Supporting Research
Dissemination
John MacColl
European Director,
RLG Partnership
James Toon
ERIS Project Manager
Edinburgh University Library
RLG Partnership Annual Meeting,
Chicago, June 2010
Context
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Minnesota: anthropological
approach
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Actionable intelligence … Assisted
thinking
Analysis and synthesis of the
available evidence base
Improved understanding for
library management
oclc.org/research/publications/library/2009/2009-02.pdf
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Breaking behaviours down by
discipline
Interdisciplinary
probing
translating
accessing
assessing
Humanities
chaining
browsing
collecting
re-reading
disseminating
networking
assembling
consulting
note-taking
Sciences
direct searching
scanning
co-authoring
coordinating
monitoring
data-sharing
Adapted from C. Palmer, L. Teffau, C. Pirmann (2009)
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RIM: overlapping environments
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Meeting researchers’ needs
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RIN
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Ithaka
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UCB
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Our joint project with UK Research
Information Network: Support for
research workflows
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New elements to our study
• Focus on dissemination excluding traditional journal
and monograph publishing
• Focus on subject librarians/faculty liaisons
• Focus on repository support for scholarship
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Enhancing Repository Infrastructure in
Scotland
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Scotland and Open Access
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Some history: Scottish Collaboration in
Open Access
• History of collaborative activity (i.e. SCURL,
SHEDL, SDLC, IRIScotland, ERIS)
• Open Access as a reaction to the ‘scholarly
communications crisis
• Open Access meeting 11th October 2004, Royal
Society of Edinburgh
• Scottish Declaration on Open Access launched at
that meeting (OATS)
• First joint OA project IRIScotland funded by JISC
June 2005 and ran until 2008
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Scope, aims and objectives
• Development, assessment and engagement of
user communities
• Raise issues surrounding the longevity and
broader value of research output
• ‘Attending to the demand side’,
technologically
• Strategic recommendations, business planning
and sustainability
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Scottish toes in the water …
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A few findings from our work
http://www.flickr.com/photos/adambot/2733161467/
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Levels of engagement
• 69.7% (216) of
respondents were aware
of the existence of a
repository
• 44.8% (139) have
deposited something in
their repository, with
80% finding it either
very easy, or easy to do.
80%
70%
60%
50%
40%
Arts &
Humanities
30%
Biosciences
20%
Science &
Engineering
10%
0%
Aware of your IR?
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Ever used it?
Ever used SRs?
Social
Sciences
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Levels of engagement
However on
average, only 15%
submit to their IR
as a matter of
course as well as
to publishers
Put the approved copy
of the submission onto
a networked drive at my
institution so it is
backed up
12%
Deposit in a subject
based repository
3%
Keep on my local
PC/Laptop
40%
Put an approved copy
on my personal or
departmental website
12%
Send them to a
departmental
administrator to
manage/store
7%
15%
Supporting Research Dissemination
deposit in my
institution's repository
15%
Copy to a CD/DVD and
file offsite
11%
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Levels of engagement
• Repositories are being
used for research, but
very rarely are they used
directly.
• Normally via referral
(43% via search engine,
and 16% referral from
colleague
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Never used an
institutional
repository
22%
Direct search
using
institutional
repository
19% (11%
own, 8%
other)
Referral to
institutional
repository (via
search engine
or personal
referral)
59%
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From focus group work (some
key points) – open access
• Researchers generally see repositories as being
there to support their institutions support for OA
• Personally they are generally supportive of OA, but
there are pro’s and con’s and no single convincing
argument (and don’t think their should be)
• Researchers have been doing OA – if they wanted
to – for years now, by fair means or foul!
• Variation in support across career paths (early
career to senior academic)
• The drive to OA can be damaging in some cases
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From focus group work (some
key points)
• The pressure to publish in recognised journals is
significant, and is an administrative and career
need (in the UK at least)
• Must have ability to exercise personal control over
everything that is in the repository (to provide or
revoke access at will)
• Repositories don’t offer anything that the
researcher finds sufficiently of value to motivate
deposit.
• Library providers are disconnected from the
researchers real needs (as far as researchers are
concerned)
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Long term availability and reuse
of research
• Those responsible for service and support are
unequipped;
• Low awareness of digital curation and preservation
issues, and little to no practical experience
• Policies that do exist are part of corporate initiatives
and are often box ticking exercises
• Domain specific guidance for preservation and
curation policy tends to sit outside of the institution,
indicating issues of leadership and direction
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Long term availability and reuse
of research
• Those responsible for research are unequipped;
• Open access is easy in relation; [insert your term
here] curation is hard.
• Potentially huge overhead for the researcher
• Services for preservation and curation support are
generally lacking
• ‘We can't stand on the shoulders of giants if we only
have access to their knees ’
1
• Growing support for principle of open scholarship,
but requires change in philosophy, not practice.
1. Quote from Vision Learning Blog, may 24th 2010 http://visionlearningcommunity.blogspot.com/2010/05/journal-nature-continues-open-access.html
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Indication of the scale of the
issue
Put the approved copy
of the submission onto
a networked drive at my
institution so it is
backed up
12%
Deposit in a subject
based repository
3%
Keep on my local
PC/Laptop
40%
Put an approved copy
on my personal or
departmental website
12%
Send them to a
departmental
administrator to
manage/store
7%
deposit in my
institution's repository
15%
Supporting Research Dissemination
Copy to a CD/DVD and
file offsite
11%
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Indication of the scale of the
issue
Put the approved copy
of the submission onto
a networked drive at my
institution so it is
backed up
12%
Deposit in a subject
based repository
3%
Keep on my local
PC/Laptop
40%
Put an approved copy
on my personal or
departmental website
12%
Send them to a
departmental
administrator to
manage/store
7%
deposit in my
institution's repository
15%
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63%
Copy to a CD/DVD and
file offsite
11%
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Research pooling
• Not just for assessment, but for effective strategic
management of research
• Genuine desire for full text and bibliographic data
for knowledge management (KT really important)
• Have strong backing from their members.
