1. RADAR and Annual Research Plans
Nicola Siminson and Dawn Pike
EPrints UK User Group meeting,
Friday 13th May 2016
NICOLA
Introduce ourselves
RADAR’s administrators are once again based in the GSA’s Research Office – started here, then based within Learning Resources in the interim: January 2014 – October/November 2015
RADAR has recently been customised to house and provide GSA’s researchers with access to an Annual Research Plan (ARP) template, so we’re going to speak for 15 minutes about:
Quick introduction to / demo. of RADAR
Background to the introduction of Annual Research Plans at GSA (or “ARPs” as they have become known as!)
Building the ARPs into RADAR
Specification and development process
Promoting the ARPs
Lessons learned
Positive outcomes
Conclusion
Time at the end for questions and comments!
Whilst this session will hopefully be of interest to yourselves as EPrints repository administrators, managers and developers, it is also about researcher workflows (and research management) in a wider sense, and institutional processes around research planning - and about cultural change.

2. Introduction to RADAR
I am going to provide a quick introduction to our repository, RADAR, which is a digital archive of research and enterprise output produced by GSA staff and postgraduate students.
RADAR stands for Research Art Design Architecture Repository
RADAR is a publicly accessible open repository, with contents made available to download wherever possible.
The original purpose of RADAR was to provide GSA’s research staff with anytime, anywhere access to an online system they could use to record their research (utilising their usual log-in details). RADAR’s predecessor was a Filemaker database that required individual licences and was only available on campus to a selection of research staff.
Now that all GSA staff can access it and are engaged with and using RADAR as part of their existing research workflows it made sense to place the ARPs in RADAR and prevent staff from having to learn how to use yet another system.
Demo Home page briefly?
importance for GSA of showcasing outputs visually, as seen in the image carousel – which is also used by other “KULTUR”-ized EPrints repositories – (KULTUR was a project to make repositories more suited to art and design institutions)
RADAR has also been customised to fit in with the GSA website template…which can cause some trouble!
RADAR has a wide range of output types (ranging from articles – artefacts); see e.g. - Ross Sinclair, “Real Life Painting Sculpture, 1983 – 2014” or …

3. Background
The need for the Annual Research Plan (ARP) arose in part from the outcome of the REF 2014 assessment.
GSA was placed 5th out of 84 for Art and Design in UK
However, GSA facing reduced research income due to changes at Scottish Funding Council(SFC)
ARPs should enable research time to be allocated and a research mentoring scheme to begin with a view to maximising number of high quality submissions to REF
Excellent opportunity to embed RADAR in researcher workflows.
NICOLA
The need for the GSA to introduce an Annual Research Plan (ARP) arose in part from the outcome of the REF 2014 assessment.
Whilst the REF 2014 resulted in the GSA having the best research power in Scotland for Art and Design, and being placed fifth out of 84 for Art and Design in the UK, subsequent changes at Scottish Funding Council level to the calculation of institutional research grants left the GSA facing a reduced research income, and the need to strengthen its researchers’ capacity (both by way of time, as well as increased quality), in preparation for the next REF exercise.
Whilst the GSA has had an activity planning (AP) model for some time, this model has now been enhanced by the introduction of peer-reviewed ARPs. The wider Activity Plan aims to achieve an appropriate balance of teaching, research, consultancy, scholarly activity, and personal development and other possible activities within the duties of an academic; and the ARP will enable research time to be allocated, including a new scheme for research mentoring, with a view to maximising the number of high quality submissions to REF 2020.
Back in April 2015, the GSA’s Head of Research (who has been closely involved in the development and implementation of RADAR) identified the repository as a potential location for the research planning element of AP, given both RADAR’s key role in supporting the GSA’s REF 2014 submission, and its ongoing use by researchers. The RADAR team also recognized the opportunity to further embed RADAR in researchers’ workflows, balancing its value as a support mechanism to promote researchers and their work, with its deployment as part of an institutional research planning initiative.

4. Specification
In September 2015 Eprints was commissioned to build the ARP template in RADAR based on a Microsoft Word document.
ARP should only be accessible in RADAR by researcher
ARPs must link with MEPrints to enable profile information to be pulled through to the ARP.
Archiving solutions required
Must have the facility for repository administrators to access and export a separate PDF copy of each ARP for the peer reviewers on a set date.
NICOLA
In September 2015, EPrints Services were commissioned to build the ARP template into RADAR, based on a Microsoft Word document which had been created by the GSA as part of the annual planning process.
The annual research plans that staff are creating and storing in RADAR are not to be made openly available; one particular aspect of the specification was that the ARP must only be accessible by a researcher themselves within RADAR (rather than attempting to provide access rights for members of the ARP peer review group), with the facility for RADAR administrators to access and export a separate PDF copy of each ARP for the reviewers on a set date.
The ability to provide researchers with access to their archived ARPs was a further requirement in the specification, as was a link with MEPrints to enable profile information to be pulled through to the ARP.

