UC Research Repository: Two years on

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UC Research Repository Two years on

• June 2009

Grant Barrie Institutional Repository Coordinator
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What do we have?

• Repository software
• DSpace 1.5.2 (as of 23 June 2009)
• Upgraded from 1.4.2
• Import/export
• Imports data through UCs Research Database
• Integrated with academic web profiles (links in
  dynamic bibliographies)
• Scope
• We collect both scholarly output and theses
• We are also considering collecting postgraduate
  research reports, where the standard and subject
  matter are appropriate

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Who are we?

• Function and dedicated role based in the Library
  IT department
• 0.5 FTE dedicated to the IR
• Support, including regular tasks conducted by
  Application Support Librarian
• In-house developer support
• Collections Services staff (6 hours per week)
• Information Librarians publicising Repository as
  part of normal outreach activities

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How are we doing?

• Growth Rates
• Growth has been solid, with an average of 20-30
  new items a week, evenly split between theses and
  academic outputs
• Usage Rates
• Usage figures are also growing in a nice, even
  manner. We are not filtering the source of hits,
  so a proportion of hits and downloads are
  attributable to spiders and bots but even
  accounting for these hits, the overall result is
  very pleasing

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ROAR (useful when its working)

• Good pattern of growth, with a couple of spikes
  relating to the influx of theses from our other
  digital storehouse

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Top work

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Current challenges

• Being an integrated service means youre reliant
  on others
• Researcher Profile pages have not been
  universally adopted by the departments
  opportunities lost
• UI for the PBRF reporting tool is creaky but
  out of our control
• Piggy-backing on top of Information Services
  means waiting in a queue of competing priorities
• Complications due to dealing with two sources of
  data
• Academics add research via the PBRF tool
• Theses are added via a web-form

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current challenges

• Maintaining momentum
• The Repository still isnt ingrained in
  academics minds as a part of the publishing
  cycle, despite strong growth
• Large areas of the Campus still not contributing
• Stiff competition from discipline-based
  repositories

• But
• There are opportunities in areas with a stake in
  increasing their research profile
• Research specialists bought in for PBRF advice
  provide another channel for marketing the
  Repository service

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Coming up

• DSpace upgrade
• Thesis workflow project
• The current method of processing theses is
  awkward and inefficient when seen as a whole
  (from Registry to Library and including the
  Research Office)
• A multi-team approach
• Since we have a high level of reliance on the
  Research Innovation team, its well worth
  making an investment in keeping them happy
• Statistics project, revisited
• Aiming to make our statistics service more
  intuitive and accessible
• Include links to stats in the DSpace UI?
• Bringing in the authors of theses
• Developing our collection policies
• At the moment our scope if fairly narrow, and
  tied to PBRF eligible outputs but this only
  captures part of the total research conducted by
  the University
• Campus-only accessible materials (e.g. Management
  of Engineering reports)