Institutional repositories and records management: overlaps, obstacles & opportunities Jackie Knowles Repository Support Officer Steve Bailey Senior Advisor, JISC infoNet

Contents/Intro What is a repository? The repository scene The JISC perspective Institutional repositories Stakeholders Benefits Typical content Functionality Key issues The future

What is a repository? At root they are mechanism for managing and storing digital content. But should be considered more as a set of services which are offered to the academic community. Repositories can be institutional or subject based.

Repositories worldwide Verbally give figures: 951 repositories worldwide (figures vary slightly between statistical services because of how repositories are defined)

Repository growth over time Included to illustrate that this is a recent development – all very new and cutting edge.

Distribution by country Point out UK proportion – UK is showing strong leadership when it comes to repositories. We only represent about 1 % of the worlds population.

Repositories in the UK Verbally give figures: 106 repositories in the UK, 2 in Wales, Glamorgan/RWCMD coming on stream as we speak

JISC investment in repositories JISC have a repositories and preservation programme through which they are making a £14m investment in Higher Education repository and digital content infrastructure. Heery, R. and Powell, A. (2006) Digital Repositories Roadmap: Looking Forward http://www.jisc.ac.uk/uploaded_documents/rep-roadmap-v15.doc Accessed 3rd December 2007.

JISC investment in repositories Main initiatives cross-searching facilities across repositories funding for institutions to develop a critical mass of content preservation solutions advice for the development of repositories. Funding lots of projects and research.

The RSP High level representation Funding councils / publishers etc High-level advocacy Presentations / materials aimed at senior managers Repository establishment Technical Support DSpace & ePrints Encourage use Presentations / materials for researchers / teachers Grassroots advocacy Presentations / materials for researchers / teachers Encourage re-use Presentations / materials for service providers More repositories, more content, more use of content and more re-use of content. Repository Administrators Support to run repositories (e.g. preservation)

The RSP co-ordinate and deliver good practice provide guidance and advice Activities Outreach programme On-site support Enquiry service Web site Briefing papers

So back to Institutional repositories Institutional repositories are concerned with intellectual output … Collecting Preserving Managing Accessibility Re-use Based on open standards Mention *** IR store content and a metadata record for each item contained within.

Main repository features Submission forms User area Licences & terms and conditions Metadata records Full text of items (optional) Search and browse functionality

Quick demo Cadair - http://cadair.aber.ac.uk/dspace/

Demo

Harvesting Most traffic coming to an IR comes via Google and other search engines. Harvesting and exposure of information to the wider world is a key element. So cannot talk for very long about repositories before mentioning Open Access …

Open Access Traditional research publishing Open access Publically funded but readership limited by economies. Authors signing away rights. Publisher monopolies. Open access Encourages a wider use of information assets and increases citations. Makes information freely accessible to anyone in the world using an internet connection. Potential readership is far, far greater than that for articles where the full-text is restricted to subscribers. Explain this is where IRs come from but that additional drivers for creating them are now appearing, as subsequent slides will illustrate

Key stakeholders in a repository Senior management Academics as authors Academics as users Repository staff Library, IT and other support staff Publishers Funding agencies General public Explain we will concentrate on the two key stakeholder groups in bold for this session.

Benefits to institutions Management Marketing showcase Collection stewardship Consistency of data collected Economies of scale Preservation Management information tool RAE QAA audit Competitor analysis tool

Benefits to authors Academic authors Visibility Impact Recognition Usage feedback Discussion Collaboration Career development

Typical repository content Preprints Postprints Datasets Learning objects Videos Sound files Images Theses Dissertations Royalty publications Conference papers Technical reports Grey literature Administrative documents

Types of content in UK repositories Research often a key driver for setting up repositories – UK research of significant economic importance, figures from the OECD show the UK has : 9% of worlds scientific publications 12% of citations But only 1% of the population But other content types are significant – e-theses, teaching and learning.

Administrative documents Main focus of repository development to date has been on research outputs and theses Although JISC funding has gone towards some records management specific projects Kings College London http://www.kcl.ac.uk/projects/jiscrec/ http://www.kcl.ac.uk/blogs/committee-zone/ University of Plymouth Repository Others?

