Leveraging the Institutional Research Repository: harnessing the drive for quality assessment Enabling Interaction and Quality: Beyond the Hanseatic League 8th International Conference on Current Research Information Systems 12 May

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Leveraging the Institutional Research
Repository harnessing the drive for quality
assessment Enabling Interaction and Quality
Beyond the Hanseatic League8th International
Conference on Current Research Information
Systems12 May 2006http//eprints.soton.ac.uk
http//irra.eprints.org Jessie M.N. Hey,
Leslie A. Carr, Pauline SimpsonUniversity of
Southampton Libraries and School of Electronics
and Computer ScienceUniversity of Southampton, UK
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Bergen feels a little like home except for the
mountain
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We compete on cruise ships, however!
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University of Southampton granted Royal Charter
1952
Researchled multidisciplinary university
20,000 students 5000 staff 3000
researchers
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University of Southampton Institutional Research
Repository e-Prints Soton for short!
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Outline

• A little history a research repository grounded
  in local needs
• The TARDis route map
• Scaling up
• Preparing for research assessment
• Towards a sustainable repository for local needs
  and feeding into the national research
  information environment

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From esoteric knowledge to a real institutional
research repository

• From embarkation to escalation..
• Soon 12th anniversary of Stevan Harnads
  Subversive Proposal leading to the open access
  vision for scholarly material
• See also Harnad, S. and Hey, J. M. N. (1995)
  Esoteric Knowledge the Scholar and Scholarly
  Publishing on the Net. In Proceedings of
  Networking and the Future of Libraries 2
  Managing the Intellectual Record, Proceedings of
  an International Conference, Bath, 19-21 April
  1995,  110-16. Dempsey, L., Law, D. and Mowlat,
  I., Eds.
• The vocabulary has moved on and the climate is
  being transformed
• the work of researchers in our own
  institution is still often unavailable to us
  and we also get emails from across the world
  when we havent yet got the full text. but
  thats incentive to produce it

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Southampton influences

• Original EPrints software created at Southampton
  to enable the vision - now used by around 200
  institutions worldwide also spawned other
  software choices
• EPrints "World's best practice for an
  institutional repository" Prof. Arthur Sale,
  Univ. of Tasmania
• Some Southampton (Soton) departments have culture
  of deposit (but not all were OAI compliant and
  searchable together)
• Electronics and Computer Science use the software
  for the school publications database now a
  repository with daily deposits (will be
  incorporated into e-Prints Soton)
• For now can use ePrints UK or OAIster to search
  both
• National Oceanography Centre was keen to adopt

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The proactive school to emulate. see the
regularity and variety of output
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Scanning the very latest deposits we find
examples of

• Journal article
• PhD
• Book chapter
• Newspaper article
• Poster
• Speech at conference
• Technical report
• Total records in this database approx.10,000

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An Institutional Research Repository for
Southampton

• Institutional Repository for Research set up
  (e-Prints Soton) http//eprints.soton.ac.uk with
  TARDis project to investigate issues for the then
  new concept (within JISC funded FAIR programme)
• Southampton University Research e-Prints -
  working closely with individual schools found
  that depends so much on publication culture and
  working practices
• TARDis project Feeding back into EPrints
  software
• good citation and information management
  practice
• experimenting with best balance of assisted
  and self deposit
• Distinction has capacity for adding full text
  (e-Prints) if available
• Electronic copies of any research output e.g.
  journal articles, book chapters, conference
  papers even multimedia
• TARDis Targeting Academic Research for Deposit
  and Disclosure
• FAIR Focus on Access to Institutional Resources

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University central recording of research
reactive not proactive
Central recording mechanism via Corporate and
Marketing Service MS Word lists the Research
Report provides a comprehensive list of
publications by University staff Progressed to
pdfs - 1998 to 2002 on the web Need an easier,
more proactive way with full text potential
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The UK and quality assessment for new funding

• Neil Jacobs talk today on Why no CRIS? Suggests
  funding structure is key but also suggests
  possible benefits to present to stakeholders in
  support of a CERIF based CRIS in the UK
• Research Assessment Exercise 2008 both huge
  opportunity for engagement and complexity
  challenge at the same time

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Route map to Open Access from TARDis project
were making steady progress around the circle
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University of Southampton high level endorsement

• University request for all potential RAE outputs
  to be deposited
• Funding to boost IR support for the RAE
• Aim for IR to be fully embedded as tool for
  research support
• Endorsement from DVC for Research and Heads of
  Schools

