Institutional repositories in New Zealand: comparing institutional strategies for digital preservation and discovery

This paper outlines an ongoing project to create of a knowledge base to support the development of institutional repositories in New Zealand. The knowledge base wiki includes a summary of key literature to date, highlighting best practice, and standards relevant to the New Zealand sector, and a set of case studies of how New Zealand institutions have developed their repositories to date. These case studies are analysed, and different strategic approaches taken by institutions across the sector identified. These will then be discussed in relation to the issues identified in the literature. The paper also outlines new research areas being developed by the research team, a national approach that will link individual institutional approaches with the goals of the New Zealand Digital Strategy, and incorporate a survey of the perceptions and responses of NZ academics, and other key stakeholders, that are critical to the success of both the national strategy and individual institutional initiatives. Institutional repositories; New Zealand; Open access; Academic libraries Introduction New Zealand’s Digital Strategy [New Zealand, 2005] includes the goal of capturing the publicly funded research output of New Zealand’s tertiary institutions in freely accessible digital format. Within the tertiary sector itself, this goal also includes the long-term preservation and enhanced discoverability of this research output. Several institutional repository initiatives have been funded by the Tertiary Education Commission (TEC) to identify the most appropriate formats and technologies for these purposes. These have been developed alongside a shared national infrastructure for discovery provided by the National Library’s metadata harvesting initiative, KRIS. KRIS, an acronym for Kiwi Research Information Service, is an OAI-PMH harvester that provides a single search interface to all New Zealand institutional repositories. As part of one of the TEC-funded repository projects, the OARiNZ (Open Access Repsitories in New Zealand) project managed by Christchurch Polytechnic Institute of Technology, a research team at Victoria University of Wellington created a knowledge clearing house to provide an ongoing resource for participants in all the NZ IR projects, and to capture the history of the development of the open access movement in New Zealand. The Knowledge Base, which is a wiki web site, consists of an environmental scan and review of research on existing digital repositories overseas, an outline of initiatives within New Zealand, and will eventually include recommendations and a model of best practice to fit the New Zealand context. The Knowledge Base includes a series of eight case studies that outline how various key institutions have developed their repositories, what strategic choices they have made, what they have achieved to date, critical success factors, and the barriers that have limited their success. The development of institutional repositories The development of institutional repositories (IRs) resulted in part from a need to address problems inherent in the present system of scholarly publishing. As Harnad [2006] and Odlyzko [2006] have observed, academics have been drawing attention to such problems, and the need for a solution, for over twenty years. Chief among these problems are the affordability of key journals, with subscription costs rising faster than the rate of inflation and far outstripping library budgets, and the ‘loss’ of key resources if e-journal and database subscriptions are cancelled by libraries [Chan, 2004]. The resulting loss of access to research resources as well as output, may consequently reduce the ‘research impact’ of the work of scholars, and researchers. Institutional repositories are seen as having a role to play in overcoming these problems, a cost-effective method of providing access to research findings and improving the ‘research impact’ of an institution. The history of institutional repositories is relatively short, with the first discipline-based repositories being implemented in the early 1990s. In their seminal text The Institutional Repository, Jones, Andrew and MacColl [2006] identify several successful repositories during this early period, in particular attention the ArXiv repository, launched in August 1991. Initially developed for physics researchers to ensure access to findings at a speed comparable to which new discoveries were being made, the repository was later expanded to serve the needs of other closely-related disciplines. ArXiv, however, has not served as a model for other repositories, possibly, as the authors suggest, because the other early repositories were created to cater for the needs of specific disciplines. EconPapers, for example, focused on economics working papers, CogPrints was concerned with cognitive psychology, and PubMed Central with the biomedical and life sciences [Jones, Andrew and MacColl ,2006]. The more recent institutional repositories (focused on the output of staff across all disciplines working at one, or a group of institutions) were developed, Jones Andrew and McColl [2006] suggest, in response to the concerns of academics, some being reluctant to deposit their work in discipline-based repositories, while others were concerned about the longevity of such repositories. An institutional repository, by contrast, could be deemed more credible and trustworthy. In addition, Jones, Andrew and MacColl cite the creation of the Open Archives Initiative in 1999 as a major factor in the rise of institution-based repositories [2006, p.7] giving rise inadvertently to the dilemma of whether an author should deposit their research in their institutional repository or in a discipline-specific repository. Green and Gutmann [2007] exploring further differences between both types of repositories, identify ways in which partnerships can be built between the two. Peters [2002] also proposes an alternative model, a repository maintained by consortia, and argues that a variety of digital repositories—individual, discipline-based, institutional, consortial and national—will be used in the immediate future. Recent literature on institutional repositories indicates that repositories are being implemented at a growing rate. A 2005 survey of United States institutions, for example, observed that 40% had already established institutional repositories [Lynch and Lipponcott, 2005]. A further 88% of colleges and universities that did not currently house institutional repositories intended to do so in the near future. Other reports indicate a surge in usage of the two main repository platforms, Eprints and DSpace, in recent years. According to Lomangino [2006], the use of Eprints rose from 125 to over 200 repositories in 2004–2005. The Registry of Open Access Repositories indicates that as