Output – The Depot – Service and Project Websites

Title: Depot websites providing a full range of supporting documentation

Date Released: June 2007

URI for Outputs:

http://depot.edina.ac.uk/FAQ/ and

http://deposit.depot.edina.ac.uk/cgi/users/home?screen=Items

Summary of contents:

FAQ section on the project website and ‘manage deposits’ section of the service website.

Additional information:

Comments:

There’s a significant amount of overlap between the project and service websites for the Depot, and the repository itself, so I’ve just listed both websites here. The FAQ section is the main area where supporting documentation is provided on the project website along with the ‘manage deposits’ section of the repository service website.

Output – The Depot – UK Repository Junction

Title: UK Repository Junction

Date Released: June 2007

URI for Output: http://depot.edina.ac.uk/junction.html

Summary of contents:

‘UK Repository Junction’ is a re-direct service to ensure that content that comes within the remit of an existing institutional repository is correctly placed.

Additional information:

The service is essentially part of the functioning of the Depot service quality repository (separately listed as an output).

Comments:

On testing the redirection using the example of the University of Bath which has it’s own repository, the junction worked correctly.

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.

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