This document presents the final results of the phase two summative evaluation of the
UKDA-StORe project’s portal repository system. After the completion of the regular
funding phase of StORe under the JISC Digital Repositories programme in 2007 the
project was granted an extension until mid-2008 to further refine the portal under the
name UKDA-StORe. For the regular project a phase one summative evaluation
assessed “the technical structure, functionality, design and quality of the demonstrator
system, and the appropriateness of the ‘common model’ approach, using workshops to
test the system with representative repository users”. It was agreed to conduct a
phase two summative evaluation to further assess the development of UKDA-StORe
and to complement the findings of the first evaluation phase.
The phase two summative evaluation is based on a series of five expert user
interviews to evaluate the StORe system in use. In the phase one evaluation it is
stated, that “it is probable that a second complementary evaluation phase will be
conducted in the future also based on the approach introduced here”. This endeavour
could be realised in general, but under other specifications: As the UKDA-StORe
extension did not consist of a user base for the evaluator to draw on the approach had
to be modified – from user evaluation workshops to qualitative evaluation interviews
with domain experts – with the task to evaluate the system in regard to barriers and
facilitators to use and usability issues unchanged
