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Creating Institutional Repositories
Stephen Pinfield
Key questions
• What are ‘institutional repositories’?
• Why set them up?
• How can they be set up?
Terminology
• ‘E-print archives’
• ‘Open archives’
• ‘Self archiving’
• ‘Institutional repositories’
‘E-print archives’
• ‘E-prints’ = electronic versions of research papers and other similar output
• ‘E-print archives’ = online repositories of this material
• Might contain:– ‘pre-prints’ (pre-referred papers)– ‘post-prints’ (post-refereed papers)– conference papers– book chapters– reports– etc.
‘Open archives’
• ‘Open’ = freely accessible, ‘open access’, and/or
• ‘Open’ = interoperable - Open Archives Initiative (OAI)*:
– “develops and promotes interoperability standards that aim to facilitate the efficient dissemination of content.”
– OAI Metadata Harvesting Protocol• allows metadata from different archives to be harvested
and collected together in searchable databases– creates the potential for a global virtual
research archive* http://www.openarchives.org
‘Self archiving’
• ‘Author self-archiving’“…an umbrella term often applied to the electronic posting, without publisher mediation, of author-supplied research.”*
• ‘Institution self-archiving’Institutions may post articles on behalf of authors
* Raym Crow The case for institutional repositories: a SPARC position paper. 2002. Draft.
Successful archives
• arXiv – Physics, Mathematics, Computer Science– Pre-prints and post-prints
• CogPrints– Cognitive Science– Pre-prints and post-prints
• RePec – Economics– Working papers
• Centralised subject-based archives
Institutional collections?
• Aim: encouraging wider use of e-prints
• Institutions have:– resources to subsidise archive start up– technical / organisational infrastructures to
support archives– an interest in disseminating content
‘Institutional repositories’
• Institutional repositories: “digital collections that preserve and provide access the the intellectual output of an institution.”*
• ‘Repository’ avoids the ‘a’ word• More than just e-prints?
* Raym Crow The case for institutional repositories: a SPARC position paper. 2002. Draft.
Why institutional e-print repositories?
• Context– structural problems in scholarly publishing – e-print repositories a possible solution
• Benefits– for the researcher– for the institution– for the research community
Context
Structural problems with scholarly publishing• ‘Impact barriers’
– authors give away their content and want to achieve impact not income
– want to disseminate research widely– but publishers want to restrict circulation based on
subscriptions
• ‘Access barriers’– researchers want easy access to the literature– but most researchers do not have easy access to
most of the literature
Benefits for the researcher
• Wide dissemination – papers more visible– cited more
• Rapid dissemination• Ease of access • Cross-searchable• Value added services
– hit counts on papers– personalised publications lists– citation analyses
lowering impact barriers
lowering access barriers
Other benefits
• For the institution– raising profile and prestige of institution– managing institutional information assets– accreditation / performance management
e.g. RAE– long-term cost savings
• For the research community– ‘frees up’ the communication process– avoids unnecessary duplication
Common concerns
• Concerns:– Quality control - particularly peer review – IPR - particularly copyright– Undermining the tried and tested status quo– Work load
• Responses:– institutional repositories complementary to the
publishing status quo– help and advice on IPR– help with administration: ‘the library will do the work’
Installation
• Initial installation relatively straightforward• E-prints.org software*
– Advantages:• free• relatively straightforward to install• easily configurable• simple administration procedures• customisable web interface• for the user, searching and browsing easy• OAI compliant
– Disadvantages:• not flexible - basic workflow difficult to alter• long-winded self-archiving process
* http://www.eprints.org
Collection management
• Document type– pre-prints v. post-prints– authors: staff, students, others?
• Document format– HTML, PDF, Postscript, RTF, ASCII, etc.
• Digital preservation policy• Submission procedures
– mediated / DIY? – file format conversion, depositing e-prints, creation of metadata
• Author permission and licensing terms– copyright statement– compliance with publisher copyright terms
• Metadata quality standards– self-created metadata– metadata quality and visibility
Costs
• Start-up costs low– hardware– software (eprints.org free) – installation– policies and procedures
• Medium-term costs higher– advocacy – getting content– support– mediated submission
• Ongoing costs significant– metadata creation / enhancement– preservation
staff time
SHERPA
• Initiator: CURL• Partners: Nottingham (lead), Edinburgh, Glasgow,
Leeds, Oxford, Sheffield, British Library, York• Duration: three years, Summer 2002 – Summer 2005• Funding: JISC (FAIR programme)• Aims:
– to construct 6 institutional OAI-compliant repositories– to investigate key issues in populating and maintaining e-print
collections– to work with service providers to achieve acceptable
standards and the dissemination of the content– to investigate OAIS-compliant digital preservation– to set up an e-print data provider advisory service– to disseminate learning outcomes and advocacy materials
Key points
• Initial installation of an OAI-compliant e-print repository is relatively straightforward
• Repositories need collection policies
• Getting researchers on board is the biggest challenge
