Repositories
management, policies, and best practices
RSP webinar 29th June 2012
Jackie Wickham
Centre for Research Communications
University of Nottingham
Green Route
Picture by Darkos http://www.flickr.com/photos/darkos/
Outline
Background – RSP and repository growth
Value of institutional repositories
Success - support, advocacy and integration
Policies and content types
Staffing and skills
RSP Aims
• More…
repositories
content
Support repositories to be fit for purpose,
Standardised and Sustainable
re-use of
content
use of
content
Project history
- Initially a 2.5 year JISC funded project
 September 2006 – March 2009
 Lead Institution – University of Nottingham
 Partner Institutions – University of Southampton,
Aberystwyth University, Digital Curation Centre
(University of Edinburgh), UKOLN (University of Bath).
- Second phase April 2009 – July 2012
• University of Nottingham
The RSP Offers…
Proportion of repositories
by country
Finch Report
Image by Tobyotter
“Barriers to
access –
particularly when
the research is
publicly funded are increasingly
unacceptable in
an online world.”
Recommendations
• Support for publication in open access or hybrid
journals
• Research Councils and other public sector bodies
funding research in the UK should arrangements to
meet the costs of publishing in open access and
hybrid journals
Is there a place for institutional
repositories in a gold open
access world?
OA Repositories – the benefits for institutions
© The University of Nottingham 2010
Benefits for institutions
• Showcase for institutions research output
• Marketing mechanism – internally and externally
• REF and research management – repositories
support process
• Complies with research body requirements for open
access publishing
• Allows systematic management and preservation of
assets
• Encourages collaboration and inter-disciplinary work
• Public engagement – community, business
Benefits for academics
©
The University of Nottingham 2010
Benefits for academics
•
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Faster dissemination
Wider readership
Increased citation
Compliance with funders mandates
Secure environment to store own research output
Personalise services – statistics on downloads,
personal profiles/bibliographies
“I’ve also had a number of international
scholars and research students read my
articles and listen to the music I have
available in the repository. As a result, I
am now pursuing collaborative research
projects with music studios and
researchers in Mexico and Norway”
Monty Adkins, University of Huddersfield
How to make your repository successful
3 P’s – from the University of Glasgow
People
Processes
Policies
Senior management support
We felt it [the repository] was
a big opportunity for the
university to promote its
research outputs in many
ways it had not done before…
we saw the Open Access
agenda as a way of supporting
that rekindling of promoting
the university.” Professor
Steve Beaumont, University of
Glasgow
Senior management support
• Demonstrate the case
• Talk to influential people, make relationships
• Use other institutions as a benchmark – the
competitive element
• Make the most of drivers – e.g. support for research
assessment
• Set up a steering group with key people from
research, library etc
• Formal policies approved by key management
committees e.g. Research Committee
Advocacy
• Key element of embedding repositories in research
culture
• Increases number of deposits
• Ensures continuation of resources for the repository
• Interactive – listening is as important as talking
• Address local/departmental concerns – ensure this
voice in repository developments
Tips for Successful Advocacy
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Every institution will be different
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Message and medium must be tailored
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Selling minutiae to ProVC is doomed to fail
Be where the academics are
Advocacy isn’t just top academics
–
•
No one approach that succeeds for all
Administrators, support staff, opinion leaders
Prepare a two minute pitch
• We often to provide too much information – make it attractive, credible,
understandable.
• The REF & other quality assurance audits
– A route to your academics’ hearts
– New metric based approach suits repository functionality
http://www.rsp.ac.uk/grow/advocacy/
Silos are the past…
Sources: Flickr, silo by dsearl
Integrated and embedded Repositories
are the future
SwordAPP
LDAP
University of Glasgow, William Nixon
Integration
• Working towards a culture among researchers
which leads them to view the repository as a natural
tool for disseminating their research and for raising
their profile, which will in turn increase the volume
of actual outputs placed in the repository
• Ensuring that the repository is seen by both
researchers and senior managers as part of the
institutional research infrastructure rather than a
separate information or data silo and is properly
resourced to fulfil that role
•
Integration
• Making certain that the process of deposit into the
repository forms part of the workflow for research
in as seamless a way as possible and avoiding
duplication of effort
• Linking the repository to external systems (such as
those of funders) and information sources (e.g. Web
of Science), where appropriate
• Facilitating the search and discovery process to
ensure that the repository’s contents are easily
found and appropriately linked to other information
such as staff profiles
Repository data feeds staff profiles
www.rsp.ac.uk/embeddingguide
Policies
Image by Terry Bain
To mandate or
not to mandate?
