Project – From Entry to ETHOS

Project Name: From Entry to ETHOS

Short Project Name: From Entry to ETHOS

Programme Name:  Repositories and Preservation

Strand: SUE

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

Project URI:  https://www.kcl.ac.uk/blogs/etheses/

Start Date: 1 September 2007

End Date:  31 December 2008

Governance: JISC IEE

Contact Name and Role:   Russell Burke and Catriona Cannon (Project Managers)

Brief project description:

The project will develop an e-theses repository, entirely compliant with EThOS and designed to support the easy deposit and ready exchange of data. The project will expand and enhance the EThOS Toolkit by addressing key institutional administrative questions.  It will explore in detail the entire process of submission and handling from examination entry form through to the upload of the final thesis. The project will chart the varied workflows of students, of examiners and of the Examinations Office, school offices and the Bibliographic Services team.

Name of Trawler: Mahendra Mahey

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

• Workflow models and workflow tools to support students, examiners and administrators through the tasks of creating, submitting, processing, describing and publishing e-theses
• A model institutional policy for e-theses along with supporting procedures and forms
• Guidance notes to support the implementation of an e-theses policy
• An EThOS compliant repository that meets required standards in terms of format, structure, metadata and so on

Output – UHRA – Training Sessions

Title: UHRA repository self-archiving training sessions

Date Released: May to July 2008

URI for Output: http://uhra.herts.ac.uk/uhra/news.html

Summary of contents:

Evidence of delivery of training outputs. Materials not available

Additional information:

Comments:

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: Software Functional requirements

Title: Software for NECTAR: Functional requirement

Pages: all
Date Released: 2008

Summary of contents:
3 page specification of the functional requirements for NECTAR’s repository.
It covers key points including:

• Visibility / accessibility
• User interface
• File handling
• Support
• Management
• Demonstration
• Hardware [recommendations]

URI for Output: http://nectar.northampton.ac.uk/IR_Final_functional_spec.doc

Comments:
This requirement specifcation informs other institutions considering their requirements of a repository system.

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.

Output – NECTAR: ALISS Case Study – scope/theses

Title:Gathering NECTAR at The University of Northampton

Pages: 3 and
Date Released: 2008

Summary of contents:
The Research Committee’s support shaped the scope of the repository and has helped secure mandatory deposit of research degrees.

“Members of the focus group [a subgroup of the University Research Committee] were primarily concerned about the quality of NECTAR content and it was decided that NECTAR should contain only items that had previously been made available in the public domain. So, published journal articles, exhibited artifacts and presented conference papers were acceptable; internal working papers and other unpublished work were not. Research degree theses (PhD and MPhil level) were to be included, but not undergraduate or taught Masters level dissertations.” p3

“We had had the support of Professor Hugh Matthews in our Steering Group from the very start. As Chair of the university’s Research Degrees Committee and Deputy Chair of the University Research Committee, Hugh gave us very useful influence in both groups. A proposal for the mandatory submission of electronic copies of research degree theses was accepted by the Research Degrees Committee in December 2007 and a proposal to ensure that all research outputs are included in NECTAR is scheduled for discussion in June 2008” p5

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:
This illustrates the type of backing that is helpful in securing mandated deposit for theses and marks Northampton as a UK institution with a mandate for the deposit of doctorates and related research degrees.

Project – UPlaCe

Project Name: UPlaCe

Programme Name: Repositories and Preservation

Strand: Information environment, e-Resources, e-Research, e-Administration, e-Learning

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

Project URI: http://www.uplace.org.uk/

Start Date: 1st April 2007

End Date: 28th April 2009

Governance: RPAG?

Contact Name and Role: Dr Neil Witt, Project Manager

Brief project description:

The University of Plymouth Colleges (UPC) Faculty at the University of Plymouth has a requirement to develop a repository which will meet the needs of a regional partnership and is capable of storing a range of materials.

There is a requirement for sharing good practice and making learning materials available to students in a manner which places students’ needs at the heart of their learning experience in both the college and work based learning environments. The UPC Repository will allow the sharing of materials across a network of colleges and allow staff access to a range of support materials. The lessons learned in delivering and using the UPC Repository across institutions would be transferable to other partnerships within HE and HE in FE.

Outputs:

• a repository for the UPC faculty
• workflows involved in the storage of material from across multiple partner colleges in a digital repository
• published procedures and training and support materials
• system related documentation
• a case study on the process of creating a digital repository
• reports for publication related to implementation, outcomes and impact
• outcomes of this project will also be written up as a briefing document for UPC and its partner colleges

Comments:

• No Outputs visible yet apart from a few posters. The blog (http://www.uplace.org.uk/blog/) details progress but repository not available as at 3rd Feb 2009. There’s a screenshot of the interface at http://www.uplace.org.uk/blog/?p=15
• Need to confirm Programme Manager

Output – LIFE2 – Economic evaluation of LIFE methodology

Output Name: Output – LIFE2 – Economic evaluation of LIFE methodology

Title: Economic evaluation of LIFE methodology
Number of pages or page numbers: 26 pages
Section:

Date Released:

URI for Output: http://eprints.ucl.ac.uk/7684

Summary of contents: Validation of the economic modelling and methodology for the Lifecycle and Generic Preservation formulae developed in Phase 1 of the LIFE project, with technical and presentational development of the models. Cloudlake Consulting Oy carried out this evaluation.  The major conclusions are on page 16:

All in all there seem to be two major application areas for the LIFE models:

• Institutional repositories, which span a range of object types that are likely to populate the IR of a particular university.
• Specialised collections of national libraries and similar organisations, which have a national and sometimes legal obligation to long-term archiving.

In the latter case it seems more sensible to apply the model to individual collections than to
the totality of objects stored in say a national library.

In such a case it is important for a national library, which works within budget restrictions, to be able to compare the long term preservation costs of different collections, in order to make informed priority decisions. This is in contrast with the Institutional Repository Case.

An important point which could have far-reaching consequences for the parameters of the
model is how institutional repositories (which are numerous) are going to solve the
preservation management issue. In contrast to national institutions such as the British Library,
universities would gain very obvious benefits from sharing resources for preservation, for
instance via consortia, outsourcing, using external service providers etc. A good case is for instance the technology watch function included in the model. One can argue if there is a need for every university to
duplicate this effort. A more sensible approach would be for certain service providers to
assume the responsibility for issuing guidelines.

Additional information:

Comments:

Output – Life2 – Spreadsheet for SHERPA DP Case Study

Output Name: Output – Life2 – Spreadsheet for SHERPA DP Case Study

Title: Spreadsheet for SHERPA DP Case Study
Number of pages or page numbers: 4 tabs

Date Released:27 November 2008

URI for Output: http://eprints.ucl.ac.uk/9062/3/9062.xls

Summary of contents:This spreadsheet contains the exact costings for the SHERPA DP Case Study.  The  Spreadsheet has 4 tabs

Tab1 – Introduction

Tab2 – Life Cycle Processes and Costs

Tab3 – Acoronyms and staff costs

Tab4  – Summary

Additional information:    Useful spreadsheet containing costings.
Comments: