gj sue tr policy
DESCRIPTION
TRANSCRIPT
Liberating Your Policies
(Or Theory’s all very well in practise)
Gareth J JohnsonLRA Manager
www.twitter.com/llordllama
18th Feb 2009
National Library of Wales
David Wilson Library
www.le.ac.uk lra.le.ac.uk
Why Am I Here today?
• Give a personal view of repository policy
• Used to work for a (in)famous JISC funded
project
– With a pet repository alongside
• Today
– A repository manager in the HE wilds
So what’s it all about?
• I’ve always believed that policy
– Underpin repository development &
practise
– Should be evolutionary not in
homeostasis
– Are invaluable for coping with staff
changes
– Provide transparency/clarity of
purpose, function and decision making
The SHERPA years (06-08)
• Repository Development Officer
– Externally funded on multiple projects
– Also Repo Administrator on Nottingham Eprints
• Policies in place before in post
– All standard meta, data, preservation etc
– Devised by SHERPA team, agreed by InfoServices
• A purist outlook and acceptance
– A broad church of item acceptance
– Full text only with an avoidance of metadata only
• Author-mediated submission
– Admin checks ©, metadata creation then live
The SHERPA years (06-08)
• Practically this meant that
– Repository over-shadowed by national project work
– Result not as high impact internally as externally
• But IR high on institutional agenda
– Funding open access pay-up-front model
– Internal impact was less than it might have been
• So what drove policy developments?
– External projects and events
– Software developments
– Emerging best practice examples
– A slowly creeping centralisation culture…
OpenDOAR & Policy
• OpenDOAR survey of 1,000 repositories
– Included examination of policy
– Conclusion at time 80% had few or no polciies
• Policies seemed a private thing
– “This is how we run the repository, but we
don’t tell anyone”
– Uncertainty as to what made a good policy
created fear
• OpenDOAR policy generation tool
Policies today?
• Submission most commonly defined
• Still an apparently weak area
Moving into the Real World
• Leicester University
– Research focussed university means a research
focussed repository
• Origins (2006)
– Library wanted IR but didn’t want to be first
– Research Committee interest
• Secondment of 0.5 FTE
– Formation of project group
– Tried establishing Academic Steering Group
• Mediated deposit
– All handle-turning done by LRA team
LRA Item
Submission &
Ingest
(non-theses)
Submitted
article
Info
Librarians
Academic
Author
LRA:
Submissions
Publication
alert
Request
Ignored
Info
Librarians
Deposit
LRA
Publisher
Rights
Records
SHERPA/
RoMEO
LRA:
Pending
Do
Publisher
rights
allow
ingest?Unclear
Publisher
Permission
Granted?
Response
?
Yes
Yes
Yes
Academic
Letter of
Notification
No
Recontact
Contact
Rights
holder
No
No
Delete
Submitted
File
Can
article be
used as
provided?
Depositable
version
Academic
Author
Yes
Academic
Letter of
notification
Do we
have an
author
license?
No
Signed
Author
Licence
No
Academic
Author
Yes
Yes
Suitable
format
version
available?
No
Response
?
Yes
Recontact
NoResponse
?
Recontact
Yes
No
NoArchived
Yes
Yes
No
LRA: LiveRSS
Feed
Academic
Letter of
Notification
Embargo
?
Prepared
Deposit
StoredEmbargo
expired?
Potential
LRA Today
• Took over from old manager Jan 09
– Still around and a gold mine of information
• Staff
– 0.5 FTE Manager
– 0.5 FTE Administrator (two people)
– No FTE tech, but excellent ad hoc support
• Project Group
– Library Director, ProVC, IT Services plus staff
– Considers operational and practical issues
– Approves policies
Where’s Poli(c)y?
• More formal approach to policy from the
start
– Research Committee and Project Group
• Final version focus, No learning objects, Preprints
left to faculties but strong retention policy
• Operational policy
– Fits into existing processes
– Internal focus for documentation
Policy Evolution
• In-house custom and practise
– Author deposit license
– Takedown statement – not true policy
– Data & Conferences at Leicester
• Made use of OpenDOAR Policy tool
– Standardising with the community
– Exposed via OAI and on Web
Driving Forces
• Internal drivers
– Quick wins and metrics
– RAE, REF & bibliometrics
– Data archiving
– Etheses mandate implementation
• External drivers
– Ethos
– Watching the national scene but not leading
Etheses Mandate
• All PhD’s now mandated to deposit etheses
– Decision taken by Board of Graduate studies
– Up to 3 yr moratorium possible (as with print)
– Total embargo also possible
• Policy devised collaboration with Graduate Office
– Rights agreement devised with strong input from LRA
Copyright Officer
– LRA chasing incomplete or missing forms
• Promotion
– A role for the LRA and Librarians
– Embedding is going to take time
Bibliometrics
• LRA Uses Google Analytics
– Implemented by not much done to date
– Starting monthly analytical runs in Feb
• Bibliometrics
– Provision for new Bibliometrician post in 2009
– Webometrics (11th or 15th in the UK)
– Will work closely with departments towards REF
– Interest already from the Chemistry department
– May well significantly impact on how the repository
operates and operating policies
So what have I actually learned?
• The attitude might be: “It works…so
why do we need policy?”
• But policy is crucially important
– Defines the repository service
– Underpins developments as well as
activities
– Essential for long term sustainability
Policy Liberates the Future…
