Institutional Repositories: Beware the “Field of Dreams” Fallacy!

1. Institutional Repositories: Beware the “Field of Dreams” Fallacy! An SLA Sci-Tech Contributed Paper by Sara R. Tompson (sarat@usc.edu) Deborah A. Holmes-Wong (dhwong@usc.edu) Janis F. Brown (jbrown@usc.edu) University of Southern California Libraries USC Libraries

2. Outline • Introduction • Information Technology Developments as drivers for IRs • IR Usage Not as Expected • USC’s Institutional Repository Needs Assessment (IRNA) Task Force • Future of IRs • “If you build it…” USC Libraries

3. Introduction • Brown, Janis F., Holmes-Wong, Deborah A. and Tompson, Sara R. “Institutional Repositories: What if We Determined Needs Before We Built It?” Medical Library Association MLA'06 Contributed Paper Session: "Transforming Scholarly Publishing: The Role of Institutional Repositories", Phoenix, AZ, May 2006.http://www.mlanet.org/am/am2006/pdf/2006abstracts.pdf - p. 23 • Holmes-Wong, Deborah A., Brown, Janis F. and Tompson, Sara R. “Contextualizing the Institutional Repository within Faculty Research.” Digital Library Federation (DLF) Spring Forum, Austin, TX, April 2006.http://www.diglib.org/forums/spring2006/presentations/wong.pdf • USC IRB UPIRB #UP-06-00063: Human Subjects Research = Exempt USC Libraries

4. Introduction: Definition … a university-based institutional repository is a set of services that a university offers to the members of its community for the management and dissemination of digital materials created by the institution and its community members. It is most essentially an organizational commitment to the stewardship of these digital materials, including long-term preservation where appropriate, as well as organization and access or distribution.Clifford Lynch, ARL 2003 http://www.arl.org/newsltr/226/ir.html USC Libraries

5. Introduction: IR Purposes • They can bring (back) some local control of scholarly work. This control is ceded to varying or lesser degrees to publishers when subscriptions move to online-only — authoritative versions of articles are not typically retained in accessible format locally, as they are with print journals. • IRs, by grouping much of a university’s intellectual output in one place, facilitate interdisciplinary research connections, statistic-keeping, marketing and other institutional efforts. USC Libraries

6. IT Drivers of IRs • Rise of online journals • Benefits outweigh costs • But, lose local control • Scitech libraries early adopters of ejournals • Early Web, scientists expected ubiquitous open access to scholarly lit – not there yet • More ejournals becoming publications of record • Increasing number and cost of journals AKA “serials crisis” USC Libraries

7. IT Drivers of IRs • Drop in electronic storage costs New citation since paper: “Rich Rashid, the head of Microsoft Research and a former Carnegie Mellon professor, said it’s now possible to buy a terabyte of computer memory for about $700. A terabyte, 1,000 gigabytes, is enough memory to ‘store every conversation you ever have from the time you’re born until you die,’ Dr. Rashid said.” Roth, Mark. “Celebrating 50 years of computing at CMU.” April 23, 2006. http://www.postgazette/com/pg/06113/684425-96.stm USC Libraries

8. IT Drivers of IRs Drop in electronic storage costs also… • Led to development of IR software platforms, e.g.: • Dspace • Documentum • Storage Resource Broker USC Libraries

9. Concept Map for Platforms USC Libraries

10. IR Usage Has not generally proven as high as anticipated in “glory days” of 2003. • DSpace developer MIT and others finding populating of their IRs slow going; have had to increase marketing efforts and/or library involvement in the IR ingest processes. Chronicle of Higher Ed., 06/25/04. • “The authors did not anticipate the amount of work involved in marketing the IR and persuading faculty to use it and to deposit materials in it.” Rochester Inst. Tech. in RSR 33:3. USC Libraries

11. USC’s IRNA Task Force Inspiration: Nancy Foster and Susan Gibbons’ D-Lib article: “Without content [created by faculty], an IR is just a set of ‘empty shelves’.” Foster, N. F. and Gibbons, S. “Understanding Faculty to Improve Content Recruitment for Institutional Repositories.” D-Lib Magazine 11:1 (January 2005). USC Libraries

12. USC’s IRNA Task Force Goals • Better understanding of how faculty disseminate research • Determine faculty receptiveness to an institutional repository • Develop use cases • Gather high level requirements • Determine features for first phase USC Libraries

13. USC’s IRNA Task Force 3-pronged approach: • Literature Review • Interviews • Focus Groups (on use cases derived from interviews) USC Libraries

