WRN-EP Team sign off

This is the last official blog post of the WRN-EP Team with the current project coming to an end on 31 March 2011.

We'd like to say many thanks to our project partners for working with us over the last two years. Also, many thanks to our colleagues within the greater repository community for their input and advice in regard to project activities.

Please visit the Welsh Repository Network community within the Aberystwyth University repository CADAIR to view and download the HowTos, learning objects, presentations and report documentation produced over the course of the WRN-EP.

The WRN will continue beyond the life of the WRN-EP in the form of a WHELF sub-group, with partners meeting on a biannual basis to exchange repository news and ideas.

JISC repository project activity is also continuing within the WRN with the AEIOU Wales Project running until 31 July 2011.

Gregynog Repository Stream

The presentations delivered during the Repository Strand at this week's Gregynog Colloquium are now available online on our project website or follow the relevant links below.

The Power of the Mandate Sue Hodges, University of Salford.
Research Publishing at Swansea University Alex Roberts, Swansea University.
Research management system at the University of Glamorgan Leanne Beevers and Neil Williams, University of Glamorgan.
Developing a repository: caring, sharing and living the dream Misha Jepson, Glyndŵr University.
Encouraging author self- deposit at Cardiff University Tracey Andrews and Scott Hill, Cardiff University.
Using statistics as an advocacy tool Nicky Cashman, Aberystwyth University.
Advocacy: the theory Jackie Knowles, WRN.

UKCoRR Meeting- 19th February 2010

Venue: University of Leicester

On Friday 19th I attended the UKCoRR Meeting hosted by the University of Leicester at their VERY impressive David Wilson Library (a clear picture of what can be done if you have £32 million available!). I had been invited by the UKCoRR Committee to speak about the work of the WRN and more specifically about the tools we have created (learning objects) and the services we are looking to offer (NLW e-theses harvesting; events). A copy of the presentation is available from CADAIR.

The meeting itself boasted a full day of presentations from members and also offered a great opportunity for networking with others in the repository community- especially those with hands-on, practical experience of repository issues.

The day opened with a Welcome address from Louise Jones, Director of Library Services who provided highlights of the achievements and future plans for the repository at Leicester:

• mandates for both e-theses and all academic research outputs;
• Research Information Management System bid in conjunction with the University’s Research Office;
• hiring of a Bibliometrician to aid with REF/ research reporting;
• plans for an Open Educational Resources repository- named OTA I think (?).

This was followed by presentations from Jenny Delasalle, UKCoRR Chair and Dr. Nicky Cashman, UKCoRR Secretary (and AU Repository Advisor). Nicky talked about her experiences as a Repository Advisor so far and highlighted the current ‘Opt-in’ repository deposit aspect of AU’s e-theses submission mandate and how this may conflict with EThOS digitisation requests in the future. This prompted a small discussion about how e-theses mandates had been handled in other institutions. At Leicester, permission has to be sought from past students before a thesis is made available to EThOS for digitisation. This is similar to the situation in Southampton where students have had to be contacted through the Alumni Office before their already digitised theses can be made available via the repository. Another institution uses the Freedom of Information Act to fall back on if a previously embargoed thesis is subsequently requested by EThOS for digitisation.

The next presentation came from Nick Sheppard and Wendy Luker at Leeds Met University about their recently completed Bibliosight project. The project was looking at streamlining the method for populating repositories using metadata from WoK’s WSLite API. The code developed by the project is available as a JAR file. A query to WoK will return an xml page of results which can then by converted to xslt where extra fields can then be added. These results can then be deposited into a repository via SWORD. There are highlighted problems with the API however:

• only certain fields within the records are returned, abstracts are not included as WoK are not able to grant a license for their transfer;
• it is not possible to distinguish between the publication type of the items returned;
• a limit of 100 records return per query. If more records are found a second query specifically requesting records 101-x/200 has to be made.

The attempt at a live demonstration on the day also highlighted that IP authentication may prove a problem when using the API. It was unclear whether this was from WoK’s end or something within the developed code. The mechanisms of how to populate a repository with WoK records has been the focus of the Bibliosight project rather than the management issues surrounding it so the copyright implications related to data re-use have yet to be considered. Please see Nick’s blog post about the meeting and to view his presentation.

Gareth Johnson, our host at the University of Leicester, gave a very entertaining presentation about his experiences as University of Leicester Repository Manager; a copy of his presentation is available from SlideShare. An interesting anecdote he raised in his presentation related to commercial bodies’ use of an institution’s repository and its content for vetting researchers. If a commercial body is looking to approach an academic to collaborate with them in a research project the availability of that academic’s full-text gives them an insight into the quality of research being produced by that individual. A useful element to include in any repository advocacy! Gareth has also created a useful commentary of the meeting as it happened available from the UoL Library Blog.

Another useful presentation came from Jane Smith and Peter Millington from Nottingham looking at the additions that have been made to SHERPA RoMEO and its cross-over with SHERPA JULIET. Jane highlighted that although one of the new additions to RoMEO was an ‘Updated on’ field to records they still did not have the capability to display all past versions of a publisher’s open access policy. They do however, store paper copies of each incarnation of a policy they are aware of and copies can be made available on request to romeo@sherpa.ac.uk.

