Category: Institutional Repositories

"BC Digitized Collections: Towards a Microservices-based Solution to an Intractable Repository Problem"

Chris Mayo et al. have published "BC Digitized Collections: Towards a Microservices-based Solution to an Intractable Repository Problem" in the Code4Lib Journal.

Here's an excerpt:

Our Digital Repository Services department faced a crisis point in late 2017. Our vendor discontinued support for our digital repository software, and an intensive, multi-department, six-month field survey had not turned up any potential replacements that fully met our needs. We began to experiment with a model that, rather than migrating to a new monolithic system, would more closely integrate multiple systems that we had already implemented—ArchivesSpace, Alma, Primo, and MetaArchive—and introduce only one new component, namely Mirador. We determined that this was the quickest way to meet our needs, and began a full migration in spring of 2018. The primary benefit of a microservices-based solution for our collections was the potential for customization; we therefore present our experiences in building and migrating to this system not as a blueprint but as a case study with lessons learned. Our hope is that in sharing our experience, we can help institutions in similar situations determine 1) whether a microservices-based solution is a feasible approach to their problem, 2) which services could and should be integrated and how, and 3) whether the trade-offs inherent in this architectural approach are worth the flexibility it offers.

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"Evaluating Zotero, SHERPA/RoMEO, and Unpaywall in an Institutional Repository Workflow "

Ashley D. R. Sergiadis has self-archived "Evaluating Zotero, SHERPA/RoMEO, and Unpaywall in an Institutional Repository Workflow."

Here's an excerpt:

East Tennessee State University developed a workflow to add journal publications to their institutional repository and faculty profiles using three tools: Zotero for entering metadata, SHERPA/RoMEO for checking copyright permissions, and Unpaywall for locating full-text documents. This study evaluates availability and accuracy of the information and documents provided by Zotero, SHERPA/RoMEO, and Unpaywall for journal publications in four disciplines.

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"Opening Up Open Access Institutional Repositories to Demonstrate Value: Two Universities’ Pilots on Including Metadata-Only Records"

Karen Bjork, Rebel Cummings-Sauls, and Ryan Otto have published "Opening Up Open Access Institutional Repositories to Demonstrate Value: Two Universities' Pilots on Including Metadata-Only Records" in the Journal of Librarianship and Scholarly Communication.

Here's an excerpt:

INTRODUCTION Institutional repository managers are continuously looking for new ways to demonstrate the value of their repositories. One way to do this is to create a more inclusive repository that provides reliable information about the research output produced by faculty affiliated with the institution. DESCRIPTION OF PROGRAM This article details two pilot projects that evaluated how their repositories could track faculty research output through the inclusion of metadata-only (no full-text) records. The purpose of each pilot project was to determine the feasibility and provide an assessment of the long-term impact on the repository's mission statement, staffing, and collection development policies. NEXT STEPS This article shares the results of the pilot project and explores the impact for faculty and end users as well as the implications for repositories.

Research Data Curation Bibliography, Version 9 | Digital Curation and Digital Preservation Works | Open Access Works | Digital Scholarship | Digital Scholarship Sitemap

"Quality Issues of CRIS [Current Research Information System] Data: An Exploratory Investigation with Universities from Twelve Countries"

Otmane Azeroual and Joachim Schöpfel have published "Quality Issues of CRIS Data: An Exploratory Investigation with Universities from Twelve Countries" in Publications.

Here's an excerpt:

Collecting, integrating, storing and analyzing data in a database system is nothing new in itself. To introduce a current research information system (CRIS) means that scientific institutions must provide the required information on their research activities and research results at a high quality. A one-time cleanup is not sufficient; data must be continuously curated and maintained. Some data errors (such as missing values, spelling errors, inaccurate data, incorrect formatting, inconsistencies, etc.) can be traced across different data sources and are difficult to find. Small mistakes can make data unusable, and corrupted data can have serious consequences. The sooner quality issues are identified and remedied, the better. For this reason, new techniques and methods of data cleansing and data monitoring are required to ensure data quality and its measurability in the long term. This paper examines data quality issues in current research information systems and introduces new techniques and methods of data cleansing and data monitoring with which organizations can guarantee the quality of their data.

