Output – IncReASe: Final report – self-archiving

Title: IncReASe Final Report

Page: 11, 21-22

Date Released: 30 April 2009

URI for Output: http://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/increase/increase_finalreportv1.pdf

Summary of contents:
“Our observations suggest that conditions likely to improve self-deposit are:
(i) keeping things as simple as possible from the author’s perspective
(ii) always asking for the author’s final version of a work (… “Accepted Version” suggested by The VERSIONS project …)
(iii) facilitating capture of the work at the point of acceptance for publication. …
(iv) providing central support to monitor uploaded files and seek copyright clearance where required
(v) reminding authors to deposit: this could be a periodic reminder, or could be linked to a publication “event” such as a publication being indexed in a bibliographic database
(vi) highlighting the impact of deposit through the regular provision of usage data”

From the conclusions:
“There is probably no simple “optimum” deposit point for research outputs; however, in the short term, capturing papers at the point of acceptance for publication is probably the most realistic option. The emergence of desktop capture/deposit tools may facilitate earlier capture and assist with version control. Capturing the most appropriate version of a work continues to be an issue; all efforts should be made to inform researchers about the “accepted version” and its importance in the open access landscape. It is likely to be helpful to instil this awareness in early career researchers and PhD students by including open access / scholarly communication elements in training.”

Comments:
Based on their survey work and interviews these are the project’s suggestions to support the self-archiving process; this is an ongoing challenge even with mandates; in itself it provides workflow advice and suggests what software tools are needed.

Project – RSP

Project Name: Repositories Support Project

Short Project Name:RSP

Programme Name: Repositories and Preservation

Strand:

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

Project URI: http://www.rsp.ac.uk

Start Date: October 2006

End Date: March 2009

Governance:JISC IIE

Contact Name and Role:  Bill Hubbard (Project Manager)

Brief project description:

The Repository Support Project (RSP) is a 2.5 year project to co-ordinate and deliver good practice and practical advice to English and Welsh HEIs to enable the implementation, management and development of digital institutional repositories.

Name of Trawler: Mahendra Mahey

Outputs: (just link to individual output postings) as a bulleted list

Output – VIF:The results of the VIF user requirements study – datasets

Title: VIF:The results of the VIF user requirements study

Pages: webpage (summary of http://www.lse.ac.uk/library/vif/Versioning_Issues_-_Discussion_Paper.doc)
Date Released:

URI for Output: http://www.lse.ac.uk/library/vif/Problem/research.html

Summary of contents:
“VIF carried out further research into repositories that already contain some datasets, and investigated how these datasets are managed. Because this is a currently limited field, and because repository systems are not primarily configured to deal with such objects, we found that repository staff:

* Avoid versioning issues wherever possible by only keeping the most recent version. Older versions are deleted. This contrasts with how older version of other types of object are usually treated.
* By doing this, potential issues about which version people are citing becomes a problem.
* Have not found satisfactory ways to describe or indicate the relationship that a particular set of data holds to other related research outputs that are held in the repository.”

Comments:

This practice, if widespread beyond the survey group, represents a significant challenge that needs to be addressed (possibly by tool/repository plugin development). Succesfully citing and sharing datasets requires a stable and identifiable versioning system.

Output – VIF:The results of the VIF user requirements study – taxonomy

Title: VIF:The results of the VIF user requirements study

Pages: webpage (summary of http://www.lse.ac.uk/library/vif/Versioning_Issues_-_Discussion_Paper.doc)
Date Released:

URI for Output: http://www.lse.ac.uk/library/vif/Problem/research.html

Summary of contents:
“Many free text comments remarked that whilst the idea is a sound one in principle, implementing such a taxonomy [of versions] would be virtually impossible without some sort of enforcing body. Also, getting community agreement on the terminology used would be difficult due to the often polarised standpoints of publishers and information professionals. Insulating the vocabulary chosen from the pre-established terminology and bias of certain camps would clearly be a very serious undertaking.”

Comments:

This review of feedback received through the survey highlights the probable difficulties inherent in any proposed common/standard set of terms for versions of digital assets.

The contentiousness of agreeing a taxonomy of versions for articles can also be seen in the variety of responses to NISO’s work on journal article versions  (http://www.niso.org/publications/rp/RP-8-2008.pdf).

