Output – IESR – Latest Additions RSS feed

Title: IESR Latest Additions RSS feed

Date Released: Unknown

URI for Output: http://iesr.ac.uk/feeds/latestadditions.xml

Summary of contents:

Allows applications or users to subscribe to the 10 latest resources added to IESR.

Additional information:

Comments:

Output – IESR – OpenURL Link-To Resolver

Title: IESR OpenURL Link-To Resolver

Date Released: Unknown

URI for Output: http://iesr.ac.uk/use/openurl/

Summary of contents:

“The IESR OpenURL ‘Link-To’ Resolver service provides retrieval of IESR XML records for single entities using Z39.88-2004, OpenURL Framework, syntax. Currently support for OpenURL syntax is limited allowing retrieval by identifier only using a Key/Encoded Value (KEV) request inline by HTTP. Values must be URL-encoded.”

Additional information:

Comments:

Output – IESR – HTML Plug-in

Title: IESR Registry HTML Plug-in

Date Released: Unknown

URI for Output: http://iesr.ac.uk/use/htmlplugin/

Summary of contents:

“The IESR Search HTML Plug-in allows you to add an IESR search to your website in order to discover new electronic resources. The plug-in is a simple HTML search box that shows results on the IESR website.”

Additional information:

You need a basic knowledge of HTML and CSS plus the ability to edit webpages. Simply add the following HTML, CSS and Javascript to your webpage to create the search box.

Comments:

Project – OpenDoar

Project Name: OpenDoar

Programme Name:Digital Repositories Programme 2005-7

Strand: Information Environment, e-Administration

JISC Project URI: http://www.jisc.ac.uk/whatwedo/programmes/digitalrepositories2005/opendoar.aspx

Project URI: http://www.opendoar.org/

Start Date: 1st Jan 2005

End Date: 30th June 2006

Governance:

Contact Name and Role: Bill Hubbard, Project Manager

Brief project description:

“OpenDOAR will categorise and list the wide variety of Open Access research archives that have grown up around the world. Such repositories have mushroomed over the last 2 years in response to calls by scholars and researchers worldwide to provide open access to research information.

OpenDOAR will provide a comprehensive and authoritative list of institutional and subject-based repositories, as well as archives set up by funding agencies – like the National Institutes for Health in the USA or the Wellcome Trust in the UK and Europe. Users of the service will be able to analyse repositories by location, type, the material they hold and other measures. This will be of use both to users wishing to find original research papers and for third-party “service providers”, like search engines or alert services, which need easy to use tools for developing tailored search services to suit specific user communities.”

Outputs:

• Descriptive list of open access repositories of relevance to academic research.
• Comprehensive & authoritative list for end users wishing to find particular types of, or specific repositories.
• Comprehensive, structured and maintained list with clear update and self-regulation protocols to enable development of the list.
• Crominent international role in the organisation of and access to open access repository services.
• Supporting Open Access outreach and advocacy endeavours within institutions and globally.
• Survey the growing field of academic open access research repositories and categorise them in terms of locale, content and other measures

Output – UHRA – University of Hertfordshire Research Archive

Title: The University of Hertfordshire Research Archive

Date Released: Approx September 2007

URI for Output: https://uhra.herts.ac.uk/dspace/

Summary of contents:

The main output from this project is the establishment of the University of Hertfordshire Research Archive. It is described as “.. a showcase of the research produced by the University of Hertfordshire staff (copyright permitting) which is freely available over the web” and ” .. provides a simple interface to enable researchers to self-archive the full text of their published work with just a few quick and easy steps.”

Additional information:

Comments:

The archive/repository appears to be fully functional and contains 2556 items as at 30th January 2007.

Output – NECTAR: Nectar Case History – embedding

Title: NECTAR: Northampton Electronic Collection of Theses And Research

Pages: all
Date Released: 2008

Summary of contents:
“Existing research reporting channels are being exploited to gather NECTAR content. From January 2008 the university’s Annual Research Report will be derived from NECTAR — if a research output is not in NECTAR it will not be reported.”

