Repositories: What’s the Target? An ARROW Perspective Derek Whitehead Swinburne University of Technology.

Repositories: What’s the Target? An ARROW Perspective

Derek WhiteheadSwinburne University of Technology

Summary

– 1 Introduction– 2 What is an institutional research repository?– 3 Where institutional research repositories came from– 4 The ARROW Project– 5 Recent studies– 6 Success in the Future– 7 Conclusion

Swinburne University of Technology

Swinburne University of Technology

• Dual sector university• About 10,000 FTE higher education students• … and about 12,000 technical and further• All together 38,000 students• Five campuses in Melbourne, Australia• … and one in Sarawak, Malaysia• Strong focus on engineering, IT and business• Specialised and research-intensive university

We were always technological

1

Introduction

Some questions

• Where do research institutional repositories sit in the general field of databases?

• How to they relate to other repositories, other databases, other research collections?

• Why has take-up been fairly slow?• What would make it faster?• Why are librarians the most enthusiastic supporters?

Slow takeup in Australia

Australian National UniversityANU 2453

Curtin 246

Monash 122

QUT 832

Melbourne 459

Queensland 1757

Tasmania 122

2

What is an Institutional Repository?

Jargon already …

• “… we go and talk to our academics or computing services staff about setting up a ‘institutional repository’ or an ‘eprint archive’ when the words they really want to hear are ‘content management system’ or even just ‘database’.”

Andy Powell, posting to JISC-DEVELOPMENT list, 29 April, 2005.

A database

• Institutional location and focus• Focus on research outputs• Web visibility• Full text availability• Structured information• Sustained and managed over time

Debates over definition

• Citations and abstracts only in the database• There is a delay in the full text appearing• Content removed from a document• Access limited in some way• Copyright licence is ungenerous• Blurring of the concept “published”

Define by use

Three main groups of users• Global – local of and access to full texts • Institutional – organise content, make it

available, promote the institution• Personal – help to organise content, promote

me, help me to share

3

Where institutional repositories came from

Finding and obtaining access

• Simple DC metadata• Straightforward open source software• Clear logical rationale• Online data about publisher policies• Growing amount of promotional material• Seen as a means of marketing the institution• A means to change scholarly communication

Why limited success?

Why did not the bulk of research literature migrate to open access?

• Researchers are friendly but unconvinced• They don’t care about marketing the institution• They don’t want to learn anything new which is

peripheral• They perceive that they have no time• Poor institutional support of archiving

Changes in rationales

Add these• “Reform of scholarly communication” – Is there

any sign of this happening? It is a red herring?• Enhance the prestige of the institution – Is this a

core concern for researchers?• Long-term preservation – Is this an appropriate

means? Do we even want it to be done?

More new rationales

• Knowledge management – what does this mean?

• Research assessment exercises – how will the open access IR relate to this? How will a list help with assessing quality?

• Collection management – where’s the collection?

Not all red herrings though

4

The ARROW Project

A logo

ARROW partners and funding

o Partners - Monash (lead institution), UNSW, Swinburne, National Library of Australia

o Funded by DEST ($3.7 million)o Software development contract signed in

June 2004 with VTLS (Virginia Tech), built on Fedora

o http://www.arrow.edu.au

ARROW model

ARROW model (in another format)

ARROW components

o Incorporate theses and expand the capacity of the ADT program (2004)

o Create an e-prints module (2004) to submit and manage e-prints – consistent with www.eprints.org software.

o Electronic publishing module is based at Swinburne and uses OJS software

More ARROW components

o Interface with Research Master 4 o Data currently collected about research

outputs can be collected through ARROWo Ultimately simplification of DEST data

collection processo Advice about copyright to authorso Library working with research administrators

Resource discovery

o Implemented cross-repository resource discovery mechanisms (early 2005)

o Automated harvesting and re-purposing of metadata

o Persistent identification using the handle methodology

o Begins harvesting from ARROW partners mid-2005

At Swinburne ….

o Focus on the user interface, user functionalityo Online publishing – integration of green and

goldo Images website and databaseo Digital theseso Theses trial with Proquest

5

Recent studies

The landscape has changed

• Commercial software is emerging• Alignment of repository and other functionality

(data collection, journal publishing, promotion)• Awareness of wider information management

purposes• Emerging new requirements (access and

quality)• New research and new studies

Daedelus at University of Glasgow

ePrints at Queensland Univ Tech

Proquest’s Digital Commons

University of California

University of Rochester

Mandating

Assumes• A range of purposes ( like record-keeping,

evaluation)• Relatively little effort• Relatively low cost• Mandating can be effectively enforced

Input once, use many times

• Research reports• CVs, promotion applications• Grant applications• Assessment and evaluation• Promotion of the individual• Promotion of the centre, faculty or university• Export to EndNote, Research Master, other

What an IR does for me

• Saving time/managing chaos: not managing a server or a web site, emailing copies of papers, juggling software.

• Managing copyright• Longer-term management of research:

permanent URLs, backups, help.• Enhanced impact and worldwide, easy access

User-centred approach

Some points• The Tananbaum short argument – “make me

famous” and “save me time”• Relationship between the individual

researcher, the institution, and groups• Individuality vs institutional views

6

Success in the future?

A thought experiment

[courtesy of Dr Evan Arthur, DEST]• A researcher and ARC (Australian Research

Council) grant recipient completes an article• Following peer review it is accepted by an

international proprietary journal• A post-print copy is lodged with the university’s

open access digital repository

A thought experiment

• These actions lead to automatic updating of– the researchers open access publication list– the university’s open access record of staff research

activity– The ARC’s open access record of research activity related

to its grants– A gateway site providing sophisticated industry-tailored

access to research activities in Australian research institutions

– The publicly accessible data warehouse which provides input into quality assessments of Australian research institutions

Copyright

More from DEST• In regard to copyright, DEST takes the view

that, in principle, material produced using DEST funds should be made available without cost to education, science and training users– And that there need to be simplified procedures (standard

licenses) to facilitate this

7

Conclusion

Composite picture of value

1. Resource discovery and access2. New modes of scholarly communication:

breaking the old publishing paradigm3. Research evaluation and assessment4. Enhanced impact5. Information / asset management6. Efficiency, process improvement, saving time

Wherever we go, it won’t be 1957 again …