Eprints and institutional repositories: a beginners guide

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Eprints and institutional repositories a
beginners guide
Morag Mackie Project Manager Advocacy (DAEDALUS)
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Outline

• Terminology and definitions
• Repositories subject and institutional
• Content types
• Open Access/OAI
• Evolution of repositories
• How do institutional repositories work?
• Self-archiving and other models

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Terminology

• Institutional repositories
• Subject repositories
• Eprints archives
• Eprints/pre-prints/post-prints
• Self-archiving
• Open access
• OAI

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Institutional Repositories

• Definitions
• Freely accessible web-based databases providing
  access to the full text of scholarly material
  produced by members of an institution.
• Digital collections that capture and preserve
  the intellectual output of university
  communities.

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Institutional Repositories

• Online resources
• Institutionally defined
• Provide free access to content
• Searchable by global harvesters
• Use open source, OAI-compliant software such as
  DSpace, ePrints, Fedora etc.

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Glasgow ePrints
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Subject Repositories

• Perform a similar role to institutional
  repositories, but for a subject area (e.g. arXiv,
  CogPrints)
• Longer established than institutional
  repositories
• Originally set up to provide speedy access to new
  research
• Submissions tend to be un-refereed

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ERPAePRINTS
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Eprints archives

• Term archive often used synonymously with
  repository
• Could refer to either a subject repository or an
  institutional repository

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Content pre-prints, post-prints, eprints

• Terms refer to some of the content types likely
  to be deposited in repositories
• Pre-prints and post-prints used in relation
  to journal articles
• Many repositories now adding additional content
  types, e.g. theses, images, data sets etc.
• Some confusion over the use of these terms

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Pre-prints

• Traditionally used to refer to material that has
  either not yet been submitted to a journal or
  that has been submitted but not yet
  peer-reviewed.
• Not all disciplines have a pre-print tradition
• Subject repositories often based on offering
  access to the pre-print version of articles

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Post-prints

• Generally used to refer to the final referred
  version of a paper that has been accepted for
  publication
• Not entirely clear whether term refers to copy of
  paper as appears in the journal or final version
  of the text minus publisher formatting

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Eprints

• Could be thought of as an umbrella term for
  pre-prints and post-prints can be published or
  unpublished
• Key features are that works are in electronic
  format and are available in a repository
• ePrints is also the name of a piece of repository
  software

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Self-archiving

• Process whereby authors deposit their own content
  in repositories
• Self deposit also used to describe this
  activity
• Involves completing metadata fields and attaching
  an electronic copy of the full text

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Open Access Movement

• Idea that scholarly literature should be freely
  available to all
• Worldwide movement
• Encompasses open access journals as well as
  repositories
• Not the same as the Open Archives Initiative
  (OAI)

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Budapest Open Access Initiative

• world-wide electronic distribution of the
  peer-reviewed journal literature and completely
  free and unrestricted access to it by all
  scientists, scholars, teachers, students, and
  other curious minds. Removing access barriers to
  this literature will accelerate research, enrich
  education, share the learning of the rich with
  the poor and the poor with the rich, make this
  literature as useful as it can be, and lay the
  foundation for uniting humanity in a common
  intellectual conversation and quest for
  knowledge.
• Budapest Open Access Initiative, 14 February 2002

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OAI

• The Open Archives Initiative develops and
  promotes interoperability standards that aim to
  facilitate the efficient dissemination of
  content. The Open Archives Initiative has its
  roots in an effort to enhance access to e-print
  archives as a means of increasing the
  availability of scholarly communication.
• Open Archives Initiative Frequently Asked
  Questions

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OAI-PMH

• Concerned with standards and interoperability
• OAI Protocol for Metadata Harvesting (OAI-PMH)
• Simple generic protocol to harvest structured
  data
• Enables repositories to be searched worldwide by
  harvesters such as OAIster

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Evolution of repositories

• Demand for quicker access to scholarly material
• Serials/Scholarly Communications crisis
• Rising costs of journal prices
• Open Archives Initiative
• OAI-PMH
• Open Access movement
• Budapest Open Access Initiative
• Berlin Declaration
• Availability of repository software
• DSpace, EPrints etc.

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Why develop repositories?

• Material in repositories will be more visible and
  have greater impact
• Provide wider access to the research literature
  (reciprocal effect)
• Means of managing collectively the research
  produced by an institution
• May have a positive impact on serials crisis (in
  conjunction with open access journals)

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How do institutional repositories work?

• Repository software is installed (possibly
  customised)
• Content is added metadata and full text
• May be added by academics or by staff managing
  the repository
• Repository is registered with OAI harvesters such
  as OAIster
• Many policy decisions need to be made

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Self-archiving and other models

• Open access movement initially predicated on
  self-archiving model
• Repository software set up to facilitate
  self-archiving
• However, many repositories are beginning to adopt
  a model whereby repository staff add content on
  behalf of academics

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Beware!

• Useful to understand background and terminology
• However beware easy to get caught up in this
  when explaining the issues to people
• When persuading people to deposit content you may
  find it easier to explain the benefits and
  practicalities in simple terms

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Background Reading

• Raym Crow (2002) The case for institutional
  repositories a SPARC position paper
  http//www.arl.org/sparc/IR/ir.html
• Peter Suber (2003) Removing the barriers to
  institutional repositories an introduction to
  open access for librarians http//www.earlham.edu
  /peters/writing/acrl.htm
• Les Carr (2004) OSI EPrints handbook
  http//software.eprints.org/handbook/

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DAEDALUS
DAEDALUS Freeing Research at the University of
Glasgow
http//www.gla.ac.uk/daedalus