5. Development Process MePrints versus separate ARP template.
Iterative testing via a test server.
Snagging list
ARP demo
NICOLA
In April 2015, the RADAR team were already liaising with EPrints about having the MePrints plugin installed, to extend RADAR’s researcher profiles through the provision of “homepages”; RADAR was also due its first major upgrade since going live several years earlier.
Didn’t you mention Nicola that there was discussion of having ARP as part of MEPrints. I have this in my notes to go into the slides?
In December 2015, EPrints were able to make the ARP available to the RADAR team via a test server, and a period of iterative testing ensued, with adjustments and errors being identified, issues being resolved, and everything being documented in a “snagging list” comprising text, screenshots and their URLs. Issues with characters versus word limits arose.
The ARP went live in RADAR in January 2016, and is now being used to record details of research outputs, planned outputs, impact and five year plans, for example.
demo ARP template for 3 minutes or so?
©Donna Yates CC-BY-NC-SA

6. The “snagging list”

7. Promoting the ARPs Produced a step by step guide
Arranged workshops (both tailored and generic), one to ones, enabled us to promote ARPs and discuss other RADAR issues with researchers.
Linked in with existing channels to promote ARP – e.g. SKI Tuesday, Departmental meetings, …
RADAR team being flexible = good outcome.
DAWN
To promote and provide guidance on the ARPs the RADAR team created a walk-through guide.
We also ran tailored workshops aimed at particular schools and more generic ones where anyone could attend. We also made sure we were available for one to one sessions with those who could not attend arranged events. We were very flexible in our approach to promoting the ARPs which led to a good number of completed plans by the end of March.
As part of our promotion strategy we also linked in with existing channels to reach as many people as possible, for eg. we attended departmental meetings where we gave brief demo on the ARP in RADAR and ran a special SKI Tuesday event a few weeks before the ARP deadline.
SKI Tuesday = Sharing Knowledge and Insights
SKI Tuesday is a series of research events organised by Research and Doctoral Studies aimed at helping colleagues across GSA to Share Knowledge and Insight through regular presentation, discussion and celebration of research ideas, skills, approaches, tips and insights.
A benefit of the promotion of the Annual Research Plan being in RADAR was that the RADAR team had an excellent opportunity to interact with researchers. The ARP training sessions had a good attendance (especially as the deadline for completion approached, unsurprisingly!), which enabled us to also promote RADAR and Open Access, encourage them to keep their outputs and profile information up to date, and to address any concerns with using the repository. It has also been important to emphasise the availability of on-going support for researchers, both from the RADAR team itself, as well as the wider Research and Doctoral Studies department, during this period of change.

8. Lessons learned User testing required.
Visual presentation of exported ARPs
MePrints link to ARP confusing for researchers.
‘Submit’ button required.
We are all “learning by doing”!
DAWN
Throughout the process of promoting the ARPs and then being completed by researchers we have got a lot of useful feedback and learned a few lessons.
Ideally, user testing would have taken place with researchers prior to the ARP template going live in RADAR. However, time pressures on getting the ARP ready in good time for researchers to access and complete their plans meant avoiding any delays, given the strong need for acceptance and take-up by researchers.
The ARP template was being developed at the same time that the wider process was still going through approval at the GSA. Once staff started using ARP template more intensively it led to issues that hadn't been spotted arising which did result in final tweaks being needed – but could this have been done differently?! As we’ve never done it before we don’t know what issues will arise!
We have realised from comments and feedback on the exported ARP format that art and design practitioners care about the document’s visual presentation. The PDF of the ARP we exported from RADAR was a functional document and not visually impressive. It also took us a lot of time to format the exported ARP to ensure all information was presented in a clear manner, this is an area that will need work on before the next round of ARPs.
However – from an ARP reviewer’s point of view: “it was definitely good to have a shared format and [to have] them in RADAR ” – so it does seemed to be working well it just needs a bit of polish!
The MePrints link to the ARP was designed to enable profile information to be pulled through to the first section of the ARP. However this caused confusion for researchers. Led to Q’s like ‘If they updated profile would it change ARP?’ ‘Will ARP populate MePrints profile?’ also worries about having certain sensitive/confidential info appear in public profile.
Lack of a submit button for researcher to click when they completed their ARP led to them being unsure we could see it, no firm sense of completion. RADAR administrators were given the functionality of being able to see any ARP that had been started in RADAR, but no differentiation between ‘in process’ and ‘complete’ . This meant that we were not sure if some were still being worked on and created need to run daily reports on ARP numbers to spot new plans and ing researchers to confirm completion. Created extra effort.
The take home lesson is that We are all “learning by doing”!
The process has been a steep learning curve and the devices and approaches of the process for can be reviewed and tweaked in advance of the next cycle. The GSA’s Activity Planning Working Group will be collating feedback on the wider AP model throughout its first year; but the initial implementation of the ARP in RADAR has provided the GSA with a functioning tool that supports staff and the institution in their wider activity planning efforts.