14. IR Usage: Rationale for Needs Assessment Approach • Published literature on faculty needs scarce • Most assessments written post-implementation • Focus on recruitment & training • Published requirements often gathered indirectly (faculty Web sites, directories, deconstructing existing systems) • Published requirements seem based on library needs not faculty needs USC Libraries

15. IR Usage: Rationale for Needs Assessment ApproachFaculty Already Burdened w/ Posting: • Global Directory Service/Campus directory • Personal Web site • Departmental Web • School Web site • SMARTS/GENIUS • USC Experts Directory • Blackboard… • Automated annual review system • SF424 grants.gov • NSF • NIH • Discipline-based repositories • ISI Highly Cited Authors • Who’s Who in … USC Libraries

16. IRNA TF Interviews Process • Identify and contact faculty to schedule meetings during spring and summer 2005 • Interview 10-15 faculty from a variety of disciplines • 2-3 person interview teams • Interview • Record • Listen/Ask follow-up questions • Summarize interview incorporating feedback from interviewee • Summarize all interviews USC Libraries

17. IRNA TF Interviews (Summer 05) Open-ended questions: • What are your research interests? • How do you disseminate your research findings? • How do you incorporate your research in the curriculum that you teach? • What is the role of graduate students and post docs in your research process? USC Libraries

18. Interview ?s Aimed to Determine: • How/where faculty publish • Importance of PhD student work • Degree that collaboration needs to be included in software • Open Access requirements of funding agencies • Nature/importance of supporting materials USC Libraries

19. IRNA TF Interviews We have made some of our results public on our Wiki, which was a useful tool for this task force work: https://w3.usc.edu/display/IRNA/Home E.g.: “Preliminary Findings from Faculty Interviews for Institutional Repository Needs Assessment” is a publicly-available MS Word document: https://w3.usc.edu/download/attachments/6584/ir-interview-preliminary-report.doc?version=1 USC Libraries

20. Interviews: Key Findings • Faculty need a compelling reason for IR • Research and teaching primary focus – NOT cataloging nor data entry! • Don’t write grants for digitization, data entry • Believe publishers responsible for archiving • Peer reviewed article still “gold standard” • PNAS, Science, Nature tops for all • Interested in space mainly for • Supporting materials • PhD student research • Not too interested in Open Access for their articles USC Libraries

21. Interviews Concept Map USC Libraries

22. IRNA Focus Groups • Based on 10 Use Cases we compiled from the interviews • Participants (13 faculty in 4 different sessions, including library faculty) • Given: • Use cases • IR definition • Session goals USC Libraries

23. Focus Groups Results Top priority: Use Case #9 -- Secure persistent storage Although there is little support for archiving already-published materials, researchers need secure long-term storage space for their research data and a way to provide stable, persistent links to their files. USC Libraries

24. Focus Groups Results • Use Case #1 Automated generation of curriculum vitae & Use Case #2 Faculty research locator, second most important after storage • Use Case #6 Collaborating on an article in the repository & Use Case #8 Document/data set versioning • Use Case #10 Check for permission to post preprints and post prints [Sherpa project answers in part] USC Libraries

25. Electronic CV as one IR Model • Harvests metadata from Web of Knowledge • Faculty member reviews and validates • Creates CV for faculty • DOI link • OpenURL link for USC • Option to upload content • Sends new citations to faculty • Sends regular reports to faculty on frequency their items are downloaded USC Libraries

26. Future of IR(s) at USC If we are going to create an IR, we must: • Determine role of library/academic computing in supporting research life cycle • Determine which computing activities are supported centrally • Determine which are IR functions • Position the IR within research life cycle USC Libraries

27. USC High-Level Requirements: • Develop technical requirements from functional requirements • Implement basic ingest interface • Develop key policies and procedures • Identify of early adopters USC Libraries

28. We believe a Successful IR will: • Balance permanence/persistence with need to correct information • Balance faculty need for security, privacy with institutional imperative for access • Balance rights management/ HIPPA/IRB issues with desire for open access USC Libraries

29. Future of IR(s) Generally • Local storage initiatives may or may not use IR model • New products beyond institutions: • BioMed Central Open Repository • CDL eScholarship Repository • Blogs as a new iteration of (some) faculty members’ drive for open access? USC Libraries

30. Future of IR(s) Generally Taiga Forum “Provocative Statement” #14 sees IRs as becoming more prevalent: “Within the next five years, research support services will become routine. The institutional repository will be one set of services within the wider set of services that assist in the researcher and research administration workflow.” USC Libraries

31. Questions?Thank you! USC Libraries