Key Documents and Reports for the Repositories and Preservation Programme
A number of studies and reports have been produced that guide the work of this Programme.
Digital Repositories Roadmap: Looking Forward
JISC has funded a Digital Repositories Roadmap document to present a vision for 2010. This has been undertaken by Rachel Heery from UKOLN and Andy Powell from the Eduserv Foundation. This is a discussion document that provides context for project and programme work and it will serve to show progress as the programme develops.
The vision is one where there is a rich scholarly communications and learning environment that is supported by an extensive network of repositories, where content is widely available and re-used. The repositories will allow sharing, collaboration, a record of activity and so on and will be enhanced by value added services that support manipulation, interlinking and personalisation among other things. The Digital Repositories Roadmap concludes that it is cultural and policy issues that lie at the heart of achieving success for a digital repository network for learning and research. It will therefore be important for rights issues, policy, training and advocacy to form part of the programme. The Roadmap uses a broader definition of a repository than that outlined in the call. This broader definition is helpful in thinking about the purpose of a repository and it comes from Cliff Lynch, Director of the Coalition of Networked Information:
“…a university–based institutional repository is a set of services that a university offers to the members of its community for the management and dissemination of digital materials created by the institution and its community members. It is most essentially an organisational commitment to the stewardship of these digital materials, including long-term preservation where appropriate, as well as organisation and access or distribution. …an institutional repository is not simply a fixed set of software and hardware.” Lynch,C.,ARL Bimonthly report 226.
Prior to the Digital Repositories programme that JISC funded in 2005 JISC funded a short digital repositories review to set out the issues. This was an overview of the terrain at that point in time and it set out issues and challenges and parameters.
Linking UK Repositories
JISC commissioned Chris Awre, University of Hull and Alma Swan, Key Perspectives Ltd to undertake a five-month scoping study to identify sustainable technical and organisational models to support user-oriented services across digital repositories. The study investigated four aspects: User requirements Roles and responsibilities Technical architecture Business models A key output from the study was a description of the range of services and functionality that would be required around repositories to facilitate their linkage and support user-oriented services. It is available to download on two parts: Linking UK repositories main report and an Appendix. This scoping work will help inform this programme
Information Environment Shared Infrastructure Requirements Synthesis
JISC commissioned UKOLN to undertake a Shared Infrastructure Services requirements synthesis to support taking forward machine-to-machine (M2M) shared infrastructure within the IE. The objectives of the report were:
- to inform development of M2M shared infrastructure for resource discovery, repositories and preservation;
- to synthesise the outcomes of effort so far, from JISC activities and the wider context and to include the international and commercial context
- to help stakeholders understand the need for this M2M shared infrastructure
- to help JISC identify and mitigate risks to development in this area
- to inform planning and commissioning for capital funding, most significantly the September Call for Shared Infrastructure Services
- to provide a report that transforms the study findings into a series of direction-setting recommendations.
State-of-the-art Review of Terminology Services and Technology
JISC commissioned UKOLN and the University of Glamorgan undertake work on a State-of-the-art Review of Terminology Services and Technology. The review is intended to inform the JISC on how to move forward with terminology services, building on progress in the HILT project and geoXwalk project, and the outcome of the JISC Terminology Services Workshop of February 2004 . The review’s aims were to: identify problem areas where terminology support could be useful; set out a typology of vocabularies and review existing vocabularies, identifying gaps in vocabulary provision and pointing to best practice in vocabulary construction; consider applications of name authority and disambiguation services, and folksonomies and social tagging.