JISC

Start date: 1 August 2002

End date: 31 January 2005

Funding programme: Focus on Access to Institutional Resources (FAIR) programme

Project website: http://tardis.eprints.org/

JISC theme(s): Information environment

Introduction

The cautious success of discipline based archives built on the principle of self archiving has indicated the need for a complementary approach – institutional based e-Print archives. The role of institutional e-Print archives in developing new systems of scholarly communication is currently a high profile subject of active debate.  The development of OAI metadata harvesting specifications has created a technological environment in which interoperability standards are facilitating new ways of disseminating content, and thereby the visibility and availability of scholarly communication. A key example of this development is the CogPrints project at Southampton University.   The TARDIS Project will build on the experience and expertise gained from the JISC/eLib-funded discipline based CogPrints archive, and the generic public eprints.org software product, which is freely available for installation by users worldwide.  We will also build on the experiences of the MALIBU Project  in understanding the metadata requirements of service providers for such open archives. 

The project will develop a multidisciplinary institutional e-Print archive and assess and evaluate the activity within a library-led infrastructure. The role of institutions, particularly University libraries as part of internal partnership consortia with academic and technical support staff, is recognised as a major component of any strategy.  Libraries have a key role as information brokers, acting as the interface between internal and external information resources and contributing towards the design and dissemination of initiatives through integrated subject and institutional portals. 

The e-Print archives can become a significant building block in the development of an information landscape which can integrate seamlessly the searching of relevant resources through the DNER/IE and other resources relevant to the hybrid library of the future, particularly indicated by the RSLG concept of a ‘National Electronic Library’.   

Through parallel projects within the JISC FAIR programme and activity within the Open Archive Initiative and the Open Archive Forum we will participate in an interactive knowledge sharing environment.

Aims and Objectives

TARDIS  will investigate and report on strategies to overcome the technical, cultural and academic barriers, which currently restrict the development and particularly the acquisition of content of institutional e-Print archives   It will develop a working model of a multidisciplinary institutional archive. The archive will be accessible through the University Library’s Web Portal as part of an integrated institutional and subject-focused information resource. The potential for delivery through an external service provider will also be assessed. 

For a successful e-Print archive, both researchers and content will require supporting infrastructure. It is intended to provide a range of deposit options covering the spectrum  between self and mediated archiving and we will measure this requirement against discipline culture. 

Objectives:

• To assess the key barriers impeding support for the creation of institutional archives for a representative set of subjects across at least four disciplines and to develop an integrated technical and academic strategy to overcome them.
• To provide feedback for the development of the current version of the eprints.org software as a medium for both mediated and self-archiving in the context of a multidisciplinary institutional archive.
• To win commitment from the target academic groups to contributing to a multidisciplinary institutional archive and effect a change in the perception of the value of such archives to the research mission of the University.
• To develop a model for standardised metadata which will facilitate both mediated and self-archiving and promote the integration of e-Print archives into other information resources.
• To explore the value of  partnerships based on shared knowledge and skill between data providers, technical developers and professional support staff, which will facilitate change.

The deliverables will be:

• An assessment of the key barriers within each of the chosen subject areas which impede support for the creation of institutional archives and the definition of strategies to overcome these barriers.
• A working institutional multidisciplinary e-Print archive based on eprint.org software containing a minimum of 2,000 e-Prints. This archive  promoted through the Library Web Portal as both an integrated institutional service and as a subject focused service. It will capture research publications from the entire university; and offer support infrastructure within the three faculties: Arts & Social Sciences, Science/Engineering and Math and Medicine/Biological Sciences.
• Software enhancements which will enable and promote development of institutional e-print archives, including both Library-mediated archiving and self-archiving based on the eprints.org software.
• Investigation of the provision of application tools to aid non technical data providers to install and configure the eprint.org interface. The advantages and options for migrating from public domain to commercial software and for extending functionality to include platforms other than Linux will also be investigated.
• A technical assessment of the issues associated with linking institutional e-print archives to external service providers, including commercial aggregators, based on a template for standardised metadata.
• A technical report outlining the steps needed to establish an institutional e-Print archive.
• A series of dissemination events

Overall Approach

The project will create an e-Print service for the University of Southampton.  Our experience in setting this up enhanced with evidence from other e-Print archive implementers within the JISC cluster but also nationally and internationally will be documented in a series of reports on technical, cultural and organizational issues culminating in an end of project checklist and guidelines on setting up an institutional e-Print archive. An initial exercise will be the environmental assessment within the university concerning present activity and pre-conceptions concerning e-Prints. The deliverable will identify barriers impeding implementation and content gain, including researchers attitudes to deposit  when there is a choice between institutional and discipline based archives.  

For maximum exploitation of our e-Print archives we will set up links with external service providers including academic research projects and commercial aggregators and report on practical issues we encounter and the steps taken to solve them.  

An important  part of the project will include a strong, wide ranging advocacy programme backed by formal support infrastructure where we will be able  to offer several options to university members wishing to deposit records, from allowing researchers to deposit their own records directly (self-archiving) to total support for researchers who wish to supply an electronic version of the paper to the project,  when it  will be deposited by a project member (mediated archiving). We will measure the responses to this range of options against discipline culture. Statistics, problem logs and feedback from all approaches will be collected and analysed and used to report on the effectiveness of each option.  

To ensure that the service adequately addresses the needs and scalability for the whole University Community, we will initially run a pilot service with two departments, and using a variety of methods of feedback , including focus groups and academics acting as part of the project advisory mechanism , we will review and address issues, before launching the service as a university wide offer.  

We have built into the project a work package specifically addressing interoperability particularly in the areas of  metadata, subject terminology and software standards which will involve taking a lead role in discussion and liaison with the world wide e-Print community.  Sustainability of the e-Print archive is already an agreed consequence of this project and the Project Steering Group will be working with senior management to discuss not only migration strategies, but also ways in which the e-Prints archive, with new functionality already proposed under related JISC Projects (e.g., OpCit), could provide a new tool for management information and research assessment.  

We have a responsibility to make information easily available to disabledstudents (Special Educational Needs and Disability Act 2001) and willendeavour to ensure that the service conforms to the W3C Web Content A ccessibility Guidelines 1.0. Whilst this will not always bepossible, for example in the case of files only available in a non-conforming format, we will implement best practice wherever possible.

Project Consortium

The Project is based on an internal consortium and will demonstrate the value of an integrated approach built on a four-way collaboration between:

• University of Southampton Libraries (e-Print archive service provider, project coordinator, researcher and advocacy)
• Southampton University Computing Services (Network and server maintenance)
• The Intelligence, Agents, Multimedia Research Group within the Department of Electronics and Computer Science (Researcher, software developer in eprint.org)
• Academic staff in departments (Content providers and end-user focus groups)

In general the strength of the consortium is derived from the following:

• Expertise covering all the relevant areas of the project
• A broad professional expertise mix of researchers, software development, networking and library services
• A mutual commitment to support each other whenever possible across the whole range of work package activities.