Advocacy session at Exeter

I forgot to mention in my previous blog that we recently gave a presentation on our research repository, ERIC, to Associate Directors of Research at Exeter. We discovered there was quite a low level of awareness of the repository and what it’s for – for example, that depositing in the repository often allows a researcher to fulfil his/her obligation to the research funder. They were interested to hear about the integration with Symplectic and generally in favour of it (although some still queried the amount of time it would take to deposit). This led on to a discussion about Open Access and the feasibility of imposing a mandate for both research publications and primary data. There was a lot of support for a mandate but also recognition that a change in culture, especially in certain disciplines, would be necessary for it to work. The Open Access agenda will, again, be picked up and taken forward by the Open Up! project mentioned previously.

Jill Evans

University of Exeter

Update from Exeter

Work on integration is continuing at Exeter. We’ve made significant progress, for example Repository Tools 1.3 has now been installed but we’ve also hit a number of unexpected technical hitches that have held things up a little.

Testing has been going on for a few weeks, initially with the Engineering department, which has produced some very useful feedback. Crosswalks and collection mapping have also been tested extensively and we’re now working our way through the list of identified issues. We’re still not sure when we’ll be in a position to go live but we’re moving nearer to that point!

We’re looking at ways of getting publications into ERIC quickly as soon as Repository Tools goes live. For example, some funds have been put aside for a postgraduate to deposit the top four ‘favourites’ for all researchers participating in the REF in ERIC via Symplectic. We’re also aware of a number of publications collections around the University that are, with a little copyright checking, ready to be uploaded.

Advocacy planning is ongoing but we’ve had to scale back some of the activities planned for Open Access Week as it’s unlikely Repository Tools will be working by then. We’ll still be doing general awareness-raising, however, and will follow up with our own OA week when the integration’s been completed.

Some good news – we were successful in our recent bid to the JISC for funds to continue our pilot research data management project. The new project, called Open Up! for the moment, will start in October and will, amongst other activities, look at embedding use of repositories in the research lifecycle. We will have a full time advocacy officer for 12 months, picking up from and building on RePosit advocacy work. We’re aiming for much closer integration of our repositories and deposit procedures, particularly the linking of research publications with the underlying primary research data. So Symplectic will continue to be a focus of advocacy work but through Open Up! rather than RePosit, which will soon come to an end.

If you’d like further information about our integration work or Open Up! email me: jill.evans@exeter.ac.uk

Jill Evans

University of Exeter

JOINING SYSTEMS: who owns, administers, and links the systems together?

When planning our discussion topic for the RSP event Working Smartly Together, we assumed that people participating in the discussion group would already have a link between a CRIS and repository system - or be well on with planning the link. We also hoped that people would be further down the line in joining systems and could share their experiences with those still thinking about a potential CRIS/repository link.

In fact, to our surprise, the majority of group members were still at an early stage: some considering a CRIS/repository link, some planning to expand an existing repository to offer CRIS type functions and others just interested in the topic but with no current link plans. Although the CRIS/Repository model is becoming more common, institutions that have followed the process through and achieved full integration between the two systems are still few and far between.

Quickly shifting gears from the initial breakout group plan, we discussed some of the potential benefits and challenges of the new model.

Findings are below (transcribed from flip charts and added commentary):

Benefits

• Potentially greater deposit: whether this is true or not depends on where you are starting from with your existing repository. Some are well embedded, but others have struggled to become part of everyday researcher workflows.

• One stop shop: single place of deposit but also a way to draw together many strands of research information. A CRIS can be enhanced by an OA platform and the high standards of data curation which come with it; the repository can be complemented by the administrative data in the CRIS.

• CRIS+repository may be a good model to support researcher compliance with funder OA and reporting requirements.

• CRIS benefits from repository visibility – research becomes more discoverable.

• Web page feeds may include publication lists with links to repository content - but also grants, expertise, activities, impact etc.

• Repository usage stats could be fed back to the CRIS. As well as usage, stats could show non-OA-depositors what traffic they’re missing.

Risks / challenges

• OA takes a back seat.

• Academics don’t care about the depositing system – it’s just another admin system to them. Maybe this doesn’t matter. And it’s not an issue that’s limited to the CRIS+repository model. But perhaps academics are less likely to engage with OA aspects of a CRIS if they don’t see the relevance to their own subject discipline and research.

• REF – a useful driver - but too much REF focus could lead to fewer OA deposits and more limited engagement with repository systems.

• Why have two sets of metadata? Is the repository just a file store? Does it matter?

• Data quality – building the publication database within a CRIS tends to involve importing data from a number of different sources. E.g. Thomson Web of Science, departmental databases, individual publication lists in EndNote, BiBTeX etc. Inevitably there is duplication and a range of data quality issues. Is it worth tidying the records up? Who does this? Is there any resource to do this? Is surfacing publication data on researcher web pages sufficient incentive for them to rectify any issues with their own data?

Wishlist

• The model helps with research publication and research data curation – funder data is tied in with compliance requirements, depositors are advised on these & there is automatic deposit or notification to required external subject / data repositories.

• Effective data exchange between systems & common data standards – probably CERIF.

• Crosswalks between systems are easy to set up and readily tailorable.

• Relevant support departments work together to create an effective system (Research Office, Library, IT, Staff Training). Effective governance mechanisms are put in place.

• Uptake by some researchers exerts peer pressure on others, raising overall take up.

Conclusion:
So long as you have an effective system to deposit, describe, disseminate and preserve you research information, it may not matter too much what the underlying architecture looks like. However, there are many practical issues to be tackled – particularly if you have pre-existing systems which must be linked or phased out – when introducing a CRIS+repository architecture.

Many thanks to the attendees as the comments provided the project with insights that will be written up in the final project report.

submitted by: Rachel Proudfoot and Jodie Double

Digital preservation and self deposit

Advocacy and outreach surrounding RePosit will hopefully increase deposits through the connectors. The exact numbers and scale is YTD but what we do know for certain is that user generated files bring digital preservation and long-term access issues with them. While a vast majority of the files will be ok, can we be certain all the files are healthy and reusable for the future? How do we automate file verification to free up repository staff time and resources? All very exciting questions, challenges and issues surrounding increased deposits both from external users and content creating internally.

The AQuA project is investigating these issues and more:

AQuA project, a JISC funded collaboration between: University of Leeds, University of York, British Library, and Open Planets Foundation will have project outputs that can be implemented in repositories to assist with the growing list of file issues.

Future postings on how the tools can assist repositories will be posted after the 3 day London event 13-15 May 2011. Outcomes from the Leeds AQuA Event held in April are on the AQuA wiki.

posted by Jodie Double