Open source or off-the-shelf? Establishing an institutional repository for a small institution. Mark Sutherland Associate Director, Information Access Services, Bond University Peta Hopkins Information Systems Librarian, Bond University

Bond University A SMALL INSTITUTION  Private independent not-for-profit University  Four faculties : Medicine & Health Sciences, Business, Technology & Sustainable Development, Law, Humanities & Social Sciences  4000 students studied at Bond in 2005  52 higher degree research students in 2005  3 semesters each year  most degrees completed in 2 years

BOND STRATEGIC GOAL To develop knowledge within and outside the University To develop and market Bond’s research profile To foster research relationships with industry and across faculties.

CONSIDERING AN IR EARLY CONSIDERATIONS  Increasing assessment of research quality and impact  University strategic plan  School of Information Technology trial of GNU e- prints.  Emerging digital collections in parallel with research papers DIGITAL COLLECTIONS  Journals published at Bond  Archival collection  Historical photographs  Art works  Electronic theses

WHAT’S ON OFFER EXPLORING OPTIONS  Watching brief on developments in QULOC institutions, via CAUL and ARROW  Several open source installations were watched  ePrints  dSpace  Greenstone PROPRIETARY OPTIONS  Digital content management solutions not specifically designed for IRs including  Digitool (Ex Libris)  Hive (Harvest Road)  The Learning Edge  Digital Commons based on bepress software, marketed specifically for IRs.

MAKE OR BUY OPEN SOURCE OR OFF-THE-SHELF “Software isn’t “free” unless the labor to maintain it is “free”. Maybe you have the in-house expertise to deal with OSS… but even so, it’s still your time and therefore money, and if you don’t you’ll have to buy it.” – Karen Schneider asides.html  IR project had to be absorbed into existing library staffing budget  Technology Services staff fully committed to other projects  Digital Commons enabled the project to go ahead quickly  Hosted solution was attractive

GETTING SUPPORT SHARING THE COST  Costs shared between research office, some faculties and the Library  Joint project with Bond University Research Consultancy Services CREATING BUY-IN  Presentation to staff and researchers on the success of UQ’s repository  Online poll to decide the name of the repository

STRATEGIES POLICY DEVELOPMENT  Initial policy framework based on QUT’s policy, but not immediately submitted to Bond’s Quality Task Force  Emotive issues of copyright and intellectual property were highlighted  Implementation first to provide experience prior to having the policy debated and formally ratified POPULATING  DIFM – Do it for me  Personal Researcher Pages  Targeting key academic staff and researchers

STRATEGIES DIFM Library takes over issues seen as complex including copyright and rights management Paperwork associated with obtaining permissions is handed over to the Library – especially during phase of retro-population Digitisation done by the library assists in achieving more consistent quality Library staff are efficient in tracking down electronic versions of papers. Checking publisher policies is done by the Library CURRENT STATEGY Offer to do the ‘legwork’, but encourage authors to send in papers before they are accepted by publishers Raise awareness about retaining copyright or right to self-archive

STRATEGIES PERSONAL RESEARCHER PAGES  Feature not previously seen in other IR solutions  Individual researcher can showcase their papers in one place, including papers written before their time at Bond  Set up for key staff very early in the hope they would help promote the repository and sell its benefits to researchers on campus  Offer an easy way to provide copies of “off-prints” with the additional benefit of access to a selection of other documents by the same author  Research marketing tool for individuals

STRATEGIES TARGETING KEY PEOPLE  Personal researcher pages encouraged key staff to get involved – especially those with higher research profiles or a keen interest in increasing exposure of their papers  PRP established for members of the Bond University Research Committee  Identified key researchers who were “in the news” SUCCESS OF STRATEGIES  300+ papers archived  Steady stream of requests  Long list of papers with permission requests pending  Academic staff are willing and enthusiastic to get their papers uploaded.

STRATEGIES INTERNAL PROMOTION  Build content to a point where the repository sells itself  Key researchers nurtured as champions and were happy to provide testimonials  New features added  Most popular papers list  Digitised books  Official launch GOING GLOBAL  Registered with repository directories and discovery services  Google is the chief source of referrals

LESSONS UNEXPECTED LESSONS  Initial expectations of an open source solution were overtaken by the attractions of a fully hosted proprietary product  It was anticipated that academic staff and researchers would be trained in self-archiving – but the DIFM model was preferred and worked very well  The decision to allow the policy to evolve, from a basic framework has been effective. First thoughts were to have issues finalised in the early days.  Soft approach to promotion has been very effective

FINALLY Choosing a fully hosted proprietary solution resulted in a relatively painless and remarkably successful implementation. Achievements to date would not have been as significant if an open source solution had been selected. REPOSITORY PROJECT BLOG