of mid-2007, there are 227 known repositories using Eprints, with DSpace being the preferred software platform for 234 repositories. Lomangino also found that the number of repositories complying with the Open Archives Initiative’s interoperability standards has risen from 243 to 617 repositories since late 2003 [2006, p.7]. Implementing an IR To support the development of IRs several open access repositories of knowledge have been built up in recent years. The Directory of Open Access Repositories maintains a set of web pages identifying current views on best practice in addition to its listing of open access repositories [OpenDOAR, 2007], and the US-based Research Libraries Group have developed standards (based upon ISO 9000 and ISO 17799) and evaluation criteria widely promoted in their web document “Trustworthy Repositories Audit & Certification: Criteria and Checklist” [2005]. In response to an identified dearth of policies on key matters such as the permitted reuse of deposited items, submission of items, long term preservation, etc [Millington, 2006] the Open DOAR website offers a solution in the form of a tool to generate policies in a number of important areas, from metadata and content to submission. One of the major tasks in establishing a repository is defining the scope of the project. Allen’s 2005 study of Interdisciplinary Differences in Attitudes Towards Deposit in Institutional Repositories, found a great variety in scope and content in the 25 institutional repositories he examined. Allen notes that several are small and poorly utilised, (the contents dominated by science and technology deposits), and argues that this could lead to loss of trust in the project and its reputation. Content related issues remain crucial to the success of IRs, and problems persist with regard to the nature of material to be included. In his case study of the University of Oregon’s institutional repository, Lomangino [2006] noted that only 18% of the 1,900 documents were authored by academic staff—the scholarly integrity of the remaining 82% was, therefore, in doubt. Key issues such as whether articles and conference papers should be deposited and retained only after peer review and acceptance, or at the time of submission, along with whether they should be updated if changes are required (or implemented) before publication, remain hotly debated. Probets and Jenkins [2006] list a range of attributes of items for deposit that must be clarified in an effective policy, including the type of document, status (peer-reviewed, accepted, published, etc.), format, who may contribute (only employees, or co-researchers and affiliates), related output (presentations, workshops, and work in the same series.) SPARC’s 2002 Institutional Repository Checklist and Resource Guide argues for a repository that includes post-print, what used to be known as ‘grey literature’ and, in particular, pre-prints (as well as theses), on condition that this material is carefully handled and properly managed. A later SPARC position paper also encourages a broader view of scope, and the inclusion of items such as work-in-progress, grant applications and reports, student reports which are not confined to research degrees, classroom and teaching materials, computer programs, audiovisual material, creative works, institutional documents and reports. In such a case, careful attention to the assignment of categories, content management systems and version control will be required [Crow, 2002] This view is also supported by Lynch, who argues that repositories should “reflect campus life, symposia, performances, lectures” [2003]. Genoni [2004] also argues that these difficult decisions should be made by individual institutions and not mandated by international standards. In doing so, he raises important questions regarding quality control and how libraries will assert this, if not through the peer review process. Management and maintenance There are many basic considerations that institutions need to take into account in setting up a repository, and to ensure it is sustainable, and an effective information management system. A key aspect of managing an open access repository is the need for staff with the necessary skills. Jones, Andrew, and MacColl [2006] argue that the development and maintenance of an institutional repository requires some organisational restructuring. Staff with high level cataloguing and metadata skills are required just at a time when many institutions have either been outsourcing cataloguing or purchasing their cataloguing records, with metadata already in place. Staffing is, therefore, a major element in costing estimates, according to Jones, Andrew, and MacColl [2006, 37–38]. Markey, Rieh, St. Jean, Kim and Yakel [2007] suggest that staffing costs account for nearly 40% of a repository’s total budget. Preservation is another critical issue, The OAIS reference model Consultative Committee for Space Data Systems, 2002, 650.0–B-1, cited by Jones, Andrew and McColl [2006] provides detailed recommendations about best practice, and appropriate work flows for each stage of the preservation process. For a more thorough account, Bradley’s 2005 discussion paper on sustainability by Australian Partnership for Sustainable Resources (APSR) provides thoroughly referenced discussion on issues relating to sustainability and long-term preservation, and outlines the various steps needed to achieve this. Advocacy Allen’s 2005 study, which was undertaken for the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council found that humanities scholars generally perceived repositories to be the greatest value to the reader (rather than the scholar who is depositing) and that they have ongoing concerns such as peer-reviewing, plagiarism, and intellectual property ownership. Advocacy—that is, marketing a repository to its academic community—forms a critical element in gaining acceptance of the concept, buy-in from potential depositors, and a successful rate of deposit. Advocates of open access claim that items freely available on the Internet have a significantly greater ‘research impact’. In summarising research to date, Harnad [2006] suggests that open access items have twice the impact of those in more conventional repositories. Other welldesigned research studies demonstrate the ‘research impact’ of open access to be perceptible, but more modest, in some disciplines. Antelman’s 2004 study, for example, shows an increase in citation rates for philosophy (45%), political science (86%) and mathematics (91%), but argues that this was most likely due to the low rates on self-archiving and less use of online resources in humanities subjects. Wren [2005] and Tschider [2006] both report investigations into the higher visibility of science reported in open access repositories, as well as a greater likelihood that research in the highest ranked journals will also be found freely available on the