University of Warwick 4 th March 2005 Developing.

University of Warwick 4th March 2005http://eprints.soton.ac.uk http://tardis.eprints.org/

Developing an Institutional Repository at the University of Southampton

- the TARDis experience

Policy meets Practice in Building a Sustainable Institutional Repository for Research

Pauline Simpson TARDis Project ManagerJessie Hey, TARDis Research Fellow

The Culture, Care, Content and Continuance of IRs

TARDis in transition

• UK Context (PS)• Developing policies (PS)

• Working with disciplines and cultures (JH)

• Continuance - the next stage: a shared service

IRs : a little history

• 1991 – first author self archiving subject repository (e-Print archive) Los Alamos High Energy Physics now called arXiv located at Cornell University. Very successful

• 1994 - Prof Stevan Harnad (Southampton), strong advocate of author self archiving

• 1997 - more subject archives introduced (Chemistry, Economics etc) – varying success

• 2000 onwards - complementary model emerging - institutional repositories with initiative often library-led – many supported by project funding eg. USA, Canada, Australia and UK.

UK Context

• HEFCE / JISC Focus on Access to Institutional Resources (FAIR) 2002 - 2005

– To support the disclosure of institutional assets: To support access to and sharing of institutional

content within Higher Education and Further Education and to allow intelligence to be gathered about the technical, organisational and cultural challenges of these processes…

Inspired by the vision of the Open Archives Initiative (OAI) that digital resources can be shared between organisations based on a simple mechanism allowing metadata about

these resources to be harvested into services

? why INSTITUTIONAL Repositories

• Subject or project repositories often linked to an individual or a group – can be transitory - collection at risk eg. Paul Ginsparg to Cornell

• Institutions take responsibility for– Centralising a distributed activity– Framework and Infrastructure– Permanence that can sustain changes– Stewardship of digital assets– Preservation– Provide central digital showcase for the research, teaching and

scholarship of the institution

UK Context - FAIR

FAIR Programme August 2002 -

• £3 million on 14 projects

• Clusters:• Museums and Images• e-Prints• e-theses• IPR• Institutional portals

(New Call for Digital Repositories Proposals in Feb 2005)

FAIR - ePrints Cluster

• Sharing experiences :

• SHERPA: broader - Consortium of University Research Libraries – filling archives and joint infrastructure ( some 20 universities led by Nottingham University)

• HaIRST: A testbed for Scotland for harvesting Institutional resources led by Strathclyde University (includes 10 FE colleges)

• Daedalus : Glasgow University

• ePrints-UK :harvesting UK e-Print archives

• (E-Theses led by Robert Gordon University & Theses Alive led by Edinburgh University and RoMEo worked within this cluster)

• TARDis: Targeting Academic Resources for Deposit and dISclosure

TARDis built on Southampton visions

• EPrints software had been created at School of Electronics and Computer Science (ECS), Southampton to enable the self archive vision

• ECS already used the software for a publications database – now a sustainable repository

• Southampton Oceanography Centre wanted to be an early adopter of e-Prints culture

• Resulting TARDis Project is the collaboration of The University Library, School of Electronics and Computer Science, and Information Systems Services alongside academics as one institution

TARDis : Targeting Academic Resources for Deposit and Disclosure – activities

Investigating practical ways in which university research output can be made more freely available - more accessible, more rapidly – as a fundamental building block of e-Research

• Creating an IR model- Southampton University Research e-Prints (e-Prints Soton) http://eprints.soton.ac.uk

• Refining Software- feeding back into pioneering EPrints software, good citation

and information management practice experimenting with best balance of assisted deposit and fast track (functionality, fields, interface)

• Supporting ease of use for depositors of different backgrounds with a wide variety of research output

– essential ingredient, working closely with ‘schools’– identifying barriers

TARDis evolution to e-Prints Soton

• Original intent to provide secure storage for the full text of Southampton research output (e-Print Archive including post refereed pre published versions of papers deposited by researchers)

• Feedback: from our advocacy, pilot and full service was that e-Prints Soton would provide maximum benefit if the service also assisted researchers with time consuming research metrics

• Evolved to ‘hybrid’ publications database for all research output with full text where available

Policy into Practice (1)

• The Name!

• Mandatory Use – dovetailing with present working practices

• Target - Proof of concept or full-scale service (one leads into the other) but never a Project

• Scope - What to deposit - all Research Output, excluding learning objects or administrative documents (at present). Current research or legacy?

• Who can Deposit – what size of footprint?

• Database - one for ease of maintenance (Nottingham x 2; Glasgow x 3)

• Software – multiple choices – but Southampton = no contest!Essential technical support : customization, functionality

• Deposit Options – we offer choice : self, assisted and fast track deposit

• Mandatory Metadata fields – document dependent - sufficient for citation but too many = barrier to deposit

• Metadata quality – all data is validated. Institutional responsibility requires quality data. QA is labour intensive – what level? Submitted data often poor

Policy into Practice (2)

• Value Added – e-journal URL and abstract

• Full Text v Record – policy linked to Southampton needs, requests for copies

• Import Records – from subject repositories - arXiv, PubMed

• File Formats – accept a variety – discipline specific, but thinking about easy dissemination versus preservation.

