Institutional Repositories: What the Open Access agenda means for a modern institution

Institutional RepositoriesWhat the Open Access agenda means for a modern institution
Gareth J Johnson & Valérie Spezi
Leicester Research Archive
David Wilson Library
University of Leicester
25 Mar 2010
lra.le.ac.uk

Overview
Introduction
Open access & repositories overview
The world of the LRA
Challenges and wider agenda
Group exercise
Questions & Discussion

Open Access
Open access to scholarly publications
Born in 1990s in Physics & Economics communities
Exploits allowable exceptions in © law
Increasingly mainstream since early 2000s
OA advantages
Greater access to literature to all research community
Greater speed of dissemination
Availability provides a citation bump
Public access to publically funded research
Advancement of human knowledge
Curation & safe keeping of institutional treasures

Open Access Today
All Russell Group Universities have repositories
121 institutional repositories like LRA in UK
12 institutional mandates now in place
Sources OpenDOAR & ROARMAP
Open access archiving (OAA, Green route)
Works alongside traditional publishing
Services institutional & subject repositories
Open access publishing (OAP, Gold route)
An alternative approach to traditional practice
Pay-up front model of funding
Fully OA journals or paid publisher options
May or may not allow for OAA on LRA

Open Access ArchivingOverview (Green Route)
Publisher’s
Version
PostReview
PreReview
The LRA

Copyright & LRA
General academic awareness of copyright transfer (CTA) and retained rights is weak
Pervasive scholarly gift culture
Repository team need a strong grounding in rights and reuse
Use of SHERPA/RoMEO helps
Need to be flexible and adaptable to changes
Repository copyright is a grey area, much untested in law
Complexities of third party copyright in theses

Leicester University
Top 20 in all National tables
91% student satisfaction rate
6th Highest citations rates relative to size
23,000 students
41% Distance Learners
Around 1000 academic staff
93% submitted for RAE ’08
87% determined to be producing internationally significant research
4 Colleges
Moved from faculty structure this academic year

LRA Secret Origins
Founded as Library project 2006
Secondment of 0.5fte manager & 0.5fte administrator
Academic support but not direct involvement
Full-text purist at start
RAE 2007/8 ingest of 2500+ metadata only records
2008 moves towards service
Implications for staffing and workflows

The
LRA
TEAM

The LRA Method
Fully mediated
Self-archiving option
Self archiving trial 2 years ago
Research and nothing else
Top level decision and ongoing ethos
Educational and non-scholarly objects sent elsewhere…
Contents
The usual melange of documents, images, software and data
Focus on author’s final versions unless © says otherwise
Author Licence
Signed first time

Licence to Kill

What’s It Like to Work On?

Institutional Repositories
Part 3

LRA Today
Comprises
Around 4,700 items (~40% full text)
RSS feeds for collections and departments
Commerce using it to ID & assess collaborators
Core team to enable archiving and provide advice
Webometrics
A measure of their visibility and scholarly regard
165th ranked HEI Repository globally
Highly ranked HEI Repository in the UK
#13 Cambridge
#14 Brunel
#15 SAS
#16 Leicester/LRA
#17 Huddersfield
#18 SOAS

What’s in the LRA: Materials
Full text ~25-35%

What’s Used in the LRA: Items

What’s in the LRA: College

What’s Used in the LRA: College

Who’s Using the LRA?
Visits
Dec 09 +25%
Jan 10 +20%
Feb 10 +3.2%

Outreach & Engagement
Information librarians
Alerts and raising awareness
Personal visits
Dept Meetings & Champions
Research Office collaborations
Social networking
Twitter and RSS feeds
Twitter discussions with local community
Frequent blogged activities

Setting Policy
Original ethos & remit set by Research Committee
Major policy decisions still at this level
OpenDOAR policy generator
Used to create standard repository policies
Metadata, data, content, submission, preservation and takedown
Operational policy devolved to LRAPG
Tacit input from Research Committee
Responsive to changes in legal environment and institutional standpoints

Preservation
Underlying commitment from institution to maintain repository integrity
Durable handles (persistent URLS) for all items
Tomb stoning of items taken down
Avoidance of bitrot formats
E.g. Old MS Office formats
PDF/A-1 (ISO 19005-1) is preferred text standard
Range of standards for other materials
Some formats can be more problematic

Dark Forces Rising

CRIS & the LRA
REF Preparation WG
Moves to integrate LRA & RED
Technical and political challenges
Post-CRIS implementation
Role and integration of LRA
Merge, subsume, satellite or replace
Pan-institution information systems collaboration
Media contacts, consultancy and personal web spaces

Ethos
Retrospective digitisation requests
Requirement of contacting author & signing of author license
Funded for approx 100 items a year
Tracing authors major time and throughput constraint
Access to alumni database helping
More staff time available to chase
Most requests in 2009 unfulfilled
Issues outstanding with Ethos
Variable quality scans produced
Slow response to enquiries
First requestor pays funding stream
Academic confusion between LRA and Ethos

Getting Your Hands Dirty
Examine some real challenges faced by repository managers
Based on today & own knowledge
Three vital questions for each scenario
What would be the most effective response?
What problems or issues do you foresee?
What steps could be taken to minimise them?
Work in groups and then report back

Feedback
Repositories are as much about people as they are objects
There are many, many grey areas and a lot of institutional policy is responsive
Have to be cautious of setting precedents
Flexibility and responsiveness in a dynamic environment is important

Closing Thoughts

Gareth J Johnson
Document Supply & Repository Manager
gjj6@le.ac.uk
extn 2039
Valérie, Margaret & Claire,
LRA Administrator team
lra@le.ac.uk/ethesis@le.ac.uk
extn 2039
Contacts

References
About the LRA: www.le.ac.uk/li/lra
Institutional mandate: www2.le.ac.uk/offices/researchsupport/ref/pubpolicy
The LRA: lra.le.ac.uk
LRA policies: www.le.ac.uk/li/research/archivepolicies.html
OpenDOAR: www.opendoar.org
Research Support Project: www.rsp.ac.uk
SHERPA/RoMEO: www.sherpa.ac.uk/romeo/
Slides: http://www.slideshare.net/GazJJohnson

Institutional Repositories: What the Open Access agenda means for a modern institution

by Gaz Johnson on Mar 25, 2010

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