Institutional Repositories: Laying Foundations for a New Era of Scholarly Communication?

Jessie Hey

Online InformationLondon, UK1 Dec 2004

A practical view from the Southampton University Research Repository http://eprints.soton.ac.uk

In an ideal world– all research is freely available

Can we aspire to this new fertile era of scholarly communication?

• Majority of research output is through journal publications

• Journals available on subscription• Last 5 years

– Library budget risen 12%– Journals risen 50%

• Even the work of our own researchers is less available to us

New directions: laying foundations

2 complementary routes to Open Access to Research

• Open Access journals• Open Access repositories

• UK House of Commons Committee report July 2004 supports Institutional Repositories

• Government response; awaiting funders’ policy for maximum impact• Meanwhile Wellcome Trust shows an Open Access lead, NIH in USA

(will need discipline and institutional repository cooperation)

• Pilot project leads to key University Research Management support

for Southampton Institutional Research Repository

An Institutional Research Repository for Southampton

• Institutional Repository for Research set up (e-Prints Soton) http://eprints.soton.ac.uk

• Southampton University Research e-Prints – essential ingredient -

working closely with ‘schools’

• Feeding back into pioneering EPrints software good citation and information management practice experimenting with best balance of assisted deposit

• Research by UK JISC funded TARDis project (Targeting Academic Research for Deposit and Disclosure – ends early 2005)

• 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

Southampton’s Institutional Repository for all research

Sampling of faculty websites – assessing current practice

Department Total number of publications listed on Web

Full text on Web

Percentage of Publications with full text

Faculty of Law, Arts and Social Sciences

Archaeology 252 2 1%

English 243 3 1%

Modern Languages 160 0 0%

Music 280 5 2%

Politics 138 6 4%

Economics 357 89 25%

Maths Education 170 34 20%

Faculty of Medicine, Health and Life Sciences

Biology 796 24 3%

Medicine 1603 247 15%

Health Professions and Rehabilitation Sciences 332 0 0%

Nursing and Midwifery 439 0 0%

Faculty of Engineering, Science and Mathematics

Chemistry 1128 111 10%

Electronics and Computer Science 7008 866 12%

Mathematical Studies 849 310 37%

Ocean Circulation and Climate Group, SOES 286 9 3%

James Rennell Division, SOC 792 68 9%

e-Prints Soton evolution

• Original intent to provide secure storage for the full text of Southampton research output (e-Print Archive including post refereed pre published versions of papers deposited by researchers)

• Feedback: maximum benefit if the exercise also assisted researchers with time consuming research reporting tasks: Research Assessment (RAE), University Research Report, web pages, research proposals, CVs etc

• Evolved to ‘hybrid’ publications database for all research output with full text where available

e-Prints Soton evolution: aiming for full moon at midnight

Achieving a slower but more sustainable model

• To achieve the original vision we are moving around the clock face

• Collaborating with academics to provide tailored valued services for different disciplines

• Aided by a fast moving shared international movement

All rising to great place is by a winding stairFrancis Bacon

Service for deposit checking and additional information

Publisher policy check – a shared service

Copyright issues diminishing

Common e-Print deposit:

Postprint =postrefereed pre-journal version

Can provide link to published version for joined up picture

Perceived benefits to University, ‘School’s and Researchers

• Secure storage of publications

– including also theses and dissertations, technical reports

• Links to projects and web pages

• Research reporting• Interdisciplinary

research

• University profile• School and discipline visibility• Researcher profile• Full text content freely accessible

• link to learning and teaching

• Increased citationsArticles freely available online are more highly cited. For greater impact and faster

scientific progress, authors and publishers should aim to make research easy to access Nature, Volume 411, Number 6837, p. 521, 2001 Steve Lawrence “Online or Invisible?”

Benefit of adding a link to your web page – auto update

Benefit of high profile of e-Prints Soton – so give them full text and they can read

Global open archive search – OAIster http://oaister.umdl.umich.edu/o/oaister/

And taking another approach to the deep web:Google Scholar beta

Early days but watch the competition eg national search engines!

Sustainability strengths

• Will be central to research recording and visibility for all disciplines

• Working to integrate well into the research recording workflow

• Working to incorporate UK research assessment data 2000-

• Initial support included for legacy import depending on availability of previous records

• Sustainability Goal: author self deposit (plus some assisted support where needed) for new records with full text deposit where practicable

Next phase includes shared preservation services

• Act of creating database anticipates future preservation decisions• Gained valuable experience with new problems but shared services

useful for common problems

• PRESERV (PReservation EPrint Services) - part of new £1m UK JISC funding for Supporting Digital Preservation and Asset Management in Institutions announced 27th October

• partnering with National Archives (File Format Registry PRONOM)

http://www.jisc.ac.uk/index.cfm?name=project_preserv http://www.jisc.ac.uk/index.cfm?name=programme_404

• Expertise of recently launched Digital Curation Centre also available

TARDis Project Conclusions:Southampton University Research Repository (e-Prints Soton) has demonstrated a practical case study of a growing sustainable Institutional Research Repository model in a global escalating Open Access movement

Shared preservation services and shared rich search and citation services will help ensure:

Institutional Repositories are, indeed, laying foundations for a new era of scholarly communication.

Thank you, Jessie Hey http://eprints.soton.ac.uk

Thank you

Jessie Hey

eprints@soton.ac.uk