Case history from the managers of an established repository, to be collected by the conference for sharing among the community of repository managers

Dawson, A.

Slevin, Alan

English

University of Strathclyde Institutional Repository

Strathprints Institutional RepositoryDawson, A. and Slevin, Alan (2008) Repository case history: University of Strathclyde Strathprints.In: Open Repositories Conference 2008, 2008-04-01 - 2008-04-04, Southampton, UK.Strathprints is designed to allow users to access the research output of the University of Strathclyde.Copyright c© and Moral Rights for the papers on this site are retained by the individual authorsand/or other copyright owners. You may not engage in further distribution of the material for anyprofitmaking activities or any commercial gain. You may freely distribute both the url (http://strathprints.strath.ac.uk/) and the content of this paper for research or study, educational, ornot-for-profit purposes without prior permission or charge.Any correspondence concerning this service should be sent to Strathprints administrator:mailto:strathprints@strath.ac.ukhttp://strathprints.strath.ac.uk/  Dawson, A. and Slevin, Alan (2008) Repository case history: University of Strathclyde Strathprints. In: Open Repositories Conference 2008, 1-4 Apr 2008, Southampton, UK. (Submitted)   http://strathprints.strath.ac.uk/5790/   This is an author produced version of a paper published in Open Repositories Conference 2008, 1-4 Apr 2008, Southampton, UK. (Submitted).    Strathprints is designed to allow users to access the research output of the University of Strathclyde. Copyright © and Moral Rights for the papers on this site are retained by the individual authors and/or other copyright owners. You may not engage in further distribution of the material for any profitmaking activities or any commercial gain. You may freely distribute both the url (http://strathprints.strath.ac.uk) and the content of this paper for research or study, educational, or not-for-profit purposes without prior permission or charge. You may freely distribute the url (http://strathprints.strath.ac.uk) of the Strathprints website.  Any correspondence concerning this service should be sent to The Strathprints Administrator: eprints@cis.strath.ac.uk  Repository Case HistoryUniversity of Strathclyde StrathprintsAlan Dawson, Centre for Digital Library Research, University ofStrathclydeand Alan Slevin, Andersonian Library, University of Strathclydealan.dawson@strath.ac.uk28 February 2008Organisational contextThe University of Strathclyde is a large, well-established university located inGlasgow, Scotland, with about 20000 students (full-time equivalent) and theusual mix of teaching and research. It is probably best known and strongest inbusiness and engineering.The repository's missionStrathprints is an institutional eprint repository for making research papers andother scholarly publications widely available on the Internet.Building a business caseThe repository is not a business and its purpose is not to make money. Theimplicit plan was to keep costs low but make the repository valuable andeffective quickly by adding a large body of content and demonstratingsubstantial usage ('if we build it, they will come'). The only additional cost tothe University to date has been one full-time member of staff and one standardPC with 120Gb disk space (the server). The ideal is that the repository is viewedas a showcase for the University's research output and an important element inits overall objective of being a centre for research excellence.Hosting and supportHardware, operating system and backups are managed by the system supportteam of the Department of Computer and Information Sciences (CIS). It is aminor matter for them as they run several similar servers and the support loadis minimal. Eprints and usage statistics software have been installed, configuredand managed by the Centre for Digital Library Research (CDLR), which worksclosely with CIS and the University Library. One key issue here is that staff havedirect access to configure eprints and underlying systems if necessary (thoughthis is rarely required), as the hosting is local rather than with an externalgroup.Overview of current contentsStrathprints had 4746 records as at 27 Feb 2008, most of which describepublished research papers: 3522 articles, 472 book chapters, 395 conferenceitems, 177 monographs, 141 books, 12 theses, 9 patents and 18 other items.1012 records (21.3%) currently have a full-text document available; 3734 haveonly metadata. Efforts are being made to increase this ratio. Most documentsare in PDF, with only a few in Word or HTML. There are currently a further 156records in the submission buffer and 145 in the deletion table.Overview of current deposit activityRepository Case History: University of Strathclyde Strathprints, 28 Feb... http://strathprints.strath.ac.uk/5790/1/strathprints005790.htm1 of 5 02/03/2009 14:50There are 202 registered users, of which 44 have either deposited an item orhave had ownership of a previously deposited item assigned to them. Mostrecords are uploaded to the submission buffer in batches by the Strathprintsadministrator in CDLR, using the import_eprints program. Correspondingdepartment and LCC subject codes are also entered in batches, directly into therelevant tables of the MySQL database. The XML files required for import intoeprints are generated automatically from an Access database, which in turn isused to import and augment records from departmental databases. Each recordin the submission buffer is checked, edited and completed by library staffbefore being added to the live repository.Title, author(s), type and year fields are regarded as essential for all items. Formost records, the following fields are also required: title of journal, book,conference or equivalent (in which the item will appear), the journal volumeand number, where applicable, and an official URL, which is regarded asespecially useful where the full text is not held in Strathprints. An abstract andfull text are regarded as highly desirable; locating and adding them is animportant task for cataloguing staff. The University department (of