SLA / June 06USC Libraries1 Institutional Repositories: Beware the “Field of Dreams” Fallacy! An SLA Sci-Tech Contributed Paper by Sara R. Tompson ([email protected])[email protected].

SLA / June 06 USC Libraries 1

Institutional Repositories: Beware the “Field of Dreams” Fallacy!

An SLA Sci-Tech Contributed Paper

by Sara R. Tompson ([email protected])

Deborah A. Holmes-Wong ([email protected])

Janis F. Brown ([email protected])

University of Southern California Libraries

http://www.sla.org/division/dst/Annual%20Conference%20Contributed%20Papers/2006papers/2006papers.html

http://www.sla.org/division/dst/Annual%20Conference%20Contributed%20Papers/2006papers/2006papers.html

mailto:[email protected]




OutlineI. Introduction

II. Information Technology Developments as drivers for IRs

III. IR Usage Not as Expected

IV. USC’s Institutional Repository Needs Assessment (IRNA) Task Force

V. Future of IRs

VI. “If you build it…”


Introduction• Brown, Janis F., Holmes-Wong, Deborah A. and Tompson,

Sara R. “Institutional Repositories: What if We Determined Needs Before We Built It?” Medical Library Association MLA'06 Contributed Paper Session: "Transforming Scholarly Publishing: The Role of Institutional Repositories", Phoenix, AZ, May 2006. http://www.mlanet.org/am/am2006/pdf/2006abstracts.pdf - p. 23

• Holmes-Wong, Deborah A., Brown, Janis F. and Tompson, Sara R. “Contextualizing the Institutional Repository within Faculty Research.” Digital Library Federation (DLF) Spring Forum, Austin, TX, April 2006. http://www.diglib.org/forums/spring2006/presentations/wong.pdf

• USC IRB UPIRB #UP-06-00063: Human Subjects Research = Exempt

http://www.mlanet.org/am/am2006/pdf/2006abstracts.pdf

http://www.diglib.org/forums/spring2006/presentations/wong.pdf


Introduction: Definition… a university-based institutional repository is a

set of services that a university offers to the members of its community for the management and dissemination of digital materials created by the institution and its community members. It is most essentially an organizational commitment to the stewardship of these digital materials, including long-term preservation where appropriate, as well as organization and access or distribution. Clifford Lynch, ARL 2003 http://www.arl.org/newsltr/226/ir.html

http://www.arl.org/newsltr/226/ir.html


Introduction: IR Purposes1. They can bring (back) some local control of

scholarly work. This control is ceded to varying or lesser degrees to publishers when subscriptions move to online-only — authoritative versions of articles are not typically retained in accessible format locally, as they are with print journals.

2. IRs, by grouping much of a university’s intellectual output in one place, facilitate interdisciplinary research connections, statistic-keeping, marketing and other institutional efforts.


IT Drivers of IRs1. Rise of online journals• Benefits outweigh costs• But, lose local control• Scitech libraries early adopters of ejournals• Early Web, scientists expected ubiquitous

open access to scholarly lit – not there yet• More ejournals becoming publications of

record• Increasing number and cost of journals AKA

“serials crisis”


IT Drivers of IRs2. Drop in electronic storage costsNew citation since paper: “Rich Rashid, the

head of Microsoft Research and a former Carnegie Mellon professor, said it’s now possible to buy a terabyte of computer memory for about $700. A terabyte, 1,000 gigabytes, is enough memory to ‘store every conversation you ever have from the time you’re born until you die,’ Dr. Rashid said.”Roth, Mark. “Celebrating 50 years of computing at CMU.” April 23, 2006. http://www.postgazette/com/pg/06113/684425-96.stm

http://www.postgazette/com/pg/06113/684425-96.stm

http://www.postgazette/com/pg/06113/684425-96.stm


IT Drivers of IRsDrop in electronic storage costs

also…

• Led to development of IR software platforms, e.g.:

– Dspace

– Documentum

– Storage Resource Broker

http://www.dspace.org/

http://software.emc.com/

http://www.sdsc.edu/srb/


Supports USC's authentication protocols for single sign-on

Faculty control access to their content

Faculty member can determine what others in

group can do with content (add, modify, delete, view,

export)

Faculty can invite individuals to see their space and documents.

Individuals can be from USC or other

institutions.

External invitees can have the same roles/permissions as internal

invitees.

For private documents faculty control who has

access.

Access of unpublished/private content can be

limited to group or individual.

People can have different roles in the system including editor,

author, reader, administrator.

Faculty control whether document is public or

private.

Concept Map for Platforms


IR UsageHas not generally proven as high as

anticipated in “glory days” of 2003.•DSpace developer MIT and others finding populating of their IRs slow going; have had to increase marketing efforts and/or library involvement in the IR ingest processes. Chronicle of Higher Ed., 06/25/04.

•“The authors did not anticipate the amount of work involved in marketing the IR and persuading faculty to use it and to deposit materials in it.” Rochester Inst. Tech. in RSR 33:3.


USC’s IRNA Task ForceInspiration: Nancy Foster and Susan

Gibbons’ D-Lib article: “Without content [created by faculty],

an IR is just a set of ‘empty shelves’.”

