviewing the recently revised governance structure of the University, to identify appropriate communication routes.

Other work has concentrated on identifying the best time for the rollout of Repository Tools, and the best months within which to run the workshops. This has involved clarifying the dates of other internal processes (such as the internal research monitoring exercise) and ensuring that the various activities do not clash.

Two further local meetings are scheduled, within which we intend to finalise our advocacy plan in time for the deadline at the end of November.

Meeting with JISC programme managers

Last week was quite a week for meetings in the RePosit project. In addition to Monday's full team project meeting in Exeter, on Wednesday 15th September Richard Jones, Bo Middleton (project director) and I met with David Flanders and Balviar Notay from JISC, which is the key funder of this project.

David and Balviar explained where RePosit sits within the JISCdepo ('Deposit of research outputs') strand of the Information Environment Programme of projects. The three main areas in JISCdepo are: projects related to tools for deposit (our CRIS system-based project fits in here), projects around infrastructure (such as the SWORD standard) and projects collecting use cases (SONEX). Discussing RePosit in more detail, we looked at what our project aims to achieve and what the outputs will be, and we had fantastic feedback on what form these could take to be most useful to the wider JISC deposit community. The project partner HEIs are each at different stages along the path of repository and publications management system set-up, advocacy, training and use - and the intention is that these different stages will be mirrored in the 'packs' of training and advocacy materials and plans that are produced during RePosit. Some HEIs (often the smallest) are at the starting point, having had neither a repository nor the link between it and a publications management system before at all; some have a repository and a limited number or scope of deposits but really need to re-brand and start advocacy and training almost from scratch with certain sectors; and some HEIs have a large, established repository and have done previous advocacy but want to review and update as well as taking on board the new means of deposit via the CRIS publications management system link.

We also looked at how we hope to develop our user community space into an open forum for sharing advocacy through the project's life and even beyond, and how we could perhaps link in to the RSP (Repositories Support Project) to aid the wider dissemination of training and materials.

All in all, a productive and informative discussion.


posted by: Lizzie Dipple (project manager)

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