Discipline trumps institution.
• Data must be broader than just IR – need to include
HR, Finance, Knowledge data, Grant data, Funder
data…….
• They know they want data, but they don’t know
what they want or how to define it.
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A few observations (not
conclusions)
• Systems and services not based on user needs
• Repository use often by ‘accident’
• There is no single approach – every
institution/discipline/researcher is different
• Its all about me, me, me.
• We can often talk in a foreign language
• We can often not talk at all
• Failure to add value has meant that we had to
resort to mandates/requirements – sticks not
carrots.
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‘What is the future of the
repository?’
• As it is – are we heading
the way of the Dodo?
• Must gain trust of the users
• Two clear paths – support
for knowledge and
research, and support for
research management
• Institutional repositories
are only part of the ecosystem of systems servicing
the research life cycle
http://www.flickr.com/photos/44124372821@N01/167871469
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Work with users to gain trust
and define direction
• Stakeholder communities are identifiable and similar
across Higher Education
• Many varied needs.
• Roles and mission are however not universally well
defined in context.
• Lack of internal support means they are often looking
outside their institutions for comfort.
• Stakeholder groups want to collaborate and
communicate
• Need greater facilitation. Opportunities for national
networks
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Develop roles and up-skill
support services
• All through the ERIS exercise, the need for effective
research support has been key
• Need to develop specialist roles to support the
research life cycle
• Take a role in helping researchers with the
dissemination of knowledge
• Work more closely together with research offices as
‘information specialists’
• Economies of scale in services need to be considered
for cost/benefit (unpopular)
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Support the dissemination of
knowledge
• Open access is still a goal, but not *THE* goal of
repositories. Discuss.
• Open scholarship/knowledge revolves around
effective curation of ‘data’. Discuss.
• “The coolest thing to do with your data will be
thought of by someone else1”
• Being linked and being open is important (open
standards esp.)
• How to engage in an open, social world.
Participate, collaborate and innovate – not
reinvent the wheel.
1. Attributed to Rufus Pollack, via http://blogs.talis.com/nodalities/2007/05/xtech_day_3_rufus_pollock_and_.php
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Research Information Management
Systems
Image reproduced with kind permission of the Universities of Aberdeen and St Andrews
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Make change to an objective,
outcome based approach.
• Programme of activity to develop enhanced
capability over time.
• Investment in enabling activities
• Services for researchers
• Services for strategy and management
• Services for ‘service managers’
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The study
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Researcher behaviours
• This Working Group will look at the use of repositories –
institutional and subject – and other venues where attention is
focused by various communities
• It will examine social networking mechanisms for dissemination,
considering the spectrum of community services grouped around
research activity (including informal community spaces, blogs, blog
aggregation services, microblogging, etc )
• Faculty participants will also be asked about tools and services not
currently available that they would value, at institutional and at domain
levels
• Focus will be on the use of repositories, not the deposit process
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Library responses
• How are changing researcher practices being monitored by
libraries?
• What does the use of these tools and services imply for libraries
(eg in respect of harvesting, curation, bibliometric services and
preservation)?
• What new services should libraries provide (eg bibliometric data
reports generated from repositories)?
• Is there missing infrastructure that might valuably connect
discrete data sources to serve research bibliographic and data
curation needs?
• How do libraries support scholarship rather than administration?
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U Minnesota: Karen Williams on changing
faculty liaison roles (ARL study): from new
Position Description Framework
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Nil desperandum … Hugh Glaser (Computer
Scientist, U Southampton); email to JISCREPOSITORIES, 2 June 2010
‘the pages the School was offering for me by
embedding my publication data in the official
profile pages was far superior to anything I could
make myself’
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U Minnesota: Karen Williams on changing
faculty liaison roles (ARL study)
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Process
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RLG-RIM SRD group – Plan/Process (1)
• Identify and define scope of stakeholders and how
are they going to contribute to the project
• Establish contact with contributing group
• Write and agree project definition work
• Arrange telcon to sign off approach with stakeholders at end
June
• Project Website and social tools to be used for
user communication and collaboration
• Set up and make available communication routes
• Set up simple communications plan by end June
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RLG-RIM SRD group – Plan/Process (2)
• Liaison librarian engagement plan
• Agree data collection method, questions and targets for work
by end June
• Prepare materials for project participants
• Prepare datasheets, questions, check-sheets etc for data
collection by mid July
• Compiled, ordered data from sources
• Data returned, sorted and ordered by end August
• Mid August partner telcon to discuss progress and push if
necessary
• Data analysis
• Review of collated data and order for reporting by end Sept
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RLG-RIM SRD group – Plan/Process (3)
• A Final report on the RLG/RIM SRD activity for
publication
• First draft out for review by mid Oct.
• Partner telcon at end Oct to sign off report for publication
• Publication due mid November.
• Planning for alternative dissemination routes
• Set activities to promote final report (presentations, blog
posts) on ongoing basis
• Closure report, identifying follow on actions
including handover and wind-down activities
• Project wind down and hand over to RLG by end November
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Discussion!
maccollj@oclc.org
james.toon@ed.ac.uk
Next up
4:00
Lightning Rounds
Buckingham
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