Research Data Curation Bibliography, Version 9 | Digital Curation and Digital Preservation Works | Open Access Works | Digital Scholarship | Digital Scholarship Sitemap

"Improving the Discoverability and Web Impact of Open Repositories: Techniques and Evaluation"

George Macgregor has published "Improving the Discoverability and Web Impact of Open Repositories: Techniques and Evaluation" in Code4Lib Journal.

Here's an excerpt:

In this contribution we experiment with a suite of repository adjustments and improvements performed on Strathprints, the University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, institutional repository powered by EPrints 3.3.13. These adjustments were designed to support improved repository web visibility and user engagement, thereby improving usage. Although the experiments were performed on EPrints it is thought that most of the adopted improvements are equally applicable to any other repository platform. Following preliminary results reported elsewhere, and using Strathprints as a case study, this paper outlines the approaches implemented, reports on comparative search traffic data and usage metrics, and delivers conclusions on the efficacy of the techniques implemented. The evaluation provides persuasive evidence that specific enhancements to technical aspects of a repository can result in significant improvements to repository visibility, resulting in a greater web impact and consequent increases in content usage. COUNTER usage grew by 33% and traffic to Strathprints from Google and Google Scholar was found to increase by 63% and 99% respectively. Other insights from the evaluation are also explored. The results are likely to positively inform the work of repository practitioners and open scientists.

Research Data Curation Bibliography, Version 9 | Digital Curation and Digital Preservation Works | Open Access Works | Digital Scholarship | Digital Scholarship Sitemap

"Preparing Existing Metadata for Repository Batch Import: A Recipe for a Fickle Food"

William Roy and Chris Gray have published "Preparing Existing Metadata for Repository Batch Import: A Recipe for a Fickle Food" in the Code4Lib Journal.

Here's an excerpt:

In 2016, the University of Waterloo began offering a mediated copyright review and deposit service to support the growth of our institutional repository UWSpace. This resulted in the need to batch import large lists of published works into the institutional repository quickly and accurately. A range of methods have been proposed for harvesting publications metadata en masse, but many technological solutions can easily become detached from a workflow that is both reproducible for support staff and applicable to a range of situations. Many repositories offer the capacity for batch upload via CSV, so our method provides a template Python script that leverages the Habanero library for populating CSV files with existing metadata retrieved from the CrossRef API. In our case, we have combined this with useful metadata contained in a TSV file downloaded from Web of Science in order to enrich our metadata as well. The appeal of this 'low-maintenance' method is that it provides more robust options for gathering metadata semi-automatically, and only requires the user’s ability to access Web of Science and the Python program, while still remaining flexible enough for local customizations.

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"Measuring Open Access Policy Compliance: Results of a Survey"

Shannon Kipphut-Smith et al. have published "Measuring Open Access Policy Compliance: Results of a Survey" in the Journal of Librarianship and Scholarly Communication.

Here's an excerpt:

INTRODUCTION In the last decade, a significant number of institutions have adopted open access (OA) policies. Many of those working with OA policies are tasked with measuring policy compliance. This article reports on a survey of Coalition of Open Access Policy Institutions (COAPI) members designed to better understand the methods currently used for measuring and communicating OA policy success. METHODS This electronic survey was distributed to the COAPI member listserv, inviting both institutions who have passed an implemented policies and those who are still developing policies to participate. RESULTS The results to a number of questions related to topics such as policy workflows, quantitative and qualitative measurement activities and related tools, and challenges showed a wide range of responses, which are shared here. DISCUSSION It is clear that a number of COAPI members struggle with identifying what should be measured and what tools and methods are appropriate. The survey illustrates how each institution measures compliance differently, making it difficult to benchmark against peer institutions. CONCLUSION As a result of this survey, we recommend that institutions working with OA policies be as transparent as possible about their data sources and methods when calculating deposit rates and other quantitative measures. It is hoped that this transparency will result in the development of a set of qualitative and quantitative best practices for assessing OA policies that standardizes assessment terminology and articulates why institutions may want to measure policies.

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"Towards Open Access Self Archiving Policies: A Case Study of COAR"

Bijan Kumar Roy et al. have published "Towards Open Access Self Archiving Policies: A Case Study of COAR" in LIBER Quarterly.

