RePosit presentation for Symplectic User Conference 2011
1. positing a new kind of repository deposit Rachel Proudfoot, Sarah Molloy and Nicola Cockarill Symplectic User Group Conference 24th May 2011 www.jiscreposit.blogspot.com
48. Have a shared Symplectic service with University of Exeter with multiple repositories toolwww.jiscreposit.blogspot.com Image: SayanSamana/ FreeDigitalPhotos.net
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50. Key driver = external communication and visibility
76. Rethink, review, respond Image: vichie81/ FreeDigitalPhotos.net jiscreposit.blogspot.com/ Do we all want something different out of a joined up system?
77. Login / Upload / Share Community? Google group http://groups.google.com/group/reposit Repositories and CRIS: working smartly together. Conference and Software Exhibition, 19th July, Nottingham jiscreposit.blogspot.com/ Image: vrenjithkrishnan/ FreeDigitalPhotos.net
We have a shared, consortial repository – White Research Research Online.Runs on one instance of EPrints – currently at Leeds.Prior to the introduction of the Research Management System (or CRIS, used here as a shorthand term for any similar type of system) we had one workflow gathering content from all three partners.
Each partner has a separate CRIS. Two partner have taken Symplectic. We’re looking at how to link EPrints to more than one CRIS system. A good link between the systems, and a simple workflow for both depositors and library staff is very important to us.
For Leeds, authors used to interact directly with EPrints. The ingestion route is now Symplectic Elements. This gives us an opportunity to have a comprehensive data collection system (Symplectic) enhanced by a full-text repository platform White Rose. We see this as mutually beneficial. The connector between the two systems is at a fairly early stage of development. We would like further discussion with Symplectic about what data is fed from Symplectic Elements to EPrints and what data is fed back from EPrints to Elements. For example, could we provide depositors with more feedback on the status of their deposited files?
WRRO contains a few thousand items from the three partners but that’s not as much content as we would have liked by now. We’re aware that we have two key issues (i) awareness across the consortium (ii) translating awareness into action by becoming effectively embedded in the researcher workflow. Previously we have undertaken time consuming actions – such as searching WoS for Leeds papers and emailing authors to request deposit – but this has a fairly low return on investment. We’re happy that some areas we were struggling with will be addressed by the link with Symplectic Elements – particularly as Elements has become a well known, centralised system with good uptake. It is a way to bring a repository like ours ‘in from the cold.’ Of course, repositories vary a great deal in terms of how embedded they are, how well known they are at the institution etc so the type of conversation you will have about how your local repository interacts with Elements may be very different in nature from ours.
There are many ‘wins’ to commend this model. It makes sense in principle – though the workflows could be improved. Linking in this way is a trade off. We’re used to working in an open source environment where we can address the design, text, flow etc. of the system ourselves to address known issues. We will now need to work more closely with Symplectic to introduce such improvements. Dealing with legacy data was more time consuming than we anticipated. However, preliminary feedback suggests that academics like the simplicity of the deposit process – though would like it simpler still (e.g. being able to deposit directly from the alert email). We have noticed some unusual author behaviour such as uploading and then deleting files – sometimes more than once. Each action in Elements has a consequence in Eprints - but this is not immediately obvious to the depositor. We need to do more work to understand which aspects of deposit are confusing and what we can do to help. Overall, we’ve had to rethink our service and consider which services we planned to develop will now be provided by Elements. The two systems need to develop in concert so that we continue to build on the strengths of both.Changing environment
The CRIS+Repository model brings together a variety of stakeholders - researchers, research support staff, IT staff, librarians, repository staff, research funders. We all get together in various different forum e.g. the Symplectic conference, the jisc-repositories email list, ARMA etc. – do we have sufficient shared interest around the model to develop a dedicated community? RePosit has created a Google group as a first step.