Foster, N. F. and Gibbons, S. “Understanding Faculty to Improve Content Recruitment for Institutional Repositories.” D-Lib Magazine 11:1 (January 2005).


USC’s IRNA Task Force Goals• Better understanding of how

faculty disseminate research

• Determine faculty receptiveness to an institutional repository

• Develop use cases

• Gather high level requirements

• Determine features for first phase


USC’s IRNA Task Force

3-pronged approach:

1. Literature Review

2. Interviews

3. Focus Groups (on use cases derived from interviews)


IR Usage: Rationale for Needs Assessment Approach

• Published literature on faculty needs scarce

• Most assessments written post-implementation

• Focus on recruitment & training• Published requirements often gathered

indirectly (faculty Web sites, directories, deconstructing existing systems)

• Published requirements seem based on library needs not faculty needs


IR Usage: Rationale for Needs Assessment Approach

Faculty Already Burdened w/ Posting:

• Global Directory Service/Campus directory

• Personal Web site• Departmental Web• School Web site• SMARTS/GENIUS• USC Experts

Directory• Blackboard…

• Automated annual review system

• SF424 grants.gov• NSF• NIH• Discipline-based repositories• ISI Highly Cited Authors• Who’s Who in …


IRNA TF Interviews Process• Identify and contact faculty to schedule

meetings during spring and summer 2005• Interview 10-15 faculty from a variety of

disciplines• 2-3 person interview teams

– Interview– Record– Listen/Ask follow-up questions

• Summarize interview incorporating feedback from interviewee

• Summarize all interviews


IRNA TF Interviews (Summer 05)Open-ended questions:• What are your research interests?• How do you disseminate your research

findings?• How do you incorporate your research

in the curriculum that you teach?• What is the role of graduate students

and post docs in your research process?


Interview ?s Aimed to Determine:• How/where faculty publish• Importance of PhD student work• Degree that collaboration needs to

be included in software • Open Access requirements of

funding agencies• Nature/importance of supporting

materials


IRNA TF InterviewsWe have made some of our results public

on our Wiki, which was a useful tool for this task force work: https://w3.usc.edu/display/IRNA/Home

E.g.: “Preliminary Findings from Faculty Interviews for Institutional Repository Needs Assessment” is a publicly-available MS Word document:

https://w3.usc.edu/download/attachments/6584/ir-interview-preliminary-report.doc?version=1


Interviews: Key Findings• Faculty need a compelling reason for IR • Research and teaching primary focus – NOT

cataloging nor data entry!• Don’t write grants for digitization, data entry• Believe publishers responsible for archiving • Peer reviewed article still “gold standard”

– PNAS, Science, Nature tops for all• Interested in space mainly for

– Supporting materials– PhD student research

• Not too interested in Open Access for their articles


Interviews Concept Map


IRNA Focus Groups• Based on 10 Use Cases we compiled

from the interviews

• Participants (13 faculty in 4 different sessions, including library faculty)

• Given:– Use cases– IR definition– Session goals


Focus Groups ResultsTop priority: Use Case #9 -- Secure

persistent storage

Although there is little support for archiving already-published materials, researchers need secure long-term storage space for their research data and a way to provide stable, persistent links to their files.


Focus Groups Results• Use Case #1 Automated generation of

curriculum vitae & Use Case #2 Faculty research locator, second most important after storage

• Use Case #6 Collaborating on an article in the repository & Use Case #8 Document/data set versioning

• Use Case #10 Check for permission to post preprints and post prints [Sherpa project answers in part]


Electronic CV as one IR Model• Harvests metadata from Web of

Knowledge• Faculty member reviews and validates• Creates CV for faculty

– DOI link– OpenURL link for USC– Option to upload content

• Sends new citations to faculty• Sends regular reports to faculty on

frequency their items are downloaded


Future of IR(s) at USCIf we are going to create an IR, we must:

• Determine role of library/academic computing in supporting research life cycle

• Determine which computing activities are supported centrally

• Determine which are IR functions

• Position the IR within research life cycle


USC High-Level Requirements:

• Develop technical requirements from functional requirements

• Implement basic ingest interface

• Develop key policies and procedures

• Identify of early adopters


We believe a Successful IR will:• Balance permanence/persistence

with need to correct information• Balance faculty need for security,

privacy with institutional imperative for access

• Balance rights management/ HIPPA/IRB issues with desire for open access


Future of IR(s) Generally• Local storage initiatives may or may

not use IR model

• New products beyond institutions:

– BioMed Central Open Repository

– CDL eScholarship Repository

• Blogs as a new iteration of (some) faculty members’ drive for open access?


Future of IR(s) GenerallyTaiga Forum “Provocative Statement” #14

sees IRs as becoming more prevalent:

“Within the next five years, research support services will become routine. The institutional repository will be one set of services within the wider set of services that assist in the researcher and research administration workflow.”


Questions?

Thank you!

SLA / June 06USC Libraries1 Institutional Repositories: Beware the “Field of Dreams” Fallacy! An SLA Sci-Tech Contributed Paper by Sara R. Tompson ([email protected])[email protected].

Documents

exempt usc librariessla

usc irb upirb

itusc librariessla

faculty research

paper session

drivers of irsdrop

drivers of irsrise

scholarly publishing