Repositories 'vital to UK economy', delegates hear

A major conference on digital repositories took place this week in <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 /?>Manchester, attracting nearly 200 delegates from around the UK.

The conference began on Tuesday with an overview from Rachel Bruce, Jisc programme director, who explained that although the conference marked the end of Jisc’s Digital Repositories programme, this in now way meant the end of Jisc’s work and investment in this area. The conference, she continued, showcasing as it did the many strands of work which sprang from the highly successful two-year programme, was an important signal that the opposite was in fact the case and that the programme had given significant impetus to repository development in the UK, including new strands of Jisc-funded activity. 

The vision for repositories

Andy Powell of the Eduserv Foundation gave the first keynote presentation on the ‘Repositories Roadmap’, a vision and forward plan for the establishment and development of repositories in the UK covering the period 2006 to 2010. He said that the report originally suggested that the main challenges were in the areas of policy. However, he continued, “getting the technology right can have a huge impact on policy, culture and working practices.” Therefore, he suggested to delegates, this may be the area that could best repay close attention. 'The conference is an important signal that the Jisc Digital Repositories programme has given significant impetus to repository development in the UK'

The vision for 2010 refers to the wish that a “high percentage of newly published scholarly outputs [be] made on available on terms of open access” and speaks of “a growing recognition of the benefits of making academic content more available”.  The question now, as far as these goals are concerned, said Andy Powell, is increasingly “not if, but when…”  The situation now might therefore require us to set a more ambitious target than that of a “high percentage”, he said.

Is the vision still right? he asked, suggesting that, broadly speaking, it was but that recent developments in the use of the Web meant that its role as a means of discovery and access needed to be emphasised more. For the user, he continued, a repository is a web site; furthermore, conceptualising repositories as websites forces us to “think about their usability, their information architectures and their accessibility.”  

Repositories in learning and teaching

Running throughout the conference were seven strands, one of which dealt with the application of repositories to learning and teaching contexts. Andrew Rothery of the DRAW project (Developing Repositories in Worcester), began this strand’s activities by suggesting that there was a greater diversity of practice in learning and teaching as far as the development and use of repositories is concerned. His project, he reported, is building integrated repositories services in Worcester, which include learning and teaching resources as well as research outputs, papers and other publications. A research repository was set up in March of this year, he said, with “early adopters eagerly submitting their resources… in contrast with the slow response of deposits to the learning and teaching repository.”

Howard Noble spoke about the ASK project at the University of Oxford and echoed Andy Powell’s words that repository developers have a lot to learn from the success and po'the Depot marks an “important milestone” in the development of a national infrastructure for repositories'pularity of new social and interactive – or ‘Web 2.0’ - technologies. There is still a role, however, for institutions in terms of integrating their own services with more traditional services. An important question for all delegates was: How are these newer interactive applications shaping the mental models and user expectations of institutional systems?  

Steve Loddington from Loughborough University reported on the Jisc-funded Rights and Rewards in Blended Institutional Repositories, which is primarily focussed on teaching outputs but which, he said, include research outputs. Their repository brings together e-prints, a virtual learning environment, a publications database, image bank and reading list system, brought together by a variety of methods but with one common point of entry. The Loughborough repository looks to structure itself around the needs of users rather than content, he reported, mixing formal and informal systems, and had an emphasis on sharing not only content but also expertise.

Jackie Carter of Jorum, a Jisc-funded national repository for online learning and teaching resources, spoke about the challenges of encouraging practitioners and others to contribute their resources rather than simply use them. She reported that 312 institutions had signed up to use the service and 72 signed up to contribute resources, suggesting, she said, that there was a growing demand for facilities that allow the sharing and re-use of online teaching resources.

A session on the issue of advocacy as far self-archiving was concerned was addressed by Francis Shipsey of the VERSIONS project at the London School of Economics. The project is looking at researchers’ attitudes towards the question of making available different versions of papers in repositories. Bill Hubbard spoke about the ROMEO project which provides a searchable database allowing authors and others to discover the archiving rights and copyright agreements of publications. In the developing world of repositories there are interlocking rules, practices and so on which, said Bill Hubbard, the database needed to incorporate. There were plans therefore, he reported, for further developments to the database which would reflect the evolving requirements of users.

The Depot – an “important milestone”

Dr Keith Jeffrey of the Science and Technology Facilities Council gave the second keynote address. The benefits of open access repositories, he claimed, include faster “research turnaround”, improved quality for the originators of research as colleagues were able review the research more easily, as well as improved quality for the community in general. They also support innovation, he continued, improve education and public engagement with science and research and enhance an institution’s standing. 

In conclusion he said that the development of repositories and the wider access to research outputs they enabled should not be delayed by commercial interests.

Dr Jeffrey then launched the Depot, a national repository open to all UK authors to submit their research papers and other outputs into. Claiming that the Depot marked an “important milestone” in the development of a national infrastructure for repositories, Dr Jeffrey explained that the Depot constituted a national facility or set of services, including a reception service which redirects authors to an institutional repository where one exists, as well as ingest, storage, transfer and access services for the depositing of research outputs, principally post-prints. 

Repositories ‘vital to the UK economy’

The second day of the conference began with a keynote presentation by Professor Drummond Bone, Vice Chancellor of the University of Liverpool and President of Universities'Like Jisc, Universities UK believed furthermore that the benefits of repositories included improved efficiency of research processes, greater cooperation, improved learning and teaching, a commitment both to preservation and to wider access.' UK who began by saying that Universities UK was “firmly behind” Jisc’s approach to the development of open access repositories, suggesting that repositories were “vital to universities’ economies and to the UK economy as a whole.” 

Like Jisc, he continued, Universities UK believed furthermore that the benefits of repositories included improved efficiency of research processes, greater cooperation, improved learning and teaching, a commitment both to preservation and to wider access. The development of repositories should, however, be led by the needs of users rather than technicians, he said, and required partnerships between IT services, libraries, academic departments, senior managers and others.

After further presentations and discussions within the various strands of the conference, delegates gathered for the final plenary session. Neil Jacobs, programme manager of the Jisc Digital Repositories programme called for a “nuanced approach” to the question of open access, suggesting that in the areas of data and theses, embargoes or access restrictions might continue to be needed. He outlined how the programme’s projects were addressing the key concerns of delegates as expressed over the two-day conference, including reward structures, professional development and legal issues. 

Fred Friend, Jisc Scholarly Communications consultant, said that great progress had been made in the last five years, claiming that “the world is changing fast and we are moving with the tide.”  Jisc programme director Rachel Bruce concurred, suggesting that while the conference had brought a number of issues to the fore, such as the need to engage researchers more directly, the conference would be remembered as providing evidence of considerable momentum in the development of institutional repositories.

Further details of the conference, including presentations, will be available shortly.