Scientific research is one of the main institutional tasks of any Italian university.
Accounting and reporting on research results for evaluation purposes is a necessary but timeconsuming effort for researchers and administration offices. All data and output that are created
from a plethora of different research activities need to be collected, turn them into a consistent format and make them available in a continuous stream. Moreover, wide publication and dissemination of results is requested for every research project and is fundamental for research careers and funding.
SUR+ (SURPLUS) is an integrated system for research management that aims to control several workflows related to research activities and their results in the academic environment. It enhances the internal and external visibility of research activities, and provides real-time monitoring tools, reporting and exporting facilities.
SUR+ is formed from several interoperable application modules, that can be adopted separately. This presentation will deal with the OA (Open Archive) module, a repository that collects, describes, indexes, and distributes the intellectual output of institutional research activities. Based on the open-source software application DSpace, designed and developed by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Hewlett-Packard labs, SUR+ OA is a userfriendly tool that can be accessed by any researcher belonging to the institution to submit his/her own publications. Simple metadata are compiled by the submitter and checked/completed by a librarian. Publication details can be reused in different applications, from the SUR+ WF module for project management to the "Professor site" of the Ministry, from the personal web page of the researcher to any bibliographical list.
The use of standards formats and protocols such as Dublin Core, XML, OAI-PMH, ensures compliancy with the architectures of the Open Archives Initiative and the broadest dissemination of open-access scholarly literature for higher institutional visibility and the public benefit
