Alternative Models of Scholarly Communication: The “Toddler Years”

for Open Access Journals andInstitutional Repositories

TheUniversity of Pennsylvania

Experience

ScholarlyCommons@Pennhttp://repository.upenn.edu

Mary Steiner, Penn LibraryLITA National Forum, San Jose, CA

1 October 2005

Why get into this business anyway?

Scope and nature of repository

Implementation (setting the stage)

Operations (nuts and bolts)

Assessment

Going public (launch)

Outreach&

Marketing

The Path to an Institutional RepositoryPoints to Consider

Why get into this business anyway?

Overriding Theme

• Publicize, disseminate, archive campus scholarship

• Interested readers can learn about and keep up-to-date with scholarship from anywhere in the world

• Improve visibility of academic research and scholarly activity

Motivating Factors

• Set information free• Capture ephemeral

content• Specific desire of a

campus unit• Highlight student

scholarship• Make teaching

materials available• Library opportunity

• Need for “trustworthy” archive

• Provide publishing platform

• Push from campus leadership

• Scholars’ document management system

• Dovetail with other efforts

Campus Climate

• Centralized vs. decentralized• Funding structure• Top-down vs. grassroots• Relationship between:

– Campus archives– Academic computing– Library

• Champions (within and outside of library)• Subject Liaisons

Scope and Nature of Repository

SHORT TERM– Where to start?– Pilot phase

• Gain understanding of system• Seed the repository

LONG TERM– Expand across campus– Cooperation/links with other repositories

Penn Pilot

• School of Engineering & Applied Science (SEAS) interested in raising its profile

• Feature their “best” work

• Subject liaison support

• Support from School’s leadership

• Collaboration between SEAS and Library

Implementation(Setting the Stage)

• Oversight

• Infrastructure/platform

• Policies

• Human & financial resources

Operations(Nuts and Bolts)

• Content file types and metadata

• Procedures– for administrators, authors, and their agents

• Getting content

• Seeding the repository

Going Public(Launch)

• Criteria for going public

• Register with search engines, directories

• Spread the word . . .

Outreach & Marketing(Initial audience)

• Informing, discussing with individuals and groups

• Unit endorsement• Individual awareness• Provide guidelines• Encouraging participation• Individual statistics• Copyright awareness

continued . . .

Sample Paper with 539 downloadssince posting in mid-October 2004

Outreach & Marketing(Across Campus)

• Everything previous, plus . . .

• Mailings, write-ups

• Demos

• Site Features

• Share site statistics

Promotional Brochure

Assessment

• Qualitative

• Quantitative

• How to measure greater impact of Penn research?

Lessons Learned

• Toddlers are messy

• Toddlers need repetition

• Toddlers play well with others

• Toddlers grow

Where to go from here?

• Expanding beyond SEAS

• Hosting an e-journal

• Long-term management of service

Parting Words

What might Benjamin

Franklin say about institutional repositories

and open access?

The doors of wisdom

are never shut.Poor Richard’s Almanack