Output – VIF – VIF user requirements study: repository purpose

Title: VIF:The results of the VIF user requirements study

Pages: webpage (summary of http://www.lse.ac.uk/library/vif/Versioning_Issues_-_Discussion_Paper.doc)
Date Released:

URI for Output: http://www.lse.ac.uk/library/vif/Problem/research.html

Summary of contents:
“The two groups did diverge on the perceived purpose of repositories. The academics we surveyed were very clear about their wish to only make the finished version of their output ultimately available and free text comments (often even in answers to questions on different subjects) showed that they considered repositories were useful to highlight latest research, but not necessarily to preserve the body of research. This contrasts directly with the wishes of information professionals, who overwhelmingly wanted to store all available versions.”

Comments:
A finding which highlights a potential difference of opinion between information professionals and academics about what the repository is there for. This lends support to the idea that preservation may not be perceived by academics as a key function of a repository (though counter example of Hull – Repomman etc.- should be noted).

Output: VIF – VIF website: versioning issues

Title: VIF: why versioning matters

Pages: webpage
Date Released:

URI for Output: http://www.lse.ac.uk/library/vif/Problem/importance.html

Summary of contents:
The project notes the common versioning issues that repositories face.

• ” Confusion over whether an article is the published version, a copy that is identical in content to this but unformatted, a draft version, an edited version and so on.
• Repository searches yielding many results which ostensibly appear to refer to the same item, but actually vary in terms of content, formatting or propriety file type.
• Research work with multiple authors being deposited in different places at different stages of development without guidance as to which is authoritative or most recent.
• Multimedia items being handled poorly by repositories that treat them as text, and their relationship to other objects that form part of the research project being undefined by the repository.
• Vastly inconsistent approach of different repository software packages and implementations in how versions are dealt with.”

Comments:

Although this is intended to provide the context of the project, it also provides a succient introduction to the survey findings and the problem repositories face.

Output – KULTUR – Institutional Profile: University College for the Creative Arts

Title: Institutional Profile: University College for the Creative Arts
Number of pages or page numbers: pp 6-7
Section: Summation

Date Released: 27th March 2008

URI for Output: http://kultur.eprints.org/docs/Microsoft%20Word%20-%20UCCA%20profile%208%20April%20online%20version.pdf

Summary of contents:

A few observations of interest w.r.t. repositories for the arts in the ‘summation’ section of the report:

“The project will need to engage, advocate and secure ‘buy-in’ from the academic community. It will be important to establish an understanding of the culture of each college so that local differences or requirements can be taken into account. We will need to create a network of contact with key individuals and interest groups across the institution with which to communicate and gain direction on the project. Following on from this it will be imperative to be able to understand, interpret and communicate the range of differing concerns with the project team so that development is accurately representative.”

Additional information:

Comments:

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 – KULTUR – Environmental Assessment Report

Title: Environmental Assessment Project and Literature Review
Pages 11-21
Section: 3

Date Released: 13th Feb 2008

URI for Output: http://kultur.eprints.org/docs/Environmental%20assessment%20VS%20Feb%2008.pdf

Summary of contents:

Section 3 “Issues Identified” has some useful insights. These are summarised in the report’s conclusion:

“…  Accounts of these projects give an indication of likely obstacles. In particular, they draw attention to the fact that metadata standards and copyright are made much more complicated when applied to visual, audio and moving image data. Complications arise, for example, in obtaining permission to broadcast a performance involving numerous groups and individuals, or in establishing how many and what kind of metadata records are required to usefully describe a single work.”

“In order to respond to the conceptual and practical challenges of representing
art practice in a repository, it is necessary for the project to know more about the working
habits and motivations of arts researchers. The project’s user profiles will play an
important role here. This knowledge will help us to pinpoint where a repository could fit
within the research process, knowledge which will be valuable in advocating the project.”

These points are filled out in section 3 of the report.

Additional information:

Comments:

Project – VIF

Project Name: Version Identification Framework

Short Project Name:       VIF

Brief project description:
” Continuing from the work of the VERSIONS project the project will provide a common infrastructure for the naming and understanding of issues relating to versions of scholarly works.
The results of an online survey of repository users about current use of digital objects and about the versioning questions that arise will be used to inform a draft framework, to be developed through an expert working group comprising of members from the project partners and other key stakeholders.
The Version Identification Framework will be recommended to the JISC and digital repository communities through a community acceptance plan and a dissemination campaign. ”

Outputs:

• The Problem and a working definition of ‘version’ – http://www.lse.ac.uk/library/vif/Problem/index.html
• Version Identification Framework – recommendations and solutions http://www.lse.ac.uk/library/vif/Framework/index.html
  

Programme Name: Repositories and Preservation Programme

Strand: Discovery to Delivery

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

Project URI: http://www.lse.ac.uk/library/vif/

Start Date: 2007-07-10

End Date: 2008-05-09

Governance:

Contact Name and Role: Jenny Brace, Project manager

Name of Trawler: John