URI for Output: http://nectar.northampton.ac.uk/NECTAR_case_study_OR08_ver2.pdf

Comments:
this case study is largely superceded by the fuller later one – but i don’t recollect this line in the later article.
This illustrates both how embedded the NECTAR repository has become within the institution and also one of the roles a repsitory can play in the institutional infrastructure.

Output – NECTAR: ALISS Case Study – embedding

Title:Gathering NECTAR at The University of Northampton

Pages: 2-7
Date Released: 2008

Summary of contents:
Quotes highlighted in article’s text provide useful summary of key features of this output.

• “From the start, NECTAR has been a joint project between the Department of Information Services and the research community. This was not to be seen as a ‘library thing’.”
• “By consulting widely at an early stage we gained greater understanding of our future users’ needs, generated interest in the project and flagged up future challenges.”
• “Gaining commitment from your own senior management is crucial; involving them in the direction of the project is even better.”
• “A snappy name, ideally with positive connotations, is easy to remember and works well later in marketing and advocacy activities. “
• “Gaining acceptance of NECTAR’s fundamental principles by the University Research Committee gave them ownership of the repository and gave it an authority which could be exploited later.”
• “The combination of outsourced initial implementation followed by ongoing in-house support has worked extremely well for us; the service provided by the Eprints team has been particularly good.”
• “Populating the repository with the institution’s most prestigious research outputs [i.e. the metadata of RAE submitted papers] not only set a high standard for the showcase, but also conveyed a clear message to potential depositors: this is where the best research should be.”
• “By embedding NECTAR into the research reporting processes of the university, the repository immediately became part of researchers’ normal workflow.”

URI for Output: http://nectar.northampton.ac.uk/1283/

Citation: [accepted version] Pickton, M. (2008) Gathering NECTAR at The University of Northampton. ALISS Quarterly. 3(4), pp. 33-38. 1747-9258.

Comments:
The italicised quotes highlight some of the key features of the embedding strategy so far and offer an example of the advocacy dimension of the process of setting up a repository.

Project – NECTAR

Project Name: Northampton Electronic Collection of Theses And Research

Short Project Name: Nectar

Brief project description:

“The NECTAR project encompasses the creation and population of a digital institutional repository for The University of Northampton and the development of policies and workflows to ensure its sustainability for the future.”

Outputs:

• Briefing Sheet about the NECTAR repository http://nectar.northampton.ac.uk/NECTAR_briefing_sheet_200607.pdf
• NECTAR repository case study http://nectar.northampton.ac.uk/NECTAR_case_study_OR08_ver2.pdf
• Functional specification for repository software http://nectar.northampton.ac.uk/IR_Final_functional_spec.doc
• Full NECTAR case study- Gathering Nectar at the University of Northampton http://nectar.northampton.ac.uk/1283/

Programme Name: Repositories and Preservation Programme

Strand: Repositories start-up and enhancement projects

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

Project URI: http://nectar.northampton.ac.uk/jisc.html

Start Date: 2007-09-01

End Date: 2009-03-31

Governance: Repositories and preservation advisory group

Contact Name and Role: Miggie Pickton, Project manager

Name of Trawler: John

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 – CURVE – Final Report:availability of key research

Title: JISC Final Report – CURVE

Page: 6

Summary of contents:

“the data collection required to support the RAE submission provided a representative sample of all the various types of research outputs used across the institution. At the start of the data collection exercise, approximately 40% of all members of staff submitted did not have complete and correct citation information about all of their four chosen outputs. Surprisingly approximately 18% did not have physical copies of their selected outputs. Reasons given included they had been mislaid, they had given away their last copy or had never received a copy from the publisher. The most common reason given in creative subjects was they had sold the artwork and had not taken a photographic copy. By the end of the data collection process we had resolved all of the issues or had substituted equivalent outputs. This highlighted the need for a systematic process to collect all outputs as they are generated and store them in a repository.”

Comments:
The project’s findings about the unavailabilty of copies of and inaccuracy of information about each academic’s four most important works over the preceding 8 years highlight the need for techncial and procedural systems (such as repositories and policies) to help academics in managing their work and help institutions retain access to ‘their’ assets.

Date Released: August 2008

URI for Output: http://cuba.coventry.ac.uk/curve/files/2008/10/curve_final_report.doc