Leeds Met has been funded under the Repositories Start Up programme to establish an institutional
repository. The project began with an institutional needs analysis, which resulted in the starting point
for the population of the repository to be based on research outputs, with a clear mandate that the
software platform should be extensible to support outputs of assessment, learning and teaching, as
well as a range of other materials. The project team led the procurement of a suitable software
platform, intraLibrary, and this was implemented in June 2008. Up until this point, the project team
had concentrated the bulk of their activities on the procurement and also on advocacy activities. The
result of the latter has been that the repository already has a high profile within the University.
Since the commissioning of IntraLibrary in the Summer of 2008, the project team has concentrated on
working with the project consultancy team to agree appropriate policies and procedures. The team
has also worked closely with Intrallect, and adapted open source applications developed by other
JISC projects, to configure IntraLibrary to function more effectively as an open access research
repository.
Procurement of full text content has followed the pattern exhibited elsewhere in the sector. A number
of full text articles are available within the Repository. However, to date the bulk of contributions have
been in citation format. The University Research Office is very supportive of the project, and are
convinced of the potential of the Repository to raise the profile of research at the University. It is hope
that this commitment, combined with the already high profile of the Repository, will lead to higher
levels of full text deposit.
The next development of the Repository will be to store and make accessible learning objects. Again,
a number of learning objects are already held in the repository, and in addition the University’s Pro
Vice Chancellor for Assessment Learning and Teaching and the Dean of Partnerships for Students
are both supportive of a drive to populate the Repository with existing content held in the University’s
VLE.
A number of other uses for the Repository have already been identified and will be implemented in
due course.
The open access movement:
Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature
on the internet. Making it available free of charge and
free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Removing the barriers to serious research.
I recommend the OA tracking project (OATP) as the best way to stay on top of new OA developments. You can read the OATP feed on a blog-like web page or subscribe to it by RSS, email, or Twitter. You can also help build the feed by tagging new developments you encounter.
