Scholarly Communication in a Digital World: The Role of an Institutional Repository Beth Forrest Warner Assistant Vice Provost for Information Services (Strategic Initiatives) Richard C. Fyffe Assistant Dean of Libraries for Scholarly Communication University of Kansas Educause Southwest Regional Conference27 February 2004

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Scholarly Communication: What Is It? “The technological and institutional means by which theories, interpretations, and findings are submitted to the scrutiny of disciplinary experts and critiqued, endorsed, disseminated, synthesized, and archived on behalf of a broad community of teachers and learners (novice and advanced, lay and professional).”

Scholarly Communication in a Half-Digital World: the Promise  Most scholarship is created and shared digitally  Many researchers already use the web for sharing part or all of their work  Growing appreciation of scholarship as a public good

Scholarly Communication in a Half- Digital World: Unrealized Potential  Little integration of proliferating array of websites, databases, and journals  The record of most Universities’ research is invisible to the public, including funders  Little standardization of searching, presentation, and content formats  Enduring access (of files and of links) is an unresolved issue

User Interface Bibliographic Database Z39.50 Database Z39.50 Database Scholar’s Personal Website Z39.50 Database Z39.50 Database Electronic Journal Collection Z39.50 Database Z39.50 Database Department Website User Interface Scholar’s Research Data Department Server Scholar’s Research Data Today’s Research Landscape…

Selected KU sites containing research information…

Potential Solutions? providing access to existing networked research material through systems that federate distributed information resources regaining control of scholarly information providing long-term management and increased accessibility and visibility for university research Need mechanisms for…

Potential Solution: Institutional Repositories Digital collections and services that capture and preserve the intellectual output of university communities.

Elements of an Institutional Repository Program: Focus  Academic digital content created at / by the institution  University-wide view of research, creative, and teaching activity

Elements of an Institutional Repository Program:Tools  A centralized set of tools to help faculty and staff disseminate their work by:  posting documents  creating standardized metadata  administering collections

Elements of an Institutional Repository Program: Management  Long-term preservation of content and metadata through  centralized planning and funding  managed storage and migration  persistent object names

Elements of an Institutional Repository Program: Discovery  A metadata system to enable this work to be discovered  Integrated access and retrieval  integration into a local search system via federated search (e.g., ENCompass, MetaLib, etc.) or metadata harvesting  Coordination / integration with other institutional and disciplinary repositories  via federated search or metadata harvesting  repository registration

Potential Issues  Content and metadata standards  Resource naming conventions persistent identifiers  Resource organization  Migration / preservation issues  Long-term resource & access control rights management resource modification, deletion, embargoing  Funding, space, services allocations

Selected Repository Platforms  Eprints: Caltech Collection of Open Digital Archives:  BEPress: eScholarship (California Digital Library):  DSpace: DSpace (MIT):

DSpace: the Concepts Open-source platform, freely available Initially developed by MIT and Hewlett Packard Development now coordinated by the DSpace Federation ( Based on concept of research communities / units with community / unit administration of membership and content

KU ScholarWorks “A repository of scholarship created by faculty and staff at the University of Kansas.” Platform: DSpace Pilot phase started in September

KU ScholarWorks Development: Technical Considerations  Basic background information at  Software Open source - available at Sourceforge UNIX-type OS, such as Linux, HP/UX or Solaris Written in Java Javabeans Activation Framework, Java Servlet, JSP, JavaMail API Built on top of free, open source tools Apache Web server Tomcat Servlet engine Ant PostgreSQL relational database system Handle Server

KU ScholarWorks Development: Technical Considerations  Hardware (at KU) SunFire 280R Server two 900MHz UltraSPARC-III Cu processors 8MB E-cache 2GB memory two 36GB 10,000rpm HH internal FCAL disk drives DVD network connections RAID storage (436-GB, or 12 x 26.4 GB10K RPM disks) Tape backup (general machine room system)

