Supporting Research Dissemination

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Supporting Research Dissemination

• John MacCollEuropean Director, RLG Partnership
• James ToonERIS Project ManagerEdinburgh
  University LibraryRLG Partnership Annual
  Meeting, Chicago, June 2010

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Context
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Minnesota anthropological approach
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Actionable intelligence Assisted thinking

• Analysis and synthesis of the available evidence
  base
• Improved understanding for library management

oclc.org/research/publications/library/2009/2009-0
2.pdf
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Breaking behaviours down by discipline
browsing collecting
re-reading
assembling consulting
note-taking
Adapted from C. Palmer, L. Teffau, C. Pirmann
(2009)
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RIM overlapping environments
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Meeting researchers needs
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RIN
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Ithaka
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UCB
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Our joint project with UK Research Information
Network Support for research workflows
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New elements to our study

• Focus on dissemination excluding traditional
  journal and monograph publishing
• Focus on subject librarians/faculty liaisons
• Focus on repository support for scholarship

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Enhancing Repository Infrastructure in Scotland
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Scotland and Open Access
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Some history Scottish Collaboration in Open
Access

• History of collaborative activity (i.e. SCURL,
  SHEDL, SDLC, IRIScotland, ERIS)
• Open Access as a reaction to the scholarly
  communications crisis
• Open Access meeting 11th October 2004, Royal
  Society of Edinburgh
• Scottish Declaration on Open Access launched at
  that meeting (OATS)
• First joint OA project IRIScotland funded by JISC
  June 2005 and ran until 2008

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Scope, aims and objectives

• Development, assessment and engagement of user
  communities
• Raise issues surrounding the longevity and
  broader value of research output
• Attending to the demand side, technologically
• Strategic recommendations, business planning and
  sustainability

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Scottish toes in the water
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ERIS Use case Research Pooling (1)

• Formed after 2001 Research Assessment Exercise
• Subject to massive investment by Scottish HEI,
  Scottish Funding Council and others
• Demonstrated value following 2008 Research
  Assessment Exercise
• Specific needs for reporting and strategic
  development
• More than 383 million invested to date across13
  initiatives.

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ERIS Use case Research Pooling (2)

• Are research pools representative of specific
  disciplinary needs?
• Assessment of pooling performance indicators
• Identify and understand information drivers
• Review of research pool (meta)data needs plus
  gap analysis against existing repository
  landscape
• Develop virtual repository space to facilitate
  reporting

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A few findings from our work
http//www.flickr.com/photos/adambot/2733161467/
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Levels of engagement

• 69.7 (216) of respondents were aware of the
  existence of a repository
• 44.8 (139) have deposited something in their
  repository, with 80 finding it either very easy,
  or easy to do.

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Levels of engagement

• However on average, only 15 submit to their IR
  as a matter of course as well as to publishers

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Levels of engagement

• Repositories are being used for research, but
  very rarely are they used directly.
• Normally via referral (43 via search engine, and
  16 referral from colleague

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From focus group work (some key points) open
access

• Researchers generally see repositories as being
  there to support their institutions support for
  OA
• Personally they are generally supportive of OA,
  but there are pros and cons and no single
  convincing argument (and dont think their should
  be)
• Researchers have been doing OA if they wanted
  to for years now, by fair means or foul!
• Variation in support across career paths (early
  career to senior academic)
• The drive to OA can be damaging in some cases

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From focus group work (some key points)

• The pressure to publish in recognised journals is
  significant, and is an administrative and career
  need (in the UK at least)
• Must have ability to exercise personal control
  over everything that is in the repository (to
  provide or revoke access at will)
• Repositories dont offer anything that the
  researcher finds sufficiently of value to
  motivate deposit.
• Library providers are disconnected from the
  researchers real needs (as far as researchers are
  concerned)

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Long term availability and reuse of research

• Those responsible for service and support are
  unequipped
• Low awareness of digital curation and
  preservation issues, and little to no practical
  experience
• Policies that do exist are part of corporate
  initiatives and are often box ticking exercises
• Domain specific guidance for preservation and
  curation policy tends to sit outside of the
  institution, indicating issues of leadership and
  direction

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Long term availability and reuse of research

• Those responsible for research are unequipped
• Open access is easy in relation insert your
  term here curation is hard.
• Potentially huge overhead for the researcher
• Services for preservation and curation support
  are generally lacking
• We can't stand on the shoulders of giants if we
  only have access to their knees1
• Growing support for principle of open
  scholarship, but requires change in philosophy,
  not practice.

1. Quote from Vision Learning Blog, may 24th 2010
http//visionlearningcommunity.blogspot.com/2010/0
5/journal-nature-continues-open-access.html 
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Indication of the scale of the issue
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Indication of the scale of the issue
63
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Research pooling

• Not just for assessment, but for effective
  strategic management of research
• Genuine desire for full text and bibliographic
  data for knowledge management (KT really
  important)
• Have strong backing from their members.
  Discipline trumps institution.
• Data must be broader than just IR need to
  include HR, Finance, Knowledge data, Grant data,
  Funder data.
• They know they want data, but they dont know
  what they want or how to define it.