Here's an excerpt:

This paper examines Open Access (OA) self archiving policies of different Open Access Repositories (OARs) affiliated to COAR (Confederation of Open Access Repositories) as partner institutes. The process of scrutiny includes three major activities—selection of databases to consult; comparison and evaluation of Open Access policies of repositories listed in the selected databases and attached to COAR group; and critical examination of available self archiving policies of these OA repositories against a set of selected criteria. The above steps lead to reporting the following results: key findings have been identified and highlighted; common practices have been analyzed in relation to the focus of this paper; and a best practice benchmark has been suggested for popularizing and strengthening OARs as national research systems. This paper may help administrators, funding agencies, policy makers and professional librarians in devising institute-specific self archiving policies for their own organizations.

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"IMLS Funds DuraSpace Fedora Investigation–Designing a Migration Path: Assessing Barriers of Upgrading to the Most Current Version of Fedora–No Collection Left Behind"

DuraSpace has released "IMLS Funds DuraSpace Fedora Investigation–Designing a Migration Path: Assessing Barriers of Upgrading to the Most Current Version of Fedora–No Collection Left Behind."

Here's an excerpt:

The Institute of Museum and Library Services has awarded DuraSpace a National Digital Platform Planning Grant for $49,279 to investigate barriers to upgrading hundreds of U.S.-based libraries and archives running unsupported versions of Fedora. In consultation with stakeholders this project will conduct an environmental scan of relevant community initiatives, and gather primary research data to inform recommendations to reduce barriers to upgrading to the most current version of Fedora.

There are approximately 240 U.S.-based libraries and archives identified as target beneficiaries of the deliverables of this project including universities, liberal arts colleges, and not-for-profit special libraries hosted by historical societies and small research institutes.

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"HydraDAM2: Extending Fedora 4 and Hydra for Media Preservation"

Jon W. Dunn et al. have self-archived "HydraDAM2: Extending Fedora 4 and Hydra for Media Preservation."

Here's an excerpt:

The overarching goal of the HydraDAM2 project, funded by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities Preservation and Access Research and Development program, was to extend the existing HydraDAM digital asset management system, developed with prior NEH support, to be able to serve as a digital preservation repository for time-based media collections implementable at a wide range of institutions using multiple digital storage strategies. The new open source digital preservation repository system developed as part of the project by partners Indiana University (IU) and WGBH, known as Phydo, is based on the Fedora 4.x digital repository system and Samvera (formerly Hydra) repository application development framework and is intended to support storage and long-term preservation management of audio and video files and their accompanying metadata. This white paper describes the work of the HydraDAM2 project to develop the Phydo system, along with future plans.

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Cornell University Library Repository Principles and Strategies Handbook

Erin Faulder et al. have self-archived the "Cornell University Library Repository Principles and Strategies Handbook."

Here's an excerpt:

The handbook provides support for both new and existing repository managers, comprising both recommended practices and specifically identified action steps that will allow them to track their progress and identify gaps. Each section of the handbook covers a different strategic area of repository management, standing largely on its own and linking to other sections when appropriate. Although there is no primary section order, we recommend starting with Defining Repository Scope and Service Planning. The handbook specifically addresses principles and practices pertaining to digital repositories, where a digital repository can be defined as: a system, the purpose of which is to store, present, and preserve a collection of data for which the library provides services. That is, the term refers specifically to the application as opposed to the content (collections, objects and metadata) within.

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"An Expertise Recommender System Based on Data from an Institutional Repository (DiVA)"

Milena Angelova et al. have self-archived "An Expertise Recommender System Based on Data from an Institutional Repository (DiVA)."

Here's an excerpt:

Finding experts in academics is an important practical problem, e.g. recruiting reviewers for reviewing conference, journal or project submissions, partner matching for research proposals, finding relevant M. Sc. or Ph. D. supervisors etc. In this work, we discuss an expertise recommender system that is built on data extracted from the Blekinge Institute of Technology (BTH) instance of the institutional repository system DiVA. The developed prototype system is evaluated and validated on information extracted from the BTH DiVA installation, concerning thesis supervision of researchers affiliated with BTH. The extracted DiVA classification terms are used to build an ontology that conceptualizes the thesis domain supported by the university. The supervisor profiles of the tutors affiliated with the BTH are constructed based on the extracted DiVA data. These profiles can further be used to identify and recommend relevant subject thesis supervisors.

Research Data Curation Bibliography, Version 9 | Digital Curation and Digital Preservation Works | Open Access Works | Digital Scholarship | Digital Scholarship Sitemap

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