Output – IncReASe: Final Report – proxy deposit

Title: Increase Final Report

page: 12

Date Released: 30 April 2009
URI for Output: http://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/increase/increase_finalreportv1.pdf

Summary of contents:

“Our experience to date, though, suggests authors will make the most of administrative support and that a helpful administrative framework results in higher levels of self-archiving overall. In particular, authors are responsive to well-known individuals in their departments: for example, local administrators have good success rates in persuading authors to re-send appropriate versions of their work where a non-archivable version (generally the published PDF) has been sent initially. Local administrators are well placed to “champion” and support the repository in ways that more “remote” central repository staff are not; this advantage needs to be balanced against the need to provide training and support for departmentally based administrators.”

The project also notes that encouraging this practice may hinder the promotion of self-archiving as such.

Comment:
This raises an interesting question of priority – is the goal author self-archiving or increased repository content?
From the point of view of a funding body / the promotion of Open Access / institutional statistic (and REF) concerns the latter is important;
however, there are strong historical ties to author self-archiving, the author is (in some senses) the one doing the sharing, and the less self-archiving the greater organisational and financial overhead of the repository.

Either way the project’s findings support the view that the invovlement of local administrators increases depost rates (motivation).

Output – KULTUR – Environmental Assessment of the University of the Arts, London

Title: Environmental Assessment of the University of the Arts, London
Number of pages or page numbers: pp 6-7
Section: Summary

Date Released: 8th April 2008

URI for Output: http://kultur.eprints.org/docs/UUAL%20profile%208%20april%20online%20version.pdf

Summary of contents:

The summary section has a few useful observations w.r.t. repositories in the Arts sector:

“The opportunities for a repository at UAL are great since there is a wealth of research
being produced at all levels within the University. At the same time the sheer amount of
research and research active staff can present its own problems. The targeting of key
research staff, the enlisting of research centres/units and the research offices are
essential for the success of the project. Advocacy from the top and from the bottom is
needed but this can only really be effective by establishing good relationships and links
with relevant University bodies and staff. We need to identify just what a repository can
do for each group and advocate along those lines … Populating the demonstrator with a good number of pieces of research will help the project become more attractive and viable to research staff. The interface and the software itself will also play a large part in any success.”

Additional information:

Comments:

Output – The Depot – Service Quality Repository

Title: The Depot Service Quality Repository

Date Released: Approx November 2007

URI for Output: http://deposit.depot.edina.ac.uk/

Summary of contents:

“The purpose of the Depot is to enable all UK academics to share in the benefits of open access exposure for their research outputs. As part of JISC RepositoryNet, the Depot is provided as a national facility geared to support the policies of UK universities and national funding agencies towards Open Access, aiding policy development in advance of a comprehensive institutional archive network”

The Depot offers the following features:

• a re-direct service, nicknamed UK Repository Junction, to ensure that content that comes within the remit of an existing institutional repository is correctly placed.
• accepts deposit of e-prints from researchers at institutions that do not currently have an Institutional Repository (IR). The principal target is postprints, that is articles that have been peer-reviewed and accepted for publication.
• as  institutional repositories (IRs) are established, the Depot will support the transfer of relevant content to help populate those new IRs.  Meantime, the Depot will act as a keep-safe, notifying  institutions when deposits are made.
• an OAI-compliant interface, so, like other open access repositories, its contents is available for harvesting, with special attention being paid to ensure that it can searched through the Intute Search, another part of JISC RepositoryNet.

Additional information:

Comments:

I created a Depot account and submitted a test item for the purposes of assessing the repository on the 27th November 2008. The was later removed. My observations following this are:

• The repository browse functioned well and was responsive. The repository in general was working well.
• When submitting an item, the submission page annoyingly scrolls to the top on opening hidden metadata fields (Firefox 3.0.4 , Mac OS X 10.5.5).
• The submission process is lengthy.
• No subject matches found for ‘jazz’, ‘journalism’ or ‘music’. Seems odd.
• The process of adding a new version of an existing item is convoluted and tricky.  Similar for deletion – not intuiative.