A note about preservation The accessibility agenda is more prominent in the repository community - at the moment. … someone else will deal with it! National solutions? Preservation policies are encouraged http://www.opendoar.org/tools/en/policies.php

What are the issues? For senior managers: Resources Awareness Culture change Policy framework Mandates

What are the issues? For academic authors: Awareness Rights (confusion and misinformation) Time Complexity of metadata required Final versions of their papers Difficulty Apathy

What are the issues? For repository staff: Awareness Defining a metadata schema Defining workflows and the level of mediation needed for submission Managing copyright and intellectual property rights Advocacy

Challenges for the sector Lots of material we could collect Lots of different stakeholders Institutions often have multi-centred power hubs To mandate or not to mandate Defining success …. the numbers game!

Top UK repositories Cambridge (189,216) Southampton (27,328) Open University (5,986) UK average about 300 Aberystwyth (274 items) Cambridge skews the average proper but they’ve had lots of money and done lots of things with images etc – so the average given here is the median value, more indicative of average content.

Challenges for the sector The cultural challenge is uppermost in people’s minds Embedding this in the academic or institutional workflow But … technology is moving forward Web 2.0

Organisation Resources The balancing act Technology Organisation Resources

The future Lots of best practice and case studies out there Tools are available, for example Romeo & Juliet OpenDoar Policies Tool Repository community now being established JISC is making a significant investment in this area Help and support mechanisms emerging, such as the RSP!

Repositories at your institutions Handout

Over to Steve…

Background (a personal perspective) C.2003 ‘Sudden’ and ‘rapid’ rise in profile of the repository agenda within JISC A watching brief maintained + formal/informal discussions with those responsible Always with a series of questions in mind: What is the overlap with RM, now & in the future? Are we trying to achieve the same things? Is it a threat, opportunity or irrelevance to RM? To what extent do repositories need RM & how do we prevent them re-inventing the wheel?

Findings There are fundamental differences: Drivers (open access etc) Reflected in technical priorities (inter-operability not retention mgt for example) Standards Practitioner community User community? Content? But there is also much in common…

Similarities Both: relate to the management of information are primarily concerned with internal information require a combination of technology, policies, procedures & user behaviour rely on the participation & engagement of the user involve resource discovery impose centrally-determined controls around the behaviour of information May require access to digital content in the medium-long term

Regardless of their content… Key RM questions & concerns which may (should?) be of interest to the IR community Regardless of their content…

Controlling the content How is the content of an IR defined & by whom? When in its lifecycle is content deemed appropriate for inclusion? E.g. drafts or final content Who is able to add content?

Regulating retention Who defines how long the contents should be retained? Based on what criteria? Is this consistent with the corporate retention schedule? Is the deletion process controlled, complete and auditable?

Preserving the provenance How is the link preserved between the content and the process which created it? How is the link preserved between content in the repository & related content held elsewhere? How is the provenance of who created the content, when, why & how captured?

Other RM considerations Where is the metadata sourced from? Free text? Internal pick list? Shared, verifiable external resource? Protecting the evidential value Ensuring qualities of authenticity, integrity & non-repudiation Preservation planning Appropriate choice of format, media, strategy etc Appraisal: identifying what is worth preserving

Possible areas of overlap (competition?) IR ‘scope creep’ into capturing business records Project proposals, grant applications, financial reporting… Institutional Repository vs EDRMS Should this content be in / managed by your EDRMS? Or will they be two separate stove-pipes IR’s may beat RM for resources More directly relevant to core institutional activity Direct backing from important stakeholders (RC/FCs) Heavy backing from JISC & others Build a national infrastructure of interoperable digital repositories (addressing  institutional, subject and learning object repositories)

Summary Work on institutional repositories is, or will be, happening within your institution They may need your help We may well have the answers to some of their problems There may be issues regarding respective scopes & remits to be resolved…and soon There may be opportunities for records managers to increase their profile & impact

Questions, comment, discussion & next steps…

Jackie Knowles jak@aber.ac.uk