9. Positive outcomes “RADAR is for life, not just for REF”!
RADAR proving its worth to colleagues as well as researchers.
Meeting people face to face
ARPs served as a reminder to researchers to keep their outputs up to date.
Spike in deposits – April 2016 has 4 times as many deposits compared to April 2015.
Spike in downloads - ?!
DAWN
There of course some positives to come out of the annual research plan process:
“RADAR is for life, not just for REF”!
This process has made it clear to researcher’s that RADAR is not just a REF tool. RADAR originally was introduced around the last REF which has caused staff to view RADAR as a ‘REF tool’. It is also proving its worth to colleagues as well as researchers who are also seeing other potential uses for RADAR.
Its also enabled us to meet many people face to face and for researchers to become aware of who the RADAR team are and what we can do to support them and where to find us!
ARPs have served as a reminder to researchers to keep their outputs up to date which has led to a large spike in deposits of research outputs over the last 3 months.
Eg. April 2016 has 4 times as many deposits compared to April 2015.
Spike in downloads - ?!
We have also seen a large spike in downloads but we’re not sure if we can definitely say this is due to the increased deposits.
Show charts….

10. DAWN
Visualisation of our spike in deposits, compared with the same period last year.

11. Spike in downloads?
April: circa 7,500 downloads compared to March at 2,200.
IRUS puts the figure at 6,931

12. Conclusion ARP process (and first iteration) almost complete
no small degree of cultural change for the GSA and its researchers!
New role (and development opportunity) for RADAR and its staff; new way of supporting individuals, enhancing processes, and contributing to institutional goals
ARP has turned out to be an opportunity to take wider repository development and user engagement forward
RADAR is now further embedded with researchers, and in the institutional infrastructure
NICOLA
Re. “ARP process (and first iteration) almost complete”
associated policy and guidance documents have made their way through the GSA’s committee structures, concluding with the GSA’s Academic Council in March
As of , 150 ARPs have been created; a potential 180 ARPs could have been submitted – so a hit rate of 83%!
ARPs are currently being (blind) peer-reviewed
Individual s to staff from HoR giving feedback by end May 2016 (“enhanced time”; “normative time”; “no time”)
From OR16 paper – Background:
The implementation of AP, and the use of ARPs, represents no small degree of cultural change for the GSA and its researchers!
Re. “New role (and development opportunity) for RADAR staff”
The specification, oversight of the development, and subsequent management of the ARP in RADAR represent new roles and responsibilities (as well as a development opportunity) for RADAR’s administrators
From OR16 paper – Conclusion:
“Sometimes events have to be recognized as opportunities, and seized if possible, in order to take wider repository development and user engagement forward, and to reiterate the value of the institution’s investment in its IR. The introduction of Annual Research Plans (ARP) at the GSA was one such opportunity for RADAR; and whilst it could have been argued that the (unexpected) need to investigate options would be a distraction from the rest of the RADAR Roadmap, and could cause delays to other scheduled activities, the benefits of rising to the challenge (and successfully demonstrating a new use for the GSA’s repository) have outweighed any disadvantages.
RADAR is now further embedded in the institutional infrastructure and enterprise of contemporary research.”
So if the original question could have been phrased as: “How might you utilize a research outputs repository to support wider institutional change? How can you develop a research planning tool that is embedded in researchers’ existing workflows, and support them in engaging with this change?” – then we think this has been achieved!
Hopefully we have highlighted a different role that a repository and its staff can play in supporting individuals, enhancing processes, and contributing to institutional goals…