The Depot repository would appear to match a large number of repository benefit and role categories, all of which are self evident. Feedback would be welcomed on these.

Output – RIOJA – Survey: publish where?

Title: RIOJA (Repository Interface to Journal Archives): results from an online questionnaire survey

Page: 33

Summary of contents:

The 683 astrophysics researchers responding to the survey were asked about factors that would encourage them to publish in an overlay journal. “In line with responses discussed in previous sections (e.g.,Table 2), the scientists emphasised once again that the most important factor that would encourage them to publish in any journal is the quality of the other submitted papers (526 people, 77% of base=683). This result could be interpreted as directly associated with the following two factors: the transparency of the peer review process (410 people, 60% of base=683) and next the reputation of the editor/editorial board (386 people, 57%, Figure 19). Response by subject area and role of the respondents, though, clearly puts the emphasis on the role, integrity and experience of the editorial board (Table 11, Table 12). In comments, the respondents noted several other factors that would encourage them to publish in an overlay journal. Those listed included references to the impact factor of the journal, the acceptance of the journal by the community, and acquiring a reputation as a quality, scientific publication with increased readership and breadth of coverage. The quality of the refereeing and some guarantee of open access and low charges were also mentioned (comments in full are listed in Appendix B, on page 81).”

Comments:

This survey provides an indication of what factors would encourage the surveyed of researchers to publish in overlay journals. The finding provides evidence that any new form of scholarly communation still has to fulfill the functions that existing channels provide.

Date Released: February 2008

URI for Output: http://eprints.ucl.ac.uk/5102/1/RIOJA_questionnaire_survey_report_final.pdf

Output -RIOJA -Costs and sustainability: overlay journal model

Title: Repository Interface for Overlaid Journal Archives:costs estimates and sustainability issues

Pages: 4-6
Summary of contents:

dftn: “Overlay journal – For the purposes of this report an overlay journal is defined as a quality-assured journal whose content is deposited to and resides in one or more open access repositories.”

p5-6 review the literature on the idea of an open access overlay or deconstructed journal.

Functions of journal publishing are delineated – any emerging model needs to address these:
“Journals are traditionally held to perform four “first order” functions (Meadows, 1974;
Rowland [2002], Roosendaal and Geurts (1997) as cited by Prosser (2005)):

• Registration: an author wishes to be acknowledged as the person who carried out a specific piece of research and made a specific discovery
• Certification: the author’s claims are tested through independent peer review, and it is determined that they are reasonable
• Awareness: the research is communicated to the author’s peer group
• Archiving: the research is retained for posterity

To those mentioned above Prosser adds the function of ‘Reward’ to the author.”
“Prosser, David C. (2005) Fulfilling the promise of scholarly communication – a
comparison between old and new access models, in Nielsen, Erland Kolding and Saur,
Klaus G. and Ceynowa, Klaus, Eds. Die innovative Bibliothek : Elmar Mittler zum
65.Geburtstag, pp. 95-106. K G Saur. (Also available at
http://eprints.rclis.org/archive/00003918) (Last accessed 31/07/2008)”

Comments:
note: The type of overlay journal proposed is one involving original submission to the overlay journal (simultaneous to or concurrent with submission to repository). The issue of overlay journals drawing on work submitted to other journals is not addressed/ in scope.

relevancy to categories
Any component of an emergent infrastructure wanting to be journal-like needs to consider these issues – as such they provide a baseline that RIOJA (and others) are going to address. As the survey results (noted elsewhere) indicate motivating academic researchers to use other forms of publication needs to interact with these issues.

