The IRIScotland Project

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The IRIScotland Project

Philip Hunter Project Manager philip.hunter_at_ed.ac.
uk
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The IRIScotland Project
Stands for 'Institutional Repository
Infrastructure for Scotland'

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The IRIScotland Project

• was originally proposed by the Scottish
  Confederation of University and Research
  Libraries (SCURL), the National Library of
  Scotland and the two major public reference
  libraries in Glasgow and Edinburgh.
• IRIScotland was conceived as a means to provide
  the organisational and technological framework
  for a Scotland-wide institutional repository
  infrastructure for research.

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The IRIScotland Project

• seeks to bring about cultural and organisational
  changes by developing, in close co-operation with
  researchers and senior administrators,
  institutional policies, procedures and workflows
  conducive to open access publishing and
  self-archiving with a view to encouraging the
  rapid population of institutional repositories

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The IRIScotland Project

• seeks to achieve, across all the workpackages, a
  greater understanding of what is best done at
  institutional, regional, or national level, and
  within the context of relevant international
  developments

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The IRIScotland Project

• is building a pilot repository hosting service
  to make it possible for Scottish institutions
  that may not wish to set up their own
  repositories to increase the visibility of their
  research output
• The hosting service may be developed beyond the
  life of the project by the NLS
• A transitional hosting repository?

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The IRIScotland Project

• Is also implementing a harvester-based pilot
  cross-repository search and browse service to
  enhance exposure of the Scottish research output
  as a whole a framework applicable to any
  regional or subject groupings that might become
  building blocks for a UK-wide digital repository
  infrastructure

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What have we done so far?

• Produced two development documents (October 2005
  January 2006)
• Created a website and a project wiki
• Experimented with two repository softwares
  (DSpace and Fedora)
• Produced a Position Paper on the relative merits
  of DSpace and Fedora for a pilot hosting
  repository service (26 April 2006)
• Built a test repository of metadata records
  (twice), covering the whole of the Scottish
  research output available for harvesting

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What have we done so far?

• Established a good working relationship with
  SCURL and Universities-Scotland
• Conducted a successful nationwide survey of
  awareness of and attitudes to institutional
  repositories (15th March 25th April 2006)
• We are developing a metadata format for a
  nationwide network of repositories (workpackage
  5 CDLR)
• Informally surveyed materials available in
  Scotland which might better be accessed through a
  Scottish research portal
• Informally surveyed materials of Scottish
  relevance which are available internationally

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What are we doing next?

• We have had discussions with Cambridge Science
  Abstracts on future developments in scientific
  communication, and possible futures for the
  technology
• We are in discussion with Blackwells on the
  possibility of using CrossRef tools for the
  IRIScotland repository
• Publication of an interim survey report
• Development of an interim toolkit on workflows,
  good practice, institutional requirements, and
  cultural change (all project partners)
• Creating the pilot hosting repository (NLS)
• Creating the IRIScotland search and browse
  service (CDLR)
• Focus group discussions, leading to the final
  version of the toolkit, and the refinement of the
  IRIScotland portal
• Workshop dissemination (WWW2006)
• Full publication of survey analysis in OCLC
  Systems and Services, Spring 2007

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The IRIScotland Project

• Is 100 self-archiving immediately reachable?
• The project is employing an empirical, rather
  than an ideological approach

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The Survey

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IRI-Scotland author surveyinstitutions
100
50
0
ECA
GCU
RGU
Anon
Paisley
Abertay
Dundee
Glasgow
Aberdeen
Edinburgh
Strathclyde
St. Andrews
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IRI-Scotland author surveysubject areas
Physical Sciences n32 (7)
Social political studies n23 (5)
Medicine and Health n88 (18)
Anon n46 (10)
Biological Sciences n91 (19)
Maths n28 (6)
Lang. and linguistics n16 (3)
Informatics n15 (3)
History philosophy n 24 (5)
Engineering Technology n47 (10)
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IRI-Scotland author surveyattitudes to OA
repositories
Strongly against n10 (2)
Mildly against n26 (5)
Neutral n59 (12)
Mildly in favour n160 (33)
Strongly in favour n228 (47)
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IRI-Scotland author surveydoes your institution
have a repository?
No n88 (18)
Unsure n 288 (60)
Yes n107 (22)
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IRI-Scotland author survey Do you deposit
publications yourself ('self-archive')?
Yes n29 (24)
No n92 (76)
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The IRIScotland Project

Philip Hunter Project Manager philip.hunter_at_ed.ac.
uk
Charts prepared by Theo Andrew theo.andrew_at_ed.ac.u
k