• File Conversion - Word into pdf, but wish to add conversion tools to interface with guidance for depositors

• Digitization – offer scanning for illustrations not held electronically if text deposited

• Copyright - advising and encouraging rather than proactively seeking permission. SHERPA RoMEO Publishers Copyright Policies & EPrints RoMEO

• Preservation - secure storage is offered. New Project PRESERV

Legal Issues

• Deposit Agreement and User AgreementLegal documents?Acceptance by click or proceeding through

- Withdrawal of records - Quality assurance - not of content

appoint editors within research groups

- IPR

• Important to link with your Legal Affairs Office

Policy into Practice - summary

• Choose optimum time to introduce- Southampton restructuring

• Interface aesthetics - look and feel is important• Metadata quality is a huge issue• Assisted deposit is time consuming• Dedicated Technical, Advocacy & Admin support• Sophisticated software functionality expectations

by researchers• Need Champions within your organization …..

Working with disciplines and cultures

• Advocacy Policy defined

• Medium to Long Term support required

• Sensitive to organizational culture and background

• Enthusiasm• Presentation and debating skills

Jessie Hey ……..

Working with disciplines and cultures for full representation

• Began with initial knowledge of some areas of a large organisation

• Advocacy/solutions most effective when you know the background and tailor to suit

• Key ingredient - exploration of web sites and discussions

Sampling of faculty websites – assessing current practice

Department Total number of publications listed on Web

Full text on Web

Percentage of Publications with full text

Faculty of Law, Arts and Social Sciences

Archaeology 252 2 1%

English 243 3 1%

Modern Languages 160 0 0%

Music 280 5 2%

Politics 138 6 4%

Economics 357 89 25%

Maths Education 170 34 20%

Faculty of Medicine, Health and Life Sciences

Biology 796 24 3%

Medicine 1603 247 15%

Health Professions and Rehabilitation Sciences 332 0 0%

Nursing and Midwifery 439 0 0%

Faculty of Engineering, Science and Mathematics

Chemistry 1128 111 10%

Electronics and Computer Science 7008 866 12%

Mathematical Studies 849 310 37%

Ocean Circulation and Climate Group, SOES 286 9 3%

James Rennell Division, SOC 792 68 9%

University central recording of research

Central recording mechanism via Corporate and Marketing Service – MS Word lists“the Research Report provides a comprehensive list of publications by University

staff “Progressed to pdfs - 1998 to 2002 on the webNeed an easier, more proactive way with full text potential

Fundamental impact on policy of current practice

Hey, Jessie M.N. (2004) An environmental assessment of research publication activity and related factors impacting the development of an Institutional e-Print Repository at the University of Southampton. Southampton, UK, University of Southampton, 19pp. (TARDis Project Report, D 3.1.2) http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/archive/00006218/

With much support from Natasha Lucas who has since provided

invaluable assisted deposit support

See also TARDis article in Ariadne http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/8986/

Feedback: Perceived benefits to University, Schools and Researchers

• Secure storage of publications

– including also theses and dissertations, technical reports

• Links to projects and web pages

• Research reporting• Interdisciplinary

research

• University profile• School and discipline visibility• Researcher profile• Full text content freely accessible

• link to learning and teaching

• Increased citationsArticles freely available online are more highly cited. For greater impact and faster

scientific progress, authors and publishers should aim to make research easy to access Nature, Volume 411, Number 6837, p. 521, 2001 Steve Lawrence “Online or Invisible?”

Benefit of high profile of e-Prints Soton – Google and Google Scholar ………..

Global open archive search – OAIster

Copyright issues

Postprint = post refereed pre-journal version

Publisher policy check

Creating exemplars

• Helping individuals with their CV – potential for additional tailoring

• Developing visibility aids for individuals and ‘schools’

• Updating home page and group research pages

• Humanities require ‘hybrid’ database to represent all work

• Interdisciplinary work – saving deposit time

Real benefit of adding a link to your web page – auto update

Secure storage and visibility – from e-Prints Soton to S3RI brand

Advertising research – by web site and screen at entrance

Is my paper here?

Hot off the screen

Linking to bookseller – ‘search inside’ bonus

Interdisciplinary research – enter once only

RAE management

Select your RAE choices

Add measures of esteem

Data available to Head of School

Deposit checking and added information

Next phase includes shared preservation services

• Act of creating database anticipates future preservation decisions

• Gained valuable practical experience with IR usage e.g. metadata quality/variety and file formats – Word and pdf v. LaTeX communities but shared services useful for common problems

• PRESERV (Preservation Services for EPrints) - part of new £1m UK JISC funding – partnering with National Archives File Format Registry (PRONOM) and the British Library

• http://www.jisc.ac.uk/index.cfm?name=project_preserv

Current transition

• Gaining experience on managing input on increasing scale – seeking smart solutions and developing ongoing ‘school’ partnerships e.g.

– school research office - Education, Humanities– web master – Southampton Statistical Sciences Research

Institute– library - Southampton Oceanography Centre– academic and librarian – Health Care Innovation Unit

• Continuing dialogue with individual schools and individuals – building up exemplars within schools and evolving processes to suit

• Building sustainabilityPractical levelManagement level

From TARDis to Southampton University Research e-Prints

• Sustainable Institutional Repository – final deliverable of TARDis

• Service rather than Project

• Advocacy• Multi-Levels• The Hooks

• Led by University Library

• Phased Business Plan

• Next Steps

To become an integral part of the research infrastructure

University of Warwick 4th March 2005http://eprints.soton.ac.uk http://tardis.eprints.org/

Developing an Institutional Repository at the University of Southampton

- the TARDis experience

Policy meets Practice in Building a Sustainable Institutional Repository for Research

Pauline Simpson TARDis Project ManagerJessie Hey, TARDis Research Fellow