the firstauthor) and the subject classification (LCC) are mandatory and are added duringbulk upload or by cataloguing staff. Other fields that are standard in Eprints areadded if the metadata is readily available (page numbers, ISSN etc) but areregarded as less useful. Uncontrolled keywords are often added but theirquality and value is questionable.Developmental phasesApproval to proceed with an official institutional repository was given by theUniversity's Head of Information Resources (Professor Derek Law) in May 2005.The task was assigned to an existing part-time member of CDLR staff (AlanDawson). University approval was given for a two-year post of InstitutionalRepository Coordinator. A server was purchased and installed in June 2005,Eprints was installed and configured, and the first (genuine) record wassubmitted by a member of CDLR staff in July 2005. A small informal steeringgroup of five people was convened in September and the first meeting held. Therepository was open for registration, usage and harvesting in October 2005, withno publicity other than word of mouth. The Institutional Repository Coordinator(Alan Slevin) began work in November 2005, based in the University Library. Asecond steering group meeting was held, a service name chosen and a basicinclusive collection policy agreed. A development archive (Strathdev) wascreated in March 2006 (using the same installation of Eprints), to run alongsidethe main archive and enable testing of new interface designs, bulk imports andconfiguration changes such as the departmental browse interface. Strathdevwas very useful initially but is only used now for testing occasional configurationchanges.Institutional embeddingSupport and enthusiasm from a senior member of staff (Derek Law) has beenimportant. Appointment of a full-time Institutional Repository Coordinator wasa crucial step. When the initial two years expired in November 2007, this postwas converted to a continuing one. By the time the first article aboutStrathprints appeared in the internal University newsletter, the repositoryalready had 1000 records, and an award was given by the Principal to thedepositor of the 1000th item. Presentations have been given to Library staff toensure that Strathprints is viewed as an increasingly important new collectionalongside other information resources, and the prominence of links toStrathprints on the Library and University websites has been enhanced to reflectthis.Faculty engagementThere was little or no general publicity for the first year of operation, but the IRcoordinator contacted faculties and departments individually as part of hisadvocacy role. This encouraged several departments to supply documents,Repository Case History: University of Strathclyde Strathprints, 28 Feb... http://strathprints.strath.ac.uk/5790/1/strathprints005790.htm2 of 5 02/03/2009 14:50spreadsheets and databases of publications, though the metadata in these waspatchy and never included abstracts or full text, so each one required metadatacleaning and enhancement. The departmental browse structure (added inSeptember 2006) also helped, as it displays the numbers of records belonging toeach department. The inclusion of Strathprints records in Google Scholar hasbeen useful.Although the IR was not used to host the RAE collection, Library staff haveworked closely with the RAE team to ensure the metadata was accurate. Thishad the bonus of ensuring access to the RAE metadata. General awareness ofthe download statistics in Strathprints and speculation over the new metricssystem to replace the RAE has also resulted in more formal contacts beingestablished with some departments, including Mechanical Engineering, Physicsand Photonics. Departmental research managers have made more formalarrangements to transfer their metadata and author final drafts to the IRcoordinator on a regular basis. This is an encouraging development although thedeposit process is still mediated.Policy formulationAll deposits are added to the submission buffer, and only cataloguing staff maymove them to the main archive, after they have checked each record and URL,added abstracts and other missing fields, and tried to obtain the full text(usually the author's final draft). This policy has been in place since day one andthere are no plans to change it. Most other policies have been reactive, i.e. wedecided to just go ahead and deal with issues as they arise rather than spendtime worrying about potential problems in advance. For example, cover sheetsfor full-text PDF documents were added after about a year of service operation.These show the university affiliation and logo, copyright statement and usagepolicy. The metadata, data, content, submission and preservation policies wereadapted from available Eprints templates, and a Strathprints Notice andTakedown Policy has been developed.We have kept user registration open to all, and occasionally get rogue usersregistering (e.g. one recently with username 'Free Porn') which are simplydeleted. We have recently changed selected user profiles so that they can edittheir own records after submission, once we had found out how to do this inEprints.Service sustainabilityCosts are kept low. Hardware cost �600, software is free. Only one member ofstaff works full-time on Strathprints; support and cataloguing staff fit inStrathprints work along with other duties. Periodic link-checking andde-duplication takes place, and several duplicate records have been deleted.Support from the Eprints team has been occasional but very useful, either viathe mailing list archive or responses to direct email enquiries. The IRCoordinator attended the Eprints training course in February 2006. Migration toEprints 3 is regarded as a significant step and a commitment to continued usageof Eprints, at least in the short term. This is expected to take several days workand is planned for the first half of 2008.Measuring and demonstrating successInterest from academic departments has grown steadily over two years, partlystimulated by the RAE. Usage statistics have been very important indemonstrating substantial and increasing usage of Strathprints. The Eprintstatspackage was installed in September 2006 and has