Enhancing and testing repository
deposit interfaces
Steve Hitchcock, JISC DepositMO Project
ECS, WAIS, University of Southampton
OR2012, 7th International Conference on Open Repositories, Edinburgh,
11 July 2012
http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/340997/
In this talk …
• Open access IRs under pressure
• Adding value for users
• Repositioning deposit in the user workflow
and applications; new deposit interfaces
• SWORDv2
• User testing results
• Boosting deposit rates for real repositories?
Credits and acknowledgements
• PI: Les Carr
• Development: Richard Boardman, Dave Tarrant,
Tim Brody, Richard Jones, Alex Wade
• Testing: departments of archaeology and
chemistry, and the e-Prints Soton, EdShare (all
Southampton) and Kultivate repository teams –
coordinators of these teams: Graeme Earl, Jeremy
Frey, Kate Walker, Debra Morris and MarieTherese Gramstadt, respectively.
• Biscuits and sweeping up: Me
IRs under pressure
• Recommendations from Report of the Working Group on
Expanding Access to Published Research Findings (Finch)
i. a clear policy direction should be set towards support for
publication in open access or hybrid journals, funded by
APCs, as the main vehicle for the publication of research
ix. the infrastructure of subject and institutional repositories Crisis? What
should be developed so that they play a valuable role
serials crisis?
complementary to formal publishing, particularly in
providing access to research data and to grey literature, and
in digital preservation
• PeerJ Open Access & Peer-Reviewed. Starting at $99 - for
life
@stevehit PeerJ: I still don't see the magic bullet here. If PeerJ
can make it by 'lowering the financial barriers' then IRs will
be shot #openaccess
DepositMO has been to Edinburgh
before - Repository Fringe, Aug 2011
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kPZ3n6sJqaU
@depositMO Good to see both DepositMO tools got a spontaneous round of
applause during Dave’s show. So that’s a tick for flashiness #jiscdepo
#depositmo
Interactive Multi-Submission Deposit
Workflows for Desktop Applications
David Tarrant
davetaz@ecs.soton.ac.uk
Electronics and Computer Science
OR2010, Madrid, 6-9 July 2010
A borderline paper?
“It’s curious, then, that there have been few published
studies or user testing of repository interfaces.”
Is this statement supportable? See
Repository usability review, 24-26 January 2012
1. Designing for metadata
2. User deposit interfaces
3. New deposit protocols
Modus Operandi for Repository Deposits blog
http://blogs.ecs.soton.ac.uk/depositmo/tag/repositoryusability-review/
EPrints deposit interface (part of)
SWORD deposit interface
Facebook SWORD client
http://blog.stuartlewis.com/2009/06/02/how-does-the-facebook-sword-client-actually-work/
Why SWORD?
Simple Web service Offering Repository Deposit
• SWORD (2007) single interface, deposit in
multiple repositories. ‘Fire and forget’.
• SWORDv2 (2012) items can be created,
updated, replaced, or deleted (CRUD).
• SWORDv2 endpoints built into current
versions of EPrints (3.3) and DSpace (1.8)
Word Add-in deposit client
Watch Folder – a file managerbased deposit interface
Watch Folder –
does this look like
anything you’ve
seen elsewhere?
Microsoft SkyDrive integrated into
Windows Explorer, Apple Finder (April
2012)
http://mashable.com/2012/04/23/skydrive
-update-100gb-storage/
A repository is NOT a hard drive - different
paradigm
User tests of of new deposit clients
• Controlled test environment: a pair of
Web-connected laptops running
Windows 7, directed at a demonstrator
EPrints repository running the
SWORDv2 extensions.
• Test users included new as well as
experienced repository users, most
working in observed pairs.
• Results were based on what users did,
using repository records and observer
notes; what users said, in before- and
after-test questions; task completion
and time taken.
Results of user tests
• On average, both direct deposit clients took
less time to deposit an item than via the
native repository interface
• This time advantage is realised where less
stringent metadata requirements apply or
where the tool assists with metadata
completion, as the Word Add-in does with
simple bibliographic information
• The Watch Folder does not provide the
simplest means of metadata control, and in
some cases additional time was incurred to
complete this stage
• User testing
resultshttp://blogs.ecs.soton.ac.uk/deposit
mo/tag/user-testing-results/
Lessons of user tests
• The wow! factor is harder to sustain in practice,
noticeably as a user’s collection size grows and issues
of metadata control and versioning become more
critical. It’s not just about the initial deposit.
• There are no simple comparisons to be made between
the instant deposit tools (Word Add-in and Watch
Folder) and the more structured native repository
deposit interfaces. Instant deposit may be at the
expense of providing careful metadata now.
• Further refinements to the tools might be able to
improve metadata control without losing deposit time.
Where could we offer deposit with
maximum speed and minimal metadata?
DataFlow services summary – adding SWORD
From JISC UMF DataFlow Project Introduction to DataStage
http://vidaas.oucs.ox.ac.uk/docs/David%20Shotton%20-%20overview%20of%20DataFlow.pdf
From DepositMO to
DepositMOre
From an impenetrable acronym
– changing the Modus
Operandi of repository deposit
– to a play on words with a
self-explanatory goal – getting
more stuff into your repository
• JISC confirmation: recent
• Start: soon, tbc
From DepositMO to
DepositMOre
From an impenetrable acronym
– changing the Modus
Operandi of repository deposit
– to a play on words with a
self-explanatory goal – getting
more stuff into your repository
• JISC confirmation: recent
• Start: soon, tbc
… Just resting
Defying psittacine
(and classic
comedy sketch
writing)
convention
Why DepositMOre?
• Over 50% of test users indicated these new
deposit tools would encourage them to submit
more of their own content to the repository.
• DepositMO performed usability tests and cannot
tell us how these tools might impact on deposit
rates of real repositories.
• DepositMOre, was proposed to demonstrate
increased deposit rates using in-tool statistical
tracking.
DepositMOre tools

New
X
Watch Folder: extending the user interaction model for
intelligent bulk ingest to deal with 100s of documents,
involving original user testers from within arts and
archaeology, communities that generate large volumes of
non textual digital objects.
EasyChair Deposit Tool, lists a user’s authored items in
Easychair, which hosts over 15,000 conferences. The tool
checks if these items are present in the user’s selected
repository. Any that have not been deposited can be
added with one click.
Word add-in: impact of a content creation tool on deposit
rates will be less immediate.
Conclusions
• DepositMO and DepositMOre aim to
show how different repository deposit
tools can support users with different
deposit demands, widening the base of
repository users.
• With the growing emphasis on managing
research data, especially using data
repositories, the need for choice in
repository deposit – offering tradeoffs
between time to deposit and degree of
documentation – is going to become
more acute.
Useful contacts
• Twitter: @depositmo
• Blog http://blogs.ecs.soton.ac.uk/depositmo/
• Web downloads
http://www.eprints.org/depositmo/
• Email sh94r@ecs.soton.ac.uk