RePosit Questionnaire

At the end of March I joined the RePosit team to assist with writing the on-line questionnaire and with the Advocacy here at Exeter. I worked closely with Jodie Double and Nicola Cockerill on the questionnaire; a number of drafts were available to view and it was from these that I was able to get an idea of the information that was required from this exercise.

I considered it important for the questionnaire to be short, easy to answer and easily understood. Surveys of this type rely on the good will of those replying and anything that causes irritation can lead to the reply being abandoned.

The complication with this particular questionnaire is that most of the questions are dependent on the answers given to previous questions. I hoped to overcome this by organising the questions into groups so, for example, Question 2 asks if a deposit has been made, if the answer is no, the user is asked to continue at question 3, otherwise questions are asked regarding the ease of depositing etc.

The institution specific questions were left alone, apart from the use of a grid which from the BOS website seemed a neat way of asking a lot of similar questions.

The major headache was to keep the questionnaire focussed and easily understood, whilst trying to keep the language adequately generic to apply to all the institutions involved. By the end of the week I had decided that it was a much better idea to give each institution the skeleton of the survey, for each to enter their own repository names. The main thrust of the project is to publicise the institutional repository so to send a communication to all academics without mentioning the local repository name would be a huge lost opportunity. It is important that the only changes each institution makes are the repository names, as otherwise the resulting data will be difficult to compile and analyse.

Jodie, Nicola and I currently believe that the most efficient way forward is for each institution to build their own survey, having taken the skeleton provided and furnished it with local names, and to extract the data to give to Leeds for analysis.

We've circulated the final questionnaire within the project team although this does not imply that no more changes can be made, it was 'final' only to me at the time I uploaded it! We ask for feedback and comments by Wednesday 27th so we can get moving on this. It is, however, most important to get the survey right, so even after this deadline we are very keen for any input.

Gill Still

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.

Project Plan post 5: Project Team Relationships and End User Engagement

Project Management Team:

Project Director: Bo Middleton, Head of e-Strategy and Development for Leeds University Library

Symplectic Lead: Richard Jones, Head of Repository Systems at Symplectic Ltd

Project Manager:Lizzie Dipple, Communications & Project Coordination Manager at Symplectic Ltd
(time allocated: 0.2 FTE)


Project Team:

University of Exeter:
Ian Tilsed, Head of Academic Systems
Jill Evans, Digital Library Officer

Keele University:
Ellie James, Research Planning and Project Manager

University of Leeds:
Jodie Double, Digital Repositories Manager for Leeds University Library
Rachel Proudfoot, Repository Officer for Leeds University Library

University of Plymouth:
Nicola Cockarill, Senior Subject Librarian with the added remit of research support

Queen Mary University of London:
Sarah Molloy, Research Support Librarian


The RePosit project will support researchers at the project partner institutions through advocacy activities and training workshops. It will also engage with them via the survey questionnaire which will solicit feedback on the usefulness of the deposit tool, and other places where it should be made available to them. The project will engage with research organisers and managers in a similar way, offering the project workshops and user community space as forums for determining the appropriate strategy for increasing uptake, enhancements to the software, and methods of driving policy change. The user community space is intended for all members of the deposit community, not just those at the partner institutions.

Posted by: Lizzie Dipple