Repositories: What’s the Target? An ARROW Perspective Derek Whitehead Swinburne University of Technology

Summary –1 Introduction –2 What is an institutional research repository? –3 Where institutional research repositories came from –4 The ARROW Project –5 Recent studies –6 Success in the Future –7 Conclusion

Swinburne University of Technology

Dual sector university About 10,000 FTE higher education students … and about 12,000 technical and further All together 38,000 students Five campuses in Melbourne, Australia … and one in Sarawak, Malaysia Strong focus on engineering, IT and business Specialised and research-intensive university

We were always technological

1 Introduction

Some questions Where do research institutional repositories sit in the general field of databases? How to they relate to other repositories, other databases, other research collections? Why has take-up been fairly slow? What would make it faster? Why are librarians the most enthusiastic supporters?

Slow takeup in Australia Australian National University ANU2453 Curtin246 Monash122 QUT832 Melbourne459 Queensland1757 Tasmania122

2 What is an Institutional Repository?

Jargon already … “… we go and talk to our academics or computing services staff about setting up a ‘institutional repository’ or an ‘eprint archive’ when the words they really want to hear are ‘content management system’ or even just ‘database’.” Andy Powell, posting to JISC-DEVELOPMENT list, 29 April, 2005.

A database Institutional location and focus Focus on research outputs Web visibility Full text availability Structured information Sustained and managed over time

Debates over definition Citations and abstracts only in the database There is a delay in the full text appearing Content removed from a document Access limited in some way Copyright licence is ungenerous Blurring of the concept “published”

Define by use Three main groups of users Global – local of and access to full texts Institutional – organise content, make it available, promote the institution Personal – help to organise content, promote me, help me to share

3 Where institutional repositories came from

Finding and obtaining access Simple DC metadata Straightforward open source software Clear logical rationale Online data about publisher policies Growing amount of promotional material Seen as a means of marketing the institution A means to change scholarly communication

Why limited success? Why did not the bulk of research literature migrate to open access? Researchers are friendly but unconvinced They don’t care about marketing the institution They don’t want to learn anything new which is peripheral They perceive that they have no time Poor institutional support of archiving

Changes in rationales Add these “Reform of scholarly communication” – Is there any sign of this happening? It is a red herring? Enhance the prestige of the institution – Is this a core concern for researchers? Long-term preservation – Is this an appropriate means? Do we even want it to be done?

More new rationales Knowledge management – what does this mean? Research assessment exercises – how will the open access IR relate to this? How will a list help with assessing quality? Collection management – where’s the collection?

Not all red herrings though

4 The ARROW Project

A logo

ARROW partners and funding oPartners - Monash (lead institution), UNSW, Swinburne, National Library of Australia oFunded by DEST ($3.7 million) oSoftware development contract signed in June 2004 with VTLS (Virginia Tech), built on Fedora ohttp://

ARROW model

ARROW model (in another format)

ARROW components oIncorporate theses and expand the capacity of the ADT program (2004) oCreate an e-prints module (2004) to submit and manage e-prints – consistent with software. oElectronic publishing module is based at Swinburne and uses OJS software

More ARROW components oInterface with Research Master 4 oData currently collected about research outputs can be collected through ARROW oUltimately simplification of DEST data collection process oAdvice about copyright to authors oLibrary working with research administrators

Resource discovery oImplemented cross-repository resource discovery mechanisms (early 2005) oAutomated harvesting and re-purposing of metadata oPersistent identification using the handle methodology oBegins harvesting from ARROW partners mid-2005

At Swinburne …. oFocus on the user interface, user functionality oOnline publishing – integration of green and gold oImages website and database oDigital theses oTheses trial with Proquest

5 Recent studies

The landscape has changed Commercial software is emerging Alignment of repository and other functionality (data collection, journal publishing, promotion) Awareness of wider information management purposes Emerging new requirements (access and quality) New research and new studies

Daedelus at University of Glasgow

ePrints at Queensland Univ Tech

Proquest’s Digital Commons

University of California

University of Rochester

Mandating Assumes A range of purposes ( like record-keeping, evaluation) Relatively little effort Relatively low cost Mandating can be effectively enforced

Input once, use many times Research reports CVs, promotion applications Grant applications Assessment and evaluation Promotion of the individual Promotion of the centre, faculty or university Export to EndNote, Research Master, other

What an IR does for me Saving time/managing chaos: not managing a server or a web site, ing copies of papers, juggling software. Managing copyright Longer-term management of research: permanent URLs, backups, help. Enhanced impact and worldwide, easy access

User-centred approach Some points The Tananbaum short argument – “make me famous” and “save me time” Relationship between the individual researcher, the institution, and groups Individuality vs institutional views

6 Success in the future?

A thought experiment [courtesy of Dr Evan Arthur, DEST] A researcher and ARC (Australian Research Council) grant recipient completes an article Following peer review it is accepted by an international proprietary journal A post-print copy is lodged with the university’s open access digital repository

A thought experiment These actions lead to automatic updating of –the researchers open access publication list –the university’s open access record of staff research activity –The ARC’s open access record of research activity related to its grants –A gateway site providing sophisticated industry-tailored access to research activities in Australian research institutions –The publicly accessible data warehouse which provides input into quality assessments of Australian research institutions

Copyright More from DEST In regard to copyright, DEST takes the view that, in principle, material produced using DEST funds should be made available without cost to education, science and training users –And that there need to be simplified procedures (standard licenses) to facilitate this

7 Conclusion

Composite picture of value 1.Resource discovery and access 2.New modes of scholarly communication: breaking the old publishing paradigm 3.Research evaluation and assessment 4.Enhanced impact 5.Information / asset management 6.Efficiency, process improvement, saving time

Wherever we go, it won’t be 1957 again …