Hands up if you have a
mandate?
Hands up if you have a
publications policy?
Does it really matter
what you call it?
Stevan Harnad
http://openaccess.eprints.org/index.php?/archives/905-Finch-Fiasco-in-Figures.html
Other key policies
• Metadata Policy- for information describing items
in the repository. Access to metadata; Re-use of
metadata
• Data Policy - for full-text and other full data items.
Access to full items; Re-use of full items
• Content Policy - for types of document and
dataset held. Repository type; Type of material held;
Principal languages
Other key polices
• Submission Policy - concerning depositors, quality
and copyright. Eligible depositors; Deposition rules;
Moderation; Content quality control; Publishers' and
funders' embargos; Copyright policy
• Preservation Policy Retention period; Functional
preservation; File preservation; Withdrawal policy;
Withdrawn items; Version control; Closure policy
• http://www.opendoar.org/tools/en/policies.php
Compliance with copyright
Take down policy
http://www.rsp.ac.uk/start/policies-and-legal-issues/take-down-policies/
Make your repository discoverable
• Be seen!
– Implement OAI-PMH
– Registering repositories
– Be visible to search engines
Be Seen!: implement OAI-PMH
• OAI-PMH = Open Archives Initiative-Protocol for Metadata
http://www.openarchives.org/OAI/openarchivesprotocol.html
“provides an application-independent interoperability framework based
on metadata harvesting “
Also see: DRIVER Guidelines
http://www.driver-support.eu/managers.html
Be Seen!: registering repositories
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OpenDOAR- http://www.opendoar.org
ROAR - http://roar.eprints.org/
Openarchives.org - http://www.openarchives.org/Register/BrowseSites
Your software community
– e.g DSpace instances http://www.dspace.org/whos-using-dspace/Repository-List.html
• OAIster - http://www.oclc.org/oaister/
• BASE - http://www.base-search.net/
*http://www.rsp.ac.uk/usage/
Be Seen!: be visible to search engines
•
Do Not!
– Require all visitors to have a username and password
– Set a 'robots.txt' file and/or use 'robots' meta tags in HTML headers that prevent
search engine crawling
– Accept poor quality or restrictive PDF files
– Hide your OAI Base URL
•
Ensure you have a 'Browse' interface with hyperlinks between pages
•
Avoid awkward URLs - Many harvesters and firewalls will spit out or block:
– Numeric URLs - e.g. http://130.226.203.32/
– URLs that use 'https:' instead of 'http:'
– URLs that include unusual port numbers e.g. :47231
– Overlong URLs with arguments (any URL containing ‘?’)
*http://www.sherpa.ac.uk/documents/ways-to-screw-up.html
Types of materials stored in repositories
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Journal articles
Bibliographic references (metadata only)
Books, sections and chapters
Conference and workshop papers
Theses and Dissertations
Unpublished reports & working papers
Datasets
Educational resources and learning objects
Multimedia and audio-visual materials
Software
Patents
Focus on the creative arts
• Visibility
Showcasing work
•Preservation
Gallery content
disappears
Personal websites go
down
http://www.rsp.ac.uk/help/creativearts/
From Constance Howard Collection
For reuse rights see VADS
Using Statistics
• Show the rate of
deposit
• Number of downloads
• Where from
• Top 10 downloads
Usage statistics – University of
Huddersfield
Survey of UK Repository staff
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29th July to 5th September 2010
SurveyMonkey
Distributed via UKCoRR list
215 members (August 2010) and there were 84
respondents.
• Interviews with a couple of respondents
• http://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/1511/
Backgrounds of UK staff
95% first degree
74% post grad
qualification
Roles
Skills
Further information on staffing
• RSP Repository staff and skills set
http://www.rsp.ac.uk/documents/Repository_Staff_and_Skills_Set_2011.pdf
• UK Repositories including staffing levels: RSP wiki
http://www.rsp.ac.uk/pmwiki/index.php?n=Institutions.HomePage
• JISC Recruitment toolkit
http://www.jisc.ac.uk/whatwedo/themes/informationenvironment/recruitment.
aspx
Thanks for listening
Questions?
Jackie Wickham
Jacqueline.wickham@nottingham.ac.uk
+44(0)115 8466389
Resources
• Repositories Support Project www.rsp.ac.uk
• Driver guidelines http://www.driversupport.eu/managers.html
• Confederation of Open Access Repositories
http://www.coar-repositories.org/
• OASIS http://tinyurl.com/68jrpk3
• RCAAP How to create a repository
http://tinyurl.com/bpmmgzc