RSP Institutional Repositories Summary Data: An update

In May 2011 the Repositories Support Project (RSP) sent a survey to HEI repository staff to collect information about their repositories, such as the software used, staffing, content, and departmental repository responsibilities.  Each university’s specific information was included in the RSP Wiki for Institutional Repositories, and a summary data page was created. Around November 2001, the survey had 75 responses and from then until March 2013, about twenty more UK universities joined the survey. The updated summary data are now online.

Supporting and enhancing your repository: A joint RepNet/RSP workshop

A joint RepNet/RSP workshop on enhancing Institutional Repositories (IRs) and their metadata sets was held at the BCS in London on January 21st, 2013.  The event provided an overview of the UK RepositoryNet+ Project current status and aims for the future, plus presentations on the just-released draft RIOXX Metadata Application Profile and on the CrossRef set of APIs for enabling automatic metadata collection into IRs. CrossRef ‘DOI Lookup’, and FundRef features will be looked as part of the developing RIOXX application profile guidance.

Building a successful national network: how we did it in the UK and where we’re going

The Repositories Support Project is hosting a workshop on “building a national network” at the Open Repositories 2012 (OR2012) conference, on Monday July 9th, 1:30pm. This workshop will showcase research repositories in UK higher education. It would demonstrate how widespread the network is, how coordinated the UK is as a community, what the Repositories Support Project has done to encourage this, the role of United Kingdom Council of Research Repositories and what JISC has done in terms of a national approach to support and development.

Delegates from outside the UK will have the opportunity to get an in depth understanding of the repository network in the UK and also to talk to repository staff about their experiences.

Workshop outline

•   Introduction by JISC to the programmes which have supported repository development over the last seven years and to future plans for repository development and support in the UK – including the UKRepositoryNet+ service.
• Examples of JISC funded Support projects: SHERPA and RSP
• Support for institutions: the University of Glasgow case study
• The role of UKCoRR (United Kingdom Council of Research Repositories)
• There will then be a number of concurrent sessions where UK staff will use their institutions as a case study to engender discussion about what can be achieved. They will focus on two main themes:
  •  The integration of research repositories with university systems, processes and policies especially those connected with research management.
  •  Projects and initiatives to promote the repository within the institution in order to increase the deposit of full text items. This will have multi-disciplinary focus and include arts and humanities content as well as STEM subjects.

Register here. 

Contact: Jackie Wickham [Jacqueline.wickham@nottingham.ac.uk], RSP Coordinator, tel:0115 8466389

Scholarly Communications: New Developments in Open Access

On the first day of June, the Wren room, at the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA), was filled since early in the morning with librarians, repositories specialists, research officers and copyright consultants, who came to attend the Repositories Support Project (RSP) event on scholarly communications and open access.

Photo of the Wren room balcony during the tea/coffee break

During the event, a great number of delegates were active in Tweeting, producing a high traffic, as it is captured in David Clay’s story. All eight presentations explored issues related to scholarly communication and open access and demonstrated innovative projects and ways of disseminating research results.

For those who were not able to attend, all presentations were videotaped and can be viewed online. In addition, two excellent blog posts, one from Stuart Lawson and another one from Neil Steward provide more details about the speakers’ points. For a quick look on the event details and the recorded presentations you can also check our storify story.

Japan and UK in agreement

In January, I wrote a post about my visit to the Digital Repository Federation in Japan. We wanted to formally mark the visit as the beginning of an ongoing relationship for our mutual benefit. So we agreed to sign a Memorandum of Understanding – we also invited UKCoRR (United Kingdom Council of Research Repositories) to be a partner.

The Memorandum includes a commitment to

• sharing experience and expertise
• inviting and possibly sponsoring representatives from partners to participate in RSP and DRF events
• joint efforts to seek funding and/or support

It is intended that forms the basis for future cooperation. The RSP and the DRF have submitted a joint poster proposal to Open Repositories 2012 about the visit and the memorandum.

New RSP Team member

This month, Nancy Pontika (on the right) joined the team. Nancy has a thorough background in Open Access information, having worked as an Assistant Editor and Project Manager with the Open Access Directory. Nancy has taught on courses for information professionals, as well as providing workshops and one-to-one consultancy services. Nancy recently gained a PhD in Information Science with a specialism in Open Access and the effects of public access policies, from Simmons College, Boston MA.

The rest of the team from left to right are: Laurian Williamson, Open Access Adviser with responsibility for the JISC Repositories Take Up and Embedding Projects; Jackie Wickham, RSP Project Coordinator and Bill Hubbard, RSP Project Director.

RSP support is available for all HEIs in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. Consultancy visits are available to institutions with long-standing repositories as well as to those institutions in the start-up phase through our programme of repository health-checks. Please contact support@rsp.ac.uk or 0845 257 6860 for more information.

New RSP Web Site Launched

The RSP is proud to announce the launch of its new web site featuring a cleaner design and navigation structure. The aim is to make it easier than ever to find the information you need from RSP and to get in touch with us if you would like more direct help with any repository related issues.