Hopefully all the presentations from the day will be available via the UKCoRR website.

Please see the UKCoRR membership pages for info on how to join.

Digital Preservation Roadshow, Aberystwyth

Last Friday Jackie and I presented at the CyMAL / Society of Archivists Digital Preservation Roadshow held at the National Library of Wales (NLW) . The event was aimed at all practitioners who were involved with the management of digital records, with delegates coming from different organisations within the public sector including Welsh regional archive services, Universities and the NLW.

Our presentation looked jointly at the approaches taken to digital preservation within the repository community and how preservation is being put into action within our e-theses harvesting workpackage, being conducted with the NLW. The presentation that followed ours was delivered by our NLW partner, Glen Robson, who discussed what was going to happen to the harvested e-theses records once they had reached the NLW repository or DAMS (digital asset management system) as they call it.

Other interesting presentations during the day included:

• A forecast of the necessary skills needed by future practitioners to manage and preserve digital records, given by Kirsten Ferguson-Boucher, Records Management Lecturer at the Department of Information Studies, Aberystwyth University.

• An entertaining and engaging presentation on METS and other standards including PREMIS by Lyn Lewis Dafis, Head of Metadata and Digitisation Unit, NLW. Actually making these complicated metadata standards understandable for the non-techies like me!

• An overview of the digital preservation policy planning at Cardiff University by Sarah Phillips, Records Manager.

• Short description of a useful tool to assess file format suitability in terms of preservation developed by the National Library of the Netherlands and utilised by the NLW from Ioan Isaac-Richards.

The Society of Archivists hopes to have the presentations for the day available via the Digital Preservation Roadshows 2009- 10 webpage soon.

Digital Preservation Roadshow: NLW, Friday 22nd January

The Society of Archivists in association with CyMAL are bringing a Digital Preservation Roadshow event to the National Library of Wales (NLW) on Friday 22nd January. This roadshow is one of the last in a series that have been held at various locations around the UK and Ireland. The aims of the events have been 'to raise awareness of the issues surrounding digital preservation, to demonstrate that there are solutions that don't involve spending large amounts of money, and to show how to take the first, small, incremental steps in this field.'

Jackie and I will be giving a presentation at the event regarding repositories and preservation, the WRN project and the e-theses harvesting workpackage. There will also be presentations from NLW staff exploring the strategies they employ to preserve the digital items that the library holds, including a specific presentation from Glen Robson regarding 'Harvesting and DAMS' which is of particular interest in light of the e-theses harvesting workpackage.

Other speakers at the event inlude:

Tim Gollins, National Archives
William Kilbride, Digital Preservation Coalition (DPC) Executive
Sarah Phillips, University Records Manager, Cardiff University

An event programme is available to download from the Digital Preservation Roadshows 2009- 10 webpage.

Attendance at the roadshow is free but numbers are limited. To book a place, fill out the booking form available from the CyMAL event page and send it to cymal@wales.gsi.gov.uk

CADAIR Repository Advisor new UKCoRR Secretary

Congratulations to Dr. Nicky Cashman, CADAIR Repository Advisor, Aberystwyth University, who is the newly appointed Secrteary of UKCoRR, ‘the professional organisation for UK open access repository administrators and managers.’

Speaking about her nomination, Nicky said “I have the enthusiasm to positively promote UKCoRR that stems from a desire to become an integral part of an ever-increasing repository community. I am in contact with several publishers, have a good working relationship with both university management and academic staff and thus have a comprehensive understanding of how present repository issues affect individuals such as ourselves”.

Any individual whose work is directly involved with a repository can become a member of UKCoRR and it is a really good forum to obtain advice and good practice from other repository staff. If you would like to become a member of UKCoRR, please visit http://www.ukcorr.org/membership/index.php and follow the instructions on the page.

Statistics

Do you want to demonstrate the importance of your repository?
Do you want to demonstrate the global impact of the content you are collecting?
Do you want to know who is visiting your repository, where they come from and how they find you?

Statistics can help!

Collecting and analysing usage statistics can greatly help institutions demonstrate the world-wide impact of their repository and can help justify the input of effort required to gather that ever elusive content! Nicky Cashman, Repository Advisor at Aberystwyth University, has recently used the reporting tools in Google Analytics to create a usage report for AU's institutional repository Cadair.


Screen shot of Cadair statistical report

The report contains a selection of the 'big picture' repository statistics alongside name checks for the top downloads and contributors, and a selection of postive feedback and comments from repository users. The format is brief but it gets across the key messages in an eye catching way, especially with the use of colourful graphs and charts. Nicky will be producing these reports on a regular basis and is planning to use them in various forums where the repository is under discussion, including meetings with senior managers and decision makers. A copy of Nicky's full statistical report is available in the WRN document store on our web site. If any partners want more information about using and exploiting statistics, or want assistance getting Google Analytics up and running on their repository, please just email WRN the team.

Finally, it seems appropriate to add to this post the results of the recent WRN statistical census that we undertook. Between July and October 2009 we have seen just over a 12% growth in the number of items contained within the Welsh repositories. A table showing individual growth rates across this first reporting period appears below.



Fingers crossed we can build on these figures over the coming months.