RSP Summer School Thornton Manor, June 2008 Mary Robinson SHERPA European Development Officer SHERPA, University of Nottingham, UK Rumours, Bargains, Lies, & More Lies….

Preaching to the converted! Problems Stakeholders Plan- for the Depot Lessons from Europe Case Studies

Problems & Barriers Awareness of OA, the repository and relevant services Cultural change is needed to develop and populate repositories Being heard! Promotion, RSP Briefing paper ers-docs/repoadmin-promotion.pdf ers-docs/repoadmin-promotion.pdf

Stakeholders Who are they? –University administrators, senior management and policy makers. –Academics as authors and researchers –Others including technical support staff and library staff What are their questions and motivations? –This influences the aspects and benefits to emphasise. Key Stakeholders & Benefits, RSP briefing paper – docs/repoadmin-stakeholders.pdfhttp:// docs/repoadmin-stakeholders.pdf

Stakeholders No use to shout at them to pay attention. If the situations, the materials, the problems before the child do not interest him, his attention will slip off to what does interest him, and no amount of exhortation of threats will bring it back.If the situations, the materials, the problems before the child do not interest him, his attention will slip off to what does interest him, and no amount of exhortation of threats will bring it back. John Holt (Although the REF might!) Appeal to the child in all of us:

The Depot A deposit service for e-prints, with the Depot acting as a national repository for researchers not yet having an institutional repository in which to deposit their papers, articles, and book chapters. A re-direct service, with the Depot acting as a gateway, especially to repositories at UK universities (institutional repositories) The Depot has two main services to offer:

The Depot and the Plan! To ensure that those who need the Depot, know it exists and use it. Who are the key stakeholders for the Depot? –Researchers –Potential / existing repository managers –University research / grants offices in institutions that do not have repositories Goal of advocacy:

The Depot and the Plan! Rumours –incorrectly seen being in competition for content with institutional repositories –common concerns Bargains - other projects, RSP, EThOS, Intute RS, Lies - Listen to Institutions and Evolve Strategies & More Lies – keep listening!

Core Message: Put it in the Depot Or else!

Approach Strapline- Put it in the Depot Materials- Depot leaflet, user guide, poster, FAQs and helpdesk, RSP Key Services briefing paper, RSP website, etc. General awareness - Advert in Times Higher, mailshot to researchers (with Intute RS) Events- RSP Services day, OR08 Collaboration with others trying to reach the same stakeholders e.g. Intute RS, JISC Scholarly Communications Group, HEA Contact stakeholders directly

Approach: contact stakeholders directly Which institutions do not have repositories Which institutions receive a lot of research funding What contacts do we have already in those institutions?- researchers, repository managers? Etc What is the best way to contact them?- initially then phone call or visit? What key questions are they likely to have and do I have relevant material I can send them? Who and How to contact stakeholders?

Approach: contact stakeholders directly What do I want to achieve from the meeting? To have the researcher deposit more material? To encourage their peers to deposit? To promote the Depot internally? To suggest a suitable university newsletter where I could submit an article on the Depot? To suggest an event or meeting that I could attend?

Approach: contact stakeholders directly Follow-up: Did they find the material useful, have they deposited any material, have they forwarded the information to their colleagues, do they have any questions? Promotion is an ongoing effort RSP Briefing paper docs/repoadmin-promotion.pdf docs/repoadmin-promotion.pdf

Outcomes Experience suggests most people in the UK that are aware of OA or repositories have heard of the Depot but may not know exactly what it does or who it is for continued need for advocacy Times Higher advert helped raise awareness of the Depot in the UK directly resulted in at least one researcher depositing papers in the Depot International interest in the Depot model.

Outcomes Actual Deposits – disappointing! –28 items deposited, up from approx 19 at the start of the year But! Interest from various groups for the Depot to host collections of materials, unfortunately none so far have been appropriate/within the remit of the Depot Interest from researchers wishing to use the Depot to deposit etheses- unfortunately outside our remit Several repository managers with repositories under development have said they will direct users to the Depot until their own repository is live The advocacy continues….

Examples from Europe A DRIVERs Guide to European Repositories –Edited by Kasja Weenink, Leo Waaijers & Karen van Godtsenhoven Chapter 3 The population of repositories Written by Vanessa Proudman Drawing on experiences from –University of Minho –HAL –CERN –University of Southampton, UK Incentives to deposit Seventeen pointers for stimulating the population of repositories (pages 93-97)

Incentives to deposit Cream of Science, 9 months project to showcase prominent research in The Netherlands. Contains work from 217 scholars, 27,5000 full text, 80% are articles. Connecting Africa, web portal for African studies in The Netherlands and recently expanded to include material from elsewhere. Both services give the author visibility as a leading light in their field. Services can drive deposit:

Incentives to deposit HAL- can be searched by author and/or disciplines to uncover networks of researchers and institutional collaborations. (page 64) HAL- the development of a sub-portal devoted to mathematics, social sciences and humanities encouraged these disciplines to be early adopters. (page 71) Services can drive deposit:

Incentives to deposit When you promote your repository, do you also promote related services? –If so, which ones? Is there any way you can use your repository to highlight the research of authors who deposit articles in your repository? e.g. through articles in University news letters?

Incentives to deposit Minho Library Have departmental repository coordinators in place to support researchers (page 68-69) Allow some autonomy to their researchers. Has wide departmental uptake and success. CERN Have a similar approach and have made departments responsible for content deployment (page 68-69) School of Electronics and Computer Science, Southampton Established and run their own repository (page 69). This feeds in to Soton, Southamptons institutional repository Involvement of research departments:

Incentives to deposit –Do you have departments willing to promote and support the deposit of articles into your repository? –What form of promotion or support does the department provide? Departmental recommendation or mandate? Mediated deposit support? –Have you done anything with your repository to specifically meet the needs of a particular group/department?

Seventeen pointers for stimulating the population of repositories (page 93-97) Know your research community Target advocacy activities Be clear what Open Access stands for and the benefits to the depositor Collection development choices should reflect academic output Provide added value services Take an active role in improving information retrieval and discovery Push out your content to the global research community to show your commitment to increasing the impact of your researchers work. Showcase your efforts and achievements Be innovative as to how you acquire your content Provide IPR support Consider the organisation of the repository with respect to the institution. Ensure the repository infrastructure is in place to deliver Use repository networks to assist you where possible. Have a strong knowledgeable repository team If developing regional or disciplinary services choose prominent/influential partners Strive for cost-effectiveness Challenge yourself. pages 93-97

Other case studies- CERES, Cranfield University Experiments with producing multimedia podcasts to enhance content. Linking to other related resources e.g. researcher profiles, related papers, datasets. ORA, University of Oxford Asking users what they require can be difficult if they do not actually know what they want or what is possible…. …and it is important to manage expectations and not promise more than we can deliver in the timeframe.

Other case studies- UNED, National Distance Education University of Spain we did not carry out an outreach or marketing campaign after the release of the "Institutional Open Access oriented Repository". What happened was that the technology we were using was just the right answer at the right moment to the problems of the different Departments generating digital content at our university. So it was they who contact us looking for a solution. Tufts Digital Repository (TDR), Tufts University, US Faculty were initially not attuned to the need for a repository at the university. Our initial conversations with potential early adopters revealed a nearly universal lack of understanding of digital preservation needs and almost no interest in depositing publications in a repository…. We therefore started by questioning faculty about the existing management of digital assets resulting from their research. While most were unfamiliar with the challenges posed by digital preservation, the realities of hardware failure, software obsolescence, and for some, personal knowledge of data loss due to these issues, made an excellent context for discussing the role of a repository at the university.

Thank you!