Convincing the Institution:
Developing an Institutional Open Archive
of Research Publications at the University
of Edinburgh
Morag Watson & Avril Conacher
Science & Engineering Library,
Learning & Information Centre (SELLIC) Project
University of Edinburgh
Scotland, UK
University of Edinburgh
University of Edinburgh
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Large, ancient research-led university
22,000 students
1,500 research-active staff
3,750 research outputs per year
4 Faculty Groups
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Arts/Music/Humanities
Law/Social Sciences/Education
Medicine/Veterinary Medicine
Science & Engineering
Infrastructure
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Solaris
Apache
Perl
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MySQL
Perl Modules
Installation Issues
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Existing Infrastructure
– Solaris
– Apache
– Perl
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Added for Eprints
– MySQL
– relevant Perl Modules
Installation Issues
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Using Solaris
Technical knowledge required
– apache, Perl, databases
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Server running other services
– commercial software evaluations
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Server running other development
projects
– other open source applications
Installation Issues
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Initial Installation Summer 2001
– didn’t work
– technical support from Southampton
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Reinstalled November 2001
– less complex technical environment
– does work
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Currently : begun to think about installation
of version 2.0
Current Status
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Pilot available to Library Staff
Metadata requirement under
consideration
Searching requirements under
consideration
Loaded c. 60 papers to assist with
evaluation of requirements
Edinburgh Research Archive
(ERA)
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One institutional Open research
archive sustained by self-archiving
OAI makes an alternative to
commercial publishing possible
Library journal expenditure £1.8m per
annum
Savings to library
Content and customisation
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Depositing published research papers from
Departments including Physics & Astronomy
and Informatics
All publications : conference, research
papers and reports
Development and customisation of interface
for ease of submission begun
First steps to implementation
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Summer 2001 : approached academic
departments with Eprints idea
Response from them was mixed
Spring (?) 2002 : Attitudes have changed
slightly and researchers are more
enthusiastic
First steps to implementation
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Library trying to participate in more interdepartmental projects and activities
Library collaborating with development of
VLE’s and courseware
Have adopted a “Top down” approach at EU
And “Bottom up”
And occasionally sideways!
Why was there resistance at
first?
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Library savings have only an indirect
benefit to many of them
Academic concerns
Disciplines without preprint exchange
cultures take more persuading (There
was some confusion about eprints and
preprints)
Why the library?
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Trusted administrator of scholarly resources
Can run the machinery of self-archiving
Has the tools and skills to do metadata and
preservation
Will apply metadata standards uniformly
Why the library?
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Can monitor use of commercial journals and
make savings
Resolver services will empower librarians to
choose the free research corpus
Can deliver the new system nearseamlessly
Has experience of copyright negotiation
Strategy
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Convince senior managers (Chair of
Research Committee, Director of Planning,
Director of Research Development, VicePrincipal Information Strategy etc)
Meet the researchers in their departments
Link to RAE (Research Assessment Ex.)
Promote institutional research profile
Strategy
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Respect disciplinary heterogeneity
Do not make sweeping assumptions
Free the time of academics to do more
research
8 Emphasise conservatism (no threat to
existing publishing practices)
9 Cancel subscriptions gradually and only on
basis of strong evidence
10 Link to researcher database
Strategy
11 View preprints as a bonus
12 Respect the top journals
13 Build on existing support for RAE
submission administration (‘fresh in their
minds’)
14 Disciplinary vs institutional archives: not
mutually exclusive
Strategy
15 Include researchers from disciplines without
existing archives
16 Make allies of academics on editorial boards
of commercial journals
17 Begin with a demonstrator
18 Attract additional internal and external
funding
Copyright
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Copyright belongs to University
Researchers and authors should
assert their right to their intellectual
property
University will perhaps assert its
copyright over material
Threat from commercial vendors, for
example “electronic courseware”
The IPR scale of
assertiveness
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‘I retain only the right to distribute it for free
for scholarly/scientific purposes …’
‘The University of Edinburgh is authorised to
reproduce and distribute reprints and on-line
copies for their purposes notwithstanding
any copyright annotation hereon.’
‘This licence entitles the publisher to publish
the article only in a single issue of The
Journal of …’
Thank You
avril.conacher@ed.ac.uk
morag.watson@ed.ac.uk
&
john.maccoll@ed.ac.uk