Repositories for OA, RDM and Beyond - Rory McNicholl
1. Repositories for OA, RDM
and Beyond
Rory McNicholl, Tim Miles-Board
University of London Computer Centre
2. • University of London Computer Centre – potted history
• Digital Archives & Research Technologies
• The RT service and the community platform
• Open Access and Research Data Management
• What’s Next?
4. 1966: Flowers Report
“Assess the probable computer needs, during
the next five years, of users in Universities and
civil research establishments receiving support
from Government funds.”
9. Services for HE
and public sectors
• 700 sq m data centre
• JANET POP
• 3 million moodle users
• What are we doing at
the repository fringe?
10. NDAD
• Preservation of at-risk
digital objects
• Descriptive and technical
metadata
• Public, web-accessible
• 1997-2010
11. Digital Archives & Research Technologies
• c. 2006 - now
• DPTP
• Consultancy - preservation, digitisation
• Research Technologies Service
(The award winning)
12. Research Technologies
Service
• Open access
Repositories
• Research Data
Repositories
• eJournals
• Archival storage
• Bespoke asset
presentation
13. Platforms used by RT
service
• EPrints
• OJS
• Arkivum (A-Stor in ULCC DC)
• Python – Django + elasticSearch
14. 3rd party interoperability
• Institutional HR systems
• Harvesters
• Identifies
• Metrics
• Current Research
Information Systems
16. How DART do it?
• Flexible
• Small team but well supported: Infrastructure expertise, Service Desk
• Community Driven
• Part of the HE Community, responsive to that community
• Fluid
• Platform agnostic
• Ready to listen to our customers and embrace change
17. • Working with customers to
meet OA and RDM
requirements
• Keeping repositories up to
date
• Keeping plugins up to date
• Publishing outputs for the
broader community
The community
platform
18. Community Platform
for OA…
• oa_compliance
• OpenAccess
• rioxx2
• datesdatesdates
• reviewed_queue
• ref2014
• More?
22. What’s next?
• More community platforms?
• Exciting things from our
siblings at SAS and SHL?
• Preservation as a Service
• Creeping backwards through
the research object lifecycle?
• More collaborations?
?
Hello Thank you Valerie and the Repository Fringe organisers for inviting us to speak.
I am Rory McNicholl…
Explain who ULCC are and where we came from
Introduce the team I work in
Talk about the research technologies service and our move towards the community platform
What this has meant for OA and RDM
Ubiquitous musing
The university of London a potted history
Assess the probable computer needs, during the next five years, of users in Universities and civil research establishments receiving support from Government funds.
Ie How can we use these commputery things to ensure our research grants are being put to best use
Incidentally: I tried to read, hit paywall :|
The great and the good of the University of London Colleges deliberated for a while in this beautifully appointed wood panelled Art-Deco debating chamber
Which is inside this London landmark architectural master piece…
And commissioned this prefabricated rabbit-warren to built down the road
In 1968 20 Guildford street opened and many wonderful things happened here at or around the forefront of computing
By the 1980’s that building was stuffed to the gills with computing muscle that could be called on by researchers from around the region.
That’s right your eyes do not deceive you…
Integral leatherette public seating!
After the 80’s the prevailing notion was that there was less need for a regional research computer centre
But the know how accumulated in 20 guildford st was put to good use
In 2009ish ULCC moved into Senate House (the basement of course)
Today we a big data centre, are a JANET point of Presence and the moodle service boasts over 3 million MAUs (not quite as many as facebook)
That’s nice but what are we doing at the repository fringe?
For that you can blame this person, and I don’t mean Princess Anne
Kevin and his colleagues at ULCC and SHL knew that digital objects were at imminent risk so with the help of the then PRO, NDAD was kicked off to
Preserve
Describe
Provide access
To research data help at the PRO
Before the now TNA took the project in house the kernel of the DART team had begun to work on new projects
DPTP
Consultancy on among other things: digital preservation, digitisation
Hosted repository service that is now the “Research technologies Service”
Here is an overview of the research technologies service as it stands at the moment
We have around 30 institutions who host various sections of this diagram with us
What tech do we use to provide the service
Here is a sample of some of the 3rd party services that our institutions need their RT systems to work with
Including Institutional HR and publication databases
Current research information systems
Various harvester identifiers…
Various levels of ease!
This is a only a sample of what we have had experience with…
I made an attempt to show the broader research tech picture…
But I gave up
There are specific projects who have been looking at this area for ages, I’ll read their reports
Back to what I know.
How do we implement and maintain our own little diagrams
Flexible
small team but well supported
Community drive
We are a part of an HE institution (despite the fact that they keep us in the basement)
Fluid
Providing the correct service for our customers is the most important thing
Putting that in to practice looks a bit like this
Funders and policy and mandates
The community
Our interaction with them and the technology platform (specifically in this case Eprints)
Community of libraries, research offices IT departments and developers
Some of these things existed before the CP, but the CP is a place they can hang out and get looked after
Here are some contributions to Open access for EPrints
Here are some for Research data managment
And some others around presentation, interoperability and new standards
Growing interest in OJS (open journals system) and OMP (Open monographs platform). Can we help to channel development of really useful tools?
Our bigger siblings up stairs have been making some interesting appointments in the area of “Digital” ULCC ready to help out.
Taking some of the nous within our team putting it together with some partners and tech to provide a preservation service (Arkivum with artefactual platforms, or maybe something simpler)
The work around RDM has led us to think about ways we can help institutions further upstream. Whilst realising this is a busy domain.
Eprints/ORCID integration exists. Can we help with getting greater impact from ORCID for institutions?