Using a hosted solution to develop an institutional repository: a case study report Christine Daoutis Surrey Scholarship OnLine 27 March 2008

In the beginning… Surrey Scholarship OnLine (SSOL) was developed as part of a feasibility project (December 2004 to December 2005). The pilot project looked at: Publication, self-archiving and publication recording practices around the University. Authors’ and senior management’s views on open access Feasibility of developing an open access repository of staff’s publications, within a specified budget and resources, and with respect to research cultures around the University.

SSOL: the project. Step 1: academics’ views Discussions with academics (one-to-one interviews, group meetings and targeted s). Review of personal and departmental websites. Author survey, sent to 850 members of staff. Covered questions on open access, perceived benefits and common concerns, existing self-archiving practices, and views on content, metadata, copyright management and other issues. Presentations to senior management and research committees

 Less than 2% of Surrey staff self-archived full text systematically.  Tendency to self-archive greater in Electronics, Mathematics and Physics; non-existent in Arts & Humanities.  Publications lists/databases not comprehensive. Responses from 5 out of 8 Schools. ‘Early adopters’ from 4 Schools. Main survey findings (N= 84). OA benefits (increased visibility and impact) more important than management benefits Concerns with quality control ad copyright. Peer-reviewed papers should be included (opinion split on other materials). Peer-review flag essential. Submitting papers should not take much of authors’ time. Other issues identified (structure and functional features of repository). This helped us plan our repository platform. SSOL: the project. Step 1: academics’ views - outcomes

SSOL: the project. Step 2: Choosing a repository platform Requirements for a pilot repository. Quick setup Prompt and easy technical support Good value for money – transparent costs Meets authors’ requirements: clear submission form, workflow support, metadata management, copyright management, supports various formats, peer-review flag, search features, download statistics.

SSOL: the project. Step 2: Choosing a repository platform Review of open-source software, especially E-Prints and Dspace (also Fedora, Archimede etc.). BOAI document very useful. Review of commercial (hosted) platform (Digital Commons). ProQuest suitable for pilot repository No in-house IT work; set-up and running in 2 weeks. Reasonably priced – allowed transparency of expenses (5 K for first year subscription, 12 K afterwards). Subscription included set-up, customisation and ongoing support. Content hosted and preserved by ProQuest (now Be-Press). Basic functionality & structure suited our requirements and our authors’ needs

SSOL: the project. Step 3: Populating the repository Hosted repository allowed us to focus on advocacy, policies/mandates and metadata/copyright management. BUT…  Populating repositories is the biggest challenge, no matter how well set-up the platform is. The main problem is the reluctance of authors to keep and use their own versions.

SSOL: the project. Outcomes – end of project year. A working repository with around 240 full-text, peer- reviewed papers, contributed by early adopters from 5 Schools. A final report evaluating the repository and offering recommendations on technical, legal, administrative and policy issues. Two workflow models piloted and evaluated. A University self-archiving policy in support of open access to peer-reviewed research. RCUK and Wellcome Trust position statements of great help.

Evaluation of SSOL feasibility study: was a hosted solution the right choice? For repository managers with little technical support and no programming expertise, a hosted solution speeds up set-up and customisation. Also ensures interoperability/searchability. Hosted platform, transparent costs – but important to look carefully into what the service offers. Good for pilot repository: demonstrator for academics, allows testing of workflow, allows to study user requirements and make recommendations. Frees time for advocacy, repository population and policy development.

Evaluation of SSOL feasibility study: was a hosted solution the right choice?  Less flexibility when technical support is not in-house, particularly when remote.  Most repositories in the UK run on E-Prints (or D-space); lack of user groups and technical and financial support.  Good for pilot repository; but would it cope supporting SSOL as a proper service? Depends on what we want the repository for (good for OA to PDFs, but what about large files, multimedia, databases?). Also probably not a sophisticated management tool (e.g. to support the REF).  Preservation.

Evaluation of Digital Commons Look & feel is satisfactory OAI-compliant Supports many formats Peer review flag / search by peer- reviewed is possible Choice of different workflows, allowing flexible management Online submission form easy to use Extra metadata fields can be added easily (DOI, link to publisher etc.) System hardly ever down Reasonably good download statistics Option of journal workflow But customisation somewhat inflexible But multimedia? More flexibility needed for admin side A manual or more comprehensive training needed Authorisation/authentication should be more sophisticated Support satisfactory, but remote But need more detailed download reports.

SSOL Year 2: from pilot to service. A. SSOL in a nutshell. Online collection of scholarly papers produced by Surrey authors. Free access to content. Contains the full text of published peer-reviewed journal articles and conference papers (but may contain other items, too). Content easily found, even if one does not know about Scholarship OnLine (e.g. content accessed via keyword or author search in Google Scholar).

SSOL Year 2: from pilot to service. B. Advocacy: main points to get across. Authors do not get maximum visibility and impact of their research. Researchers do not always get immediate access to others’ research. Authors send each other copies of their papers both before and after they are published. Some also keep papers in their personal or departmental websites. University online archives help authors do this in a more organised manner, for better visibility of their research. Most major publishers allow authors’ versions to be included.

SSOL Year 2: from pilot to service. B. Advocacy: and more points to get across… Easy to browse, search and submit papers, through simple online form. Usually contains Author’s own version of accepted paper (peer-reviewed) plus Link to published PDF Complements the current publishing system, to lift barriers to access and ensure that research ideas and findings are widely read, used, cited and applied. Download statistics a very powerful advocacy tool, to demonstrate visibility and wide popularity of papers. Advocacy through launch event, newsletters, presentations and targeted s.

SSOL Year 2: from pilot to service. C. Mandates. Research committee meetings to refine University policy: - What should be submitted? What is compulsory? - Workflow: who gathers and submits the papers? Who keeps lists of submitted papers? Who manages metadata and copyright? - Relationship between publication databases and SSOL. Two out of four Faculties have mandates in place; the remaining two under discussion.  More work needed to implement these mandates. Authors need to keep and use author-prepared versions. Need to embed this practice within current research/publication practices.

Submitting a paper A Acceptable* version of paper (preferably PDF)  IO Authors’ names, title, publication date, citation details, abstract.  SSOL checks above, checks copyright.  SSOL adds link to journal site, copyright information, and DOI  Paper is online * Complies with publishers’ terms, and with Faculty content policies.

Copyright A GREEN policy allows self-archiving of post-prints (e.g. Elsevier, CUP, Springer, Wiley, Emerald). Around 65% of the publishers listed on the Romeo site. Other publishers (~ 8%) only allow publication after an embargo period of 6-24 months (Blackwell, OUP, Taylor & Francis, the Nature Publishing Group) 27% of the publishers do NOT allow self-archiving, but many are reviewing their policies to accommodate recent announcements from funding organisations.

SSOL in year 2: outcomes 542 papers to date (full-text) from all 4 Faculties, but mainly from Electronics and Physics (because: they publish more; they are more aware of self-archiving; can use IEEE and APS publishers’ versions). Around 600 papers cued to be uploaded – support with batch upload needed.  More recent papers needed; wider range of papers needed; author active involvement essential. Mandates waiting to be implemented. Workflow models being tested. We remain an OA, full-text repository, rather than a publications database.

SSOL in year 2: is a hosted repository helpful? Our goals focus on advocacy, OA support, copyright management and policy development. A hosted repository takes over many practical/technical aspects.  BUT: many features need improvement; these may not be a priority of the service provider, or they may take time to change. We need regularly to review the software to see whether our repository service is well supported.  More support from user groups and more visibility of what we do is essential. If you have or are considering a hosted solution, please get in touch!