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A few observations (not conclusions)

• Systems and services not based on user needs
• Repository use often by accident
• There is no single approach every
  institution/discipline/researcher is different
• Its all about me, me, me.
• We can often talk in a foreign language
• We can often not talk at all
• Failure to add value has meant that we had to
  resort to mandates/requirements sticks not
  carrots.

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What is the future of the repository?

• As it is are we heading the way of the Dodo?
• Must gain trust of the users
• Two clear paths support for knowledge and
  research, and support for research management
• Institutional repositories are only part of the
  eco-system of systems servicing the research life
  cycle

http//www.flickr.com/photos/44124372821_at_N01/16787
1469
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Work with users to gain trust and define direction

• Stakeholder communities are identifiable and
  similar across Higher Education
• Many varied needs.
• Roles and mission are however not universally
  well defined in context.
• Lack of internal support means they are often
  looking outside their institutions for comfort.
• Stakeholder groups want to collaborate and
  communicate
• Need greater facilitation. Opportunities for
  national networks

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Develop roles and up-skill support services

• All through the ERIS exercise, the need for
  effective research support has been key
• Need to develop specialist roles to support the
  research life cycle
• Take a role in helping researchers with the
  dissemination of knowledge
• Work more closely together with research offices
  as information specialists
• Economies of scale in services need to be
  considered for cost/benefit (unpopular)

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Support the dissemination of knowledge

• Open access is still a goal, but not THE goal
  of repositories. Discuss.
• Open scholarship/knowledge revolves around
  effective curation of data. Discuss.
• The coolest thing to do with your data will be
  thought of by someone else1
• Being linked and being open is important (open
  standards esp.)
• How to engage in an open, social world.
  Participate, collaborate and innovate not
  reinvent the wheel.

1. Attributed to Rufus Pollack, via
http//blogs.talis.com/nodalities/2007/05/xtech_da
y_3_rufus_pollock_and_.php
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Research Information Management Systems
Image reproduced with kind permission of the
Universities of Aberdeen and St Andrews
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Make change to an objective, outcome based
approach.

• Programme of activity to develop enhanced
  capability over time.
• Investment in enabling activities
• Services for researchers
• Services for strategy and management
• Services for service managers

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The study
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Researcher behaviours

• This Working Group will look at the use of
  repositories institutional  and subject  and
  other venues  where attention is focused by
  various communities 
•  It will examine social networking mechanisms for
  dissemination, considering the spectrum of
  community services grouped around research
  activity (including informal community spaces,
  blogs, blog aggregation services, microblogging,
  etc )
•  Faculty participants will also be asked about
  tools and services not currently available that
  they would value, at institutional and at domain
  levels
•  Focus will be on the use of repositories, not
  the deposit process

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Library responses

• How are changing researcher practices being
  monitored by libraries?
• What does the use of these tools and services
  imply for libraries (eg in respect of harvesting,
  curation, bibliometric services and
  preservation)?
• What new services should libraries provide (eg
  bibliometric data reports generated from
  repositories)?
• Is there missing infrastructure that might
  valuably connect discrete data sources to serve
  research bibliographic and data curation needs?
• How do libraries support scholarship rather than
  administration?

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U Minnesota Karen Williams on changing faculty
liaison roles (ARL study) from new Position
Description Framework
Jim Neal Subject Librarian 2.0
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Nil desperandum Hugh Glaser (Computer
Scientist, U Southampton) email to
JISC-REPOSITORIES, 2 June 2010

• the pages the School was offering for me by
  embedding my publication data in the official
  profile pages was far superior to anything I
  could make myself

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U Minnesota Karen Williams on changing faculty
liaison roles (ARL study)
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Process
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RLG-RIM SRD group Plan/Process (1)

• Identify and define scope of stakeholders and how
  are they going to contribute to the project
• Establish contact with contributing group
• Write and agree project definition work
• Arrange telcon to sign off approach with
  stakeholders at end June
• Project Website and social tools to be used for
  user communication and collaboration
• Set up and make available communication routes
• Set up simple communications plan by end June

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RLG-RIM SRD group Plan/Process (2)

• Liaison librarian engagement plan
• Agree data collection method, questions and
  targets for work by end June
• Prepare materials for project participants
• Prepare datasheets, questions, check-sheets etc
  for data collection by mid July
• Compiled, ordered data from sources
• Data returned, sorted and ordered by end August
• Mid August partner telcon to discuss progress and
  push if necessary
• Data analysis
• Review of collated data and order for reporting
  by end Sept

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RLG-RIM SRD group Plan/Process (3)

• A Final report on the RLG/RIM SRD activity for
  publication
• First draft out for review by mid Oct.
• Partner telcon at end Oct to sign off report for
  publication
• Publication due mid November.
• Planning for alternative dissemination routes
• Set activities to promote final report
  (presentations, blog posts) on ongoing basis
• Closure report, identifying follow on actions
  including handover and wind-down activities
• Project wind down and hand over to RLG by end
  November

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• Discussion!
• maccollj_at_oclc.orgjames.toon_at_ed.ac.uk

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Next up

• 400
• Lightning Rounds
• Buckingham