Building Institutional Repositories to Meet Real User Needs Susan Gibbons Associate Dean River Campus Libraries University of Rochester March 7, 2006

Outline IR Basics IR Landscape User Analysis Barriers to Participation Strategies to Move Forward

What’s an IR “ a set of services that a university offers to the members of its community for the management and dissemination of digital materials created by the institution and its community members.” - Clifford Lynch, ARL Bimonthly Report 226

Unique “set of services” Post-prints Pre-prints ETDs Data sets Working papers Technical reports Conference proceedings & presentations “Supplementary materials” E-journals Monographs Learning objects Portfolios Multimedia objects

Why?: Librarian perspective Not all valuable scholarly communication is formally published Born-digital documents are far more at risk than paper

Why?: Librarian perspective Plays to our strengths Organizing Indexing Preserving Proactive response to future of librarianship

Why?: Institutional perspective Efficiencies Stewardship of intellectual property Showcase institution

Why?: Faculty perspective Solves some of my problems Backups Format migration Access Easier than hosting personal website

Why?: Faculty perspective Feedback Is my work being used? Increase in citations Able to augment my papers Omitted sections/chapters Images Data sets

IR Landscape: Then & Now

2004 Landscape If you build it… they might not come! Example of MIT National and international press for DSpace $285,000 annual Approx. 4,000 items in 2004 $71 per item, per year Professional marketing assistance

2004 Landscape April 2004 Survey of 45 IRs Average # of documents 1,250 Median # of documents 290 From Ware, M. (2004). Institutional Repositories and Scholarly Publishing. Learned Publishing 17:2,

Today’s Landscape MIT 18,810 documents (11,000+ dissertations) $15.15 per item per year December 2005 survey of 97 DSpace repositories Average # of documents 4,486 Median # of documents 523

On a global scale, U.S. is falling behind Australia- 95%Belgium- 53% Denmark- 50%Finland- 5% France- 27%Germany- 100% Italy- 22%Norway- 100% Sweden- 64%The Netherlands- 100% UK- 22%US- 50% of doctoral From September 2005 D-Lib Magazine article by Westrienen and Lynch Percentage of Universities with IRs by Country

Getting Better, But Still Not There How can we come to understand why faculty are not using the IRs? Growing toolkit of methodologies Work practice study Participatory Design Usability Study

Work Practice Study IMLS grant Anthropologist, Dr. Nancy Fried Foster Disciplines = Tribes 30 in situ interviews Focused specifically on use of digital tools and documents in research and authoring

Work-Practice Study Walk us through your research process Introduce us to your environment Engage us in your research interests Record/Video tape everything Transcripts Analysis by diverse group of people Co-viewing Structured exercises Brainstorming

Raw Data FindingsConcepts Inspiration Problem solving Analysis

Participatory Design/ User Centered Design Continuous loops back to the user Don’t guess, just ask! Can still get good input with less than a fully-functional prototype



Usability Many techniques that can be used throughout the design process Classic test- observing real users performing typical tasks Quality assurance

Usability Lite ! 1. Define audience & purpose 2. Define key tasks 3. Script the tasks 4. Test & record results 5. Analyze results 6. Translate results into design 7. Repeat steps 4-6 Find a known item Find a preprint authored by Prof. John Smith Taken from B. Reeb & D. Lindahl’s LITA Regional Institute on Design Process & Usability

Broad Findings: Different Voices Institutional Voice Showcase; efficiencies Library Voice Archiving; permanence; proactive response to serial pricing IT Voice Cool technology; back-up consolidation Faculty/Researcher Voice Communicate with colleagues; research is read & cited; control how work is presented

Moving Forward: Different Voices Be conscious of audience Target you marketing Cater to faculty/researcher needs

Broad Finding: Language Not speaking the language of faculty/researchers Not interested in how it works, only that it works Require a personalized message

Features As Stated in Promotional Literature Degree to Which Faculty Understand the Feature and Perceive Its Benefit Institutional repository 0% Support for a variety of formats 25% Digital preservation 25% Access control 100% Metadata 0% Open-source software 0%

Know the discipline Know their research interests Change the vocabulary Persistent URLs = Unbreakable links Metadata harvesting = Google Format migration = WordStar Moving Forward: Language

Broad Finding: Not Enough Time Universal complaint Resent what interferes with research Ideal IR requires zero learning & zero effort

Moving Forward: Not Enough Time Self-archiving make sense? Bundle submissions (other repositories; other purposes) Grad students are faculty of the future Demonstrate immediate benefitsbenefits

Moving Forward: Not Enough Time Incentives Research Assessment Exercise (UK) Tenure Portfolio Annual Academic Review Make IR submission part of the natural work flow Integrated into the tools they use daily

Faculty needs X Put my work in a safe place X Priority needs (authoring, collaborating) DSpace X Reduce clutter Doc Mgmt/ IR System Mapping Needs to Systems

Faculty needs X Put my work in a safe place X Priority needs (authoring, collaborating) DSpace X Reduce clutter X Motivating Needs (others cite my work, etc) DSpace + Researcher Page Mapping Needs to Systems

Broad Finding: Copyright Worries Too complex Fear of “accidentally” violating copyright Takes too much time “Green” is not clear cut

Trust librarian copyright expertise Promote awareness, carefully Less “Create Change” More “Get on the Bus” Pro-active “self-archiving” projects Romeo/Sherpa Romeo/Sherpa Publisher Copyright Database Moving Forward: Copyright Worries

Broad Finding: Me, Me, Me It is all about me ! How is this going to benefit me ? Where am I in these collections and communities ?

Other Strategies Make it prestigious- Netherlands’ Cream of ScienceCream of Science Campus stars- monitor the press releases Low-hanging fruits Collections on institutional website Working Papers, Technical Reports, Conference Papers Paper distributed at departmental level Conference held on campus On-campus journals/publications Student undergraduate research On-line journals

Other Strategies Most attentive to message Involved in open access Search OAIster by affiliationOAIster Retiring faculty Graduating students Publications on personal website Grant recipients (NIH) Editors of open access journals

Other Strategies Don’t call it an “institutional repository” Faculty ownership Hold off on library materials Faculty advisory board Customization Leverage existing relationships Liaisons Spouses & friends

Don’t Forget Library Staff Ensure library-wide understanding of: Project’s goals and objectives Benefits of depositing materials Support services Be ready for serendipity

Recognize That This is NEW!

Other Resources LITA Regional Institute “Establishing an Institutional Repository” Powerpoints Bibliography Links to Policies Crib Sheet View/Collection-2193

Contact Information Susan Gibbons Associate Dean University of Rochester, River Campus Libraries AIM: susanlgibbons