Date Released: July 2008

URI for Output: http://eprints.ucl.ac.uk/12562/1/12562.pdf

Output – RIOJA – Final Report: researchers’ views

Title: RIOJA (Repository Interface to Journal Archives) Final Report

Page: 5 (summary), p11 (outputs and results1: overview)
Summary of contents:

p5 “The survey confirmed the everyday importance of the arXiv repository in the working lives of astrophysics researchers. Moreover, the project found that researchers are, in general (and with very little variation between those with different first languages, career lengths and other demographics), sympathetic to the overlay model. Their main concerns about the model were that the long-term accessibility of the research material should be guaranteed – surprising, perhaps, in such a fast-moving, repository-dependent discipline – and that the process of quality certification should be robust. Researchers’ career concerns also
informed their reaction to the overlay model, and it was clear that to attract submissions, an arXiv-overlay journal would need to be able to demonstrate academic acceptability and a substantial readership. All of these concerns are generic issues, which would be faced by any new journal whether or not overlaid on repository-housed content.”

p11 “The supporting survey gave a snapshot of the working practices and attitudes of one, very repository-orientated, research community, based on 683 responses from Astrophysicists. The results confirmed the importance of arXiv to Astrophysics researchers. 93% deposit papers into arXiv; 53% access arXiv daily, and another 24% do so weekly; and after arXiv discovery, only 7% always prefer to seek the final published version of a paper. arXiv use is not to the exclusion of other resources: 65% may use journal Web sites to follow up interesting titles/abstracts, alongside arXiv which is used by 610 (89%) for this purpose. 97% of the respondents publish in refereed journals, at an average of 6.5 papers per researcher per year, in titles whose high impact factor, perceived quality, and updates throughout the refereeing process they consider to be important. They were comfortable with the overlay model: 53% were very supportive, and 35% interested; 80% would referee for an overlay journal; 26% were willing to serve in Editorial capacity; 33% would submit papers without hesitation. Their concerns about a hypothetical arXiv-overlay journal were the quality of the accepted papers, the community standing for the title, the robustness of long-term archiving arrangements, and the quality and speed of of the peer review process: these are concerns which one might imagine could easily apply to any academic journal, regardless of publishing model.”

Comments:

reflection: it is unclear how many papers go into arxiv without an intended journal? it seems that part of the premise of the way this is pitched is that submission to arXiv in itself makes something worth reading… but the feedback strongly suggests that peer review/ journal quality is key. This may indicate there’s a very strong self – moderation going on – researchers can rely on arXiv copies because ‘no-one’ puts anything in that can’t make the grade… comments elsewhere indicate that papers being put into arXiv are ‘endorsed’ by exisiting ‘senior’ contributors, but judging by these results this ‘endorsement’ is only serving as a stop gap prior to formal peer review.

This survey data directly informs our understanding of one community of researchers around one repository. The repository, arXiv, and community, astrophysics, have been at the forefront of the use of repositories to support scholarly communications. The project’s findings indicate that any new form (or brand) of publication still needs to demonstrate some form of impact factor and stringent quality control process if it is to sucessfully engage researchers.

Date Released: September 2008

URI for Output: http://eprints.ucl.ac.uk/12562/1/12562.pdf

Output – SNEEP – Demonstration EPrints Repository for testing social networking plugins

Title: Demonstration EPrints Repository for testing the SNEEP social networking plugins

Date Released: November 2007

URI for Output: http://sneep.ulcc.ac.uk/eprints/

Summary of contents: The demo repository has three purposes:

• To provide a default, generic, vanilla Eprints install to test out SNEEP install scripts.
• To demonstrate how the SNEEP components work with EPrints.
• To provide a download for SNEEP plugins.

The repository demonstrates the four SNEEP plugins that add the facility for comments, bookmarks, tags and notes.

Additional information:

Comments: I created SNEEP demo repository account for myself to test the repository and plugins. I successfully added tags, comments and notes to the ‘Aurora Leigh’ test item at http://sneep.ulcc.ac.uk/eprints/3/. The bookmarks feature returned an error. The functionality was straightforward and quick to use.