KU ScholarWorks Development: Technical Considerations  Local staffing considerations, skills dependent on level of local modification hardware, O/S support DBA (PostgreSQL) Java, web support local I/A/A integration (LDAP, account management) metadata support  DSpace support community general & technical lists User Group

KU ScholarWorks Development: Working Groups  Collaboration of Library and IT staff: Leadership Group Early Adopters Working Group Policy Working Group Standards Working Group Access & Rights Management Working Group Promotion Working Group Training Working Group System Implementation Team

KU ScholarWorks Development: Working Groups  Early Adopters WG: Membership Library collections officer Library subject specialists (bibliographers) Library technology staff (systems) Information technology staff (user support)

KU ScholarWorks Development: Working Groups  Early Adopters WG: Charge Develop criteria and desiderata for participation as an “ early adopter ” Draft mutual expectations for initial participation Identify a small number of initial contributors to the Repository Work with the Early Adopters to facilitate their use of the pilot system and provide feedback to other working groups.

KU ScholarWorks Development: Working Groups  Policy WG: Membership Chief Information Officer Information technology policy analyst University website manager IT/Library licensing specialist Library collections officer

KU ScholarWorks Development: Working Groups  Policy WG: Develop framework and coordinate feedback with Early Adopters WG: Types of content accepted Acceptable content formats (building on work of the Standards group) Acceptable metadata formats (building on work of the Standards group) Protocols for contributing and approving contributions Content lifecycle (choices on time the content is kept) Intellectual Property Access protocols

KU ScholarWorks Development: Working Groups  Standards WG: Membership Director of Digital Library Initiatives University website administrator Library head of cataloging Library metadata coordinator Information technology web developer

KU ScholarWorks Development: Working Groups  Standards WG: Charge Develop standards for content format and metadata Identify submission workflow issues and procedures as they relate to standards and searching With the Early Adopters Working Group make recommendations regarding the submission interface for DSpace at KU Recommend priorities for implementation

KU ScholarWorks Development: Phase Ø  System Implementation (Summer / Fall 2003) hardware procurement, installation initial software installation O/S, supporting components, DSpace interface / Help modifications system testing administrative functions metadata creation, item submission local training development / testing

KU ScholarWorks Development: Phase 1  Recruitment of Early Adopters for Feedback on Interface and Policy Issues (Fall 2003) 6 teaching faculty in diverse disciplines invited to test and critique conversations with selected faculty, deans, and Research Center directors

KU ScholarWorks Development: Phase 2  Evaluation (January-February 2004) focus group with early adopters on Policy issues interviews with early adopters on basic functionality focus group with grant PI’s on dissemination needs

KU ScholarWorks Development: Phase 3  Issues to Resolve: Policy community-based structure vs. “open deposit” governance and decision-making “controversial” content modification / withdrawal of contributions intellectual property: impact on future publication impact of prior publication on use in the repository funding and cost-allocation

KU ScholarWorks Development: Phase 3  Issues to Resolve: Technical integration with local I/A/A procedures / systems versioning / deletion of contributions modification / updating of metadata representing hierarchy among communities delegating administration to communities integration of resources loading metadata into local systems such as ENCompass availability for OAI harvesting by other systems.

KU ScholarWorks: Lessons Learned  Successful Institutional Repositories will be a partnership of:  Information Technology staff  Library staff  Faculty / Researchers

KU ScholarWorks: Lessons Learned  The key challenges are cultural, not technical scholarly practices differ across disciplines and subdisciplines academic departments are not natural epistemic communities epistemic communities are dynamic while archival systems assume stability

For Further Information  Clifford A. Lynch, “ Institutional Repositories: Essential Infrastructure for Scholarship in the Digital Age, ” ARL Bimonthly Report 226 (February 2003):  A Guide to Institutional Repository Software v 2.0 (Budapest Open Access Initiative):  Richard Fyffe and Beth Forrest Warner, “ Scholarly Communication in a Digital World: The Role of an Institutional Repository ” :