Prof Philip Nelson DVC for Research and Enterprise

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Building on Southampton Press Release 15 Dec 2004

• We see our Institutional Repository as a key
  tool for the stewardship of the University's
  digital research assets,' said Professor Paul
  Curran, Deputy Vice Chancellor of the University.
  'It will provide greater access to our research,
  as well as offering a valuable mechanism for
  reporting and recording it.
• Paul Curran is now Vice Chancellor at Bournemouth
  University and is pushing forward with their own
  repository

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Research Repository integrated into planning

• Strong links with the overall University RAE
  management the RAE CRIS
• From data sub-group to a full member of the
  University RAE Planning Group
• Research repository an integral part of data
  collection and evaluation
• Member of Planning Dept with key responsibility
  for the RAE attends our bi-weekly repository
  meetings

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Deep liaison

• Challenge of getting deep levels of liaison
  e.g. technical staff, School RAE Manager, School
  editors, Deputy Heads of School Research, Heads
  of Schools
• Even bigger challenge of engaging with all staff
  for RAE output selection
• RAE deadlines are taken seriously but problem of
  awareness of roles and timescales for stages e.g.
  metadata evaluation

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Challenges

• Clarifying areas of responsibility - the IR is
  not a reason for others to give us poor quality
  bibliographic information
• There are always Schools who are less engaged and
  resistance to the open access movement is still
  as factor
• Workflow some Schools want most of their papers
  to choose from creating a heavy demand for
  metadata validation in a short timescale e.g.
  3000 records
• Diversity of disciplines performances,
  artefacts, software and the full range of RAE
  types added to software

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Metadata team for current high input workflow

• 1.6 FTE core staffing (1 as team manager and
  trainer)
• For RAE currently 4.6 FTE additional temporary
  staffing and equivalent of 1.8 FTE seconded from
  library activity (4 staff)
• Staffing has some fluidity training investment
  and QA risk

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Team effort to increase records for RAE practice
run later in year
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Workflow challenge

• Checking accuracy of metadata, verifying
  publication, adding subject headings (Library of
  Congress) and adding DOIs and other appropriate
  full text links
• Tight timescale, a lot of records need to go
  through quickly RAE is going hand in hand with
  ongoing work

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Processing 200 a day mix of self archived and
bulk import
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Additional software functionality for workflow
management

• Enhanced sort facilities for the editorial
  review/submission buffer
• Statistics for editors work to monitor workflow
  and for Quality Assurance
• Added function so inadequate records can be sent
  back to nominated School contact from the
  editorial review once an output is selected for
  the RAE from the live records automatic flag for
  missing RAE metadata

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Progress on original IR route map from TARDis
project RAE now a full part of this integration
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Towards broader RAE support in the UK

• e-Prints Soton both contributes and learns from
  the UK wide IRRA (Institutional Repositories and
  Research Assessment) project (funded by JISC)
• Based on experience of earlier dry runs in
  Electronics and Computer Science School (see
  Hitchcock, CRIS 2004)

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RAE modules for EPrints and DSpace repository
software

• The EPrints RAE software is available as an
  independent download for EPrints repositories.
• The DSpace RAE software is available for trial as
  a hosted service.
• Bronze release Jan 2006

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IRs as the core of assessment IRRA workflow
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Which are my papers? Can I correct them?

• Had linked deposit to Information Systems
  id/password for scalable deposit and now author
  editing is facilitated
• Now, for RAE, must require authors to link to
  staff ids to ensure unique person claims papers
  

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Selection of papers for RAE and reports for group
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Problems to correctMeasures of esteem to enter
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The service with RAE support

• Many thanks to the dedicated University of
  Southampton Institutional Research Repository,
  library based, team
• especially Wendy White - IR manager and RAE
  liaison
• Simon de Montfalcon workflow/metadata team
  leader
• Adam White and Seb François technical support
• and EPrints Services

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For further information

• http//eprints.soton.ac.uk (exemplar IRR)
• http//irra.eprints.org/ (for RAE software
  modules)
• http//eprints.org (EPrints software)
• http//tardis.eprints.org/papers (for earlier
  papers)
• Thank you -
• Jessie Hey, Leslie Carr, Pauline Simpson
• And watch this space for our progress towards
  true Open Access and keen, experienced academic
  depositors