Output – SNEEP – Social Networking Plugins for Eprints

Title: SNEEP Eprints repository plugins

Date Released: 29th May 2008

URI for Output: http://sneep.ulcc.ac.uk/eprints/view/subjects/modules.html

Summary of contents: The SNEEP plugins add ‘key’ Web 2.0 features to the EPrints repository software. They were developed in response to recommendations by Franklin and van Harmelen that institutional repositories can be made more accessible for learning and teaching through the use of Web 2.0 technologies.

There are four plugins available to add the facility for comments, bookmarks, tags and notes which are also available as a suite.

Additional information: Requires EPrints 3.x version. A “very manual install” process is required for the beta release. An install script may exist in the future.

Comments: I created SNEEP demo repository account for myself to test the plugins. I successfully added tags, comments and notes to the ‘Aurora Leigh’ test item at http://sneep.ulcc.ac.uk/eprints/3/. The bookmarks feature returned an error. The functionality was straightforward and quick to use.

Benefits: Web 2.0 functionality may increase motivation for deposit. RSS and Atom may help embedding.

Roles: RSS and Atom may increase the availability of info for collation and be used to increase visibility.

Project – Rioja

Repository Interface for Overlaid Journal Archives

Short Project Name: RIOJA

Programme Name: Repositories and Preservation Programme

Strand:Tools and Innovation
JISC Project URI:
Project URI: http://www.ucl.ac.uk/ls/rioja/

Brief project description:
” The RIOJA project will investigate the overlay of quality assurance onto papers deposited to and stored in eprints repositories… The partner institutions are:
* UCL [lead]
* University of Cambridge
* Cornell University
* University of Glasgow
* Imperial College London

RIOJA will create a tool to support automated interactions between journal software and public repositories. The project will also build a pilot “overlay journal”, which will demonstrate interactions between the arXiv subject repository and OJS journal software, facilitated by the RIOJA tool. Additionally, RIOJA will explore some of the social and economic aspects of building certification onto repositories. A large-scale survey of researchers from the field of Astrophysics and Cosmology will be carried out, and a feasibility study on the costs and sustainability of an overlay journal in this field will be published. ”

Outputs:

1. RIOJA software outputs http://arxivjournal.org/rioja/
2. RIOJA Project final report http://eprints.ucl.ac.uk/12562/
3. Repository Interface for Overlaid Journal Archives: costs estimates and sustainability issues http://eprints.ucl.ac.uk/11927/
4. Repository Interface for Overlaid Journal Archives: results from an online questionnaire survey http://eprints.ucl.ac.uk/5102/
5. Rioja APIs http://cosmologist.info/xml/APIs.html
6. There is also an extensive list of publications http://www.ucl.ac.uk/ls/rioja/dissem/

Name of Trawler: John
Start Date:2007-03-01

End Date:2008-06-30

Governance:Integrated Information Environment Committee (JIIE)

Contact Name and Role: Martin Moyle Project Manager

Project – The Depot

Project Name: The Depot

Programme Name: Repositories and Preservation Programme

Strand: Information Environment

JISC Project URI: http://www.jisc.ac.uk/whatwedo/programmes/reppres/depot

Project URI: http://depot.edina.ac.uk/

Start Date: 1st August 2006

End Date: 31st March 2009

Governance: RPAG

Contact Name and Role: Bill Hubbard, Project Manager

Brief project description:

“The Depot is a JISC support service, launched in June 2007 with the specific task of ensuring that all in the UK research community can benefit from making their published papers available under Open Access, and helping maximise readership of their work. The Depot is OAI-compliant, allowing deposited e-prints to be ‘harvested’ by search engines across the world.”

The Depot offers two services:

1. a re-direct service, with the Depot acting as a gateway, especially to repositories at UK universities (institutional repositories)
2. a deposit service for e-prints, with the Depot acting as a national repository for researchers not yet having an institutional repository in which to deposit their papers, articles, and book chapters (e-prints).

Outputs:

• Depot project website
• Service-quality repository with the performance and capacity to meet the requirements of stakeholders
• Service website providing a full range of supporting documentation
• Functionality that acts as a UK Repository Junction