worked very well, failing justonce in 18 months. In the first half of 2007 there were over 182,000 abstractaccesses and 28,200 downloads, an increase of over 500% on the same period in2006. The statistical package has been an important tool in advertising therepository, particularly in demonstrating to academics the increased downloadswhere full-text access to author final drafts are available.Repository Case History: University of Strathclyde Strathprints, 28 Feb... http://strathprints.strath.ac.uk/5790/1/strathprints005790.htm3 of 5 02/03/2009 14:50Key challenges facedAt an early stage we tested uploading records in bulk from departmentaldatabases, as it seemed unlikely that reliance on individual voluntary depositswould be productive. This required a little development work, e.g. an Accessmodule to convert a single field of multiple authors into separate author names,and to separate forenames and surnames, as required for importing into Eprints.Another module was written to generate files in Eprints XML format fromAccess. This process has worked very well, but metadata quality andconsistency in departmental databases remains a significant issue. Invalid XMLcharacters, such as smart quotes and long dashes, have been a minor butpersistent nuisance.As with most IRs working with no deposit mandate, the process of ensuring thatfull-text author final drafts are available in the repository has been difficult.The familiar problems of making some academics comfortable with the issuessurrounding open access and copyright have been evident. The reluctance tochange working practices is not unexpected but still a significant factor.Major achievementsSignificant number of records and amount of usage. Fifth largest UK universityrepository just two years after starting up. Increasing interest from departmentsas usage and awareness has grown. Continuing repository coordinator post.Regular OAI harvesting by aggregators such as OAIster.Important unresolved issuesMetadata workflow: There are various departmental and RAE databasesas well as Strathprints, but as yet there is no single master database orstrategic view of how best to manage records of publications, at anindividual, departmental, faculty or institutional level. There is no doubtthat the publication metadata held in Strathprints is far more completeand accurate than that held elsewhere in the University, but it is notcurrently a master publication database.Mediation: Cataloguer support can be difficult to estimate as it dependson the workload of staff who have been trained in tagging Eprints.Intermittent tagging by some cataloguers can also have a negative effecton the consistency and accuracy of the metadata. We hope to addressthese problems in the future, possibly by deploying clerical staff to workmore closely on maintenance of the repository.Full text documents: Efforts are being made to increase the proportionof full text, e.g. via faculty contacts and by emailing authorsindividually.Unique item identifiers: The default Eprints numbering system is usedto identify records. This works well but is dependent on the software, sothe URLs would change if different software were used. Identifiers indepartmental databases are now added to Strathprints (a new field wasadded to Eprints for that purpose), which helps identify duplicatesbefore and after uploading, but these are not unique or robust. AUniversity-wide scheme for item identification would be useful but isdifficult to specify and implement.Author identifiers: There is no option to browse by author and nosystem for uniquely identifying authors. There are plans to develop anauthority file for author names, with Eprints 3 functionality in mind.Subjects: Subject browsing works well in some areas but is shallow (onlythe top levels of LCC are used), so becomes less useful as more recordsare added. Additional LCC subjects have been added in selected subjectareas with large numbers of records, e.g. physics and some socialsciences.Repository Case History: University of Strathclyde Strathprints, 28 Feb... http://strathprints.strath.ac.uk/5790/1/strathprints005790.htm4 of 5 02/03/2009 14:50Theses: There is currently discussion about how to handle theses, e.g.whether to join Ethos, about print and/or digital submission, how toenforce a deposit mandate, and whether to use Eprints or differentsoftware.Advocacy: With no institutional mandate for deposit in Strathprints,current advocacy efforts may only take the service so far in terms offull-text deposit of author final drafts. Therefore, certain departmentswhere a good relationship has been developed, or who have a particularinterest or expertise in developing departmental digital libraries, maycontinue to be the most enthusiastic contributors to the repository.Integration with departmental websites: This is starting to become anissue as some departments are generating websites and lists ofpublications from the university content management system, which isquite separate from Strathprints. This relates to wider University policyon a post-RAE integrated research information system.Interoperability with the University VLE: This is not an issue as yet butmay become one in future.ConclusionsIt is not a bad idea to dive in and get on with it as long as there is someinstitutional support and initial costs are low. Eprints is ideal for this as it isfreely available, relatively easy to install, reliable and highly configurable. It ispossible to get a functioning repository up and running in a couple of weeks.The ability to interrogate (and occasionally update) the underlying MySQLdatabase directly has been very useful, e.g. in extracting the figures for thisreport.strathprints.strath.ac.ukRepository Case History: University of Strathclyde Strathprints, 28 Feb... http://strathprints.strath.ac.uk/5790/1/strathprints005790.htm5 of 5 02/03/2009 14:50

Repository case history: University of Strathclyde Strathprints

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Repository case history: University of Strathclyde Strathprints

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University of Strathclyde Institutional Repository

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