Before you start: Strategic Planning

and Business Cases

Iryna Kuchma, eIFL Open Access program manager, eIFL.net

Presented at “Open Access: Maximising Research Quality and Impact” workshop, July 22 2009,

Kathmandu, Nepal

How to startMaking a Case:

Explaining the need for a repository / open access journal

and the expected benefitsStrategic Planning and Business Cases

Defining Scope and Planning Checklists

How to start

A repository Steering Group (or Project Board,

Management Committee, Working Group, etc.)

undertakes the high level management of a repository

on behalf of a Higher Education Institution

How to start 2

Involve key stakeholders: University administrators,

senior management and policy makers; academic staff,

library staff, technical support staff,

other support staff

Assumptions 1Proposed checklist for the implementation

of an Institutional Repository (IR)Developed by the Department of Library Services

in the University of Pretoria, South Africa

1. Management has approved the implementation

of an institutional repository (IR) (Proposal)

Assumptions 22. A server is in place

to host the IR

3. An IR Manager (project leader) has been identified

to manage the project – and will have to do

most of the work initially

Activity 11. Assign a project leader (IR Manager),

and identify members to form part of the implementation team

(e.g. external consultant, copyright officer,

metadata specialist/ head cataloguer, digitization specialist,

2-3 subject librarians, IT etc.)

Activity 2

2. Identify 1 to 4 champions to work with initially.

Involve them in your meetings and make them part

of the implementation team

Activity 3

3. Conduct a needs analysis & compile a needs analysis report

Activity 4

4. Evaluate available software and decide on which software to use

5. Join existing mailing lists

Activity 5

6. Start thinking of a name for the IR

The planning checklists 1(adaptation from the Repository Support Project, the UK:

http://www.rsp.ac.uk/) Here are the questions to ask yourself:

1. What is an institutional repository and what does it mean to you?

2. Have you outlined and documented the purpose and drivers for institutional repository

establishment in your institution?

3. Have you defined your vision and initial goals?

The planning checklists 2

4. Have you decided how to position your institutional repository within your wider

information environment?

5. What is the target content of the repository?

6. Do you have an institution wide intellectual property rights policy?

The planning checklists 37. Do any of your Departments

already have other digital stores of publications?

How will you manage duplication, transfer of resources and metadata, etc.?

8. Does your institution have an information management strategy?

The planning checklists 4

9. Have you defined roles and responsibilities

for your institutional repository development?

10. What sort of statistics and management reports will you want from your institutional

repository?

Activity 6

7. Decide on how communities and collections will be structured within the IR

8. Define the workflows

9. Discuss licensing & copyright issues with the legal department

Activity 7

10. Compile a business plan & present to management

11. Register project with IT & establish a service level agreement

Activity 8

12. Incorporate IR as part of role description for cataloguers & subject librarians

13. Start working on IR policy, and continue to document all important decisions taken.

Also address service definition, open access, copyright, preservation, metadata

standards, digitization, selection criteria etc

The planning checklists 5

11. Have you decided if and how you will collect usage and item download statistics

for your repository? Will you use a tool built into your chosen repository, or an external tool or repository

add-on?

The planning checklists 6

12. Have you decided how your institutional repository users will be authenticated?

13. Have you defined your metadata requirements and set up an appropriate

schema?

The planning checklists 7

14. Have you checked your metadata meets the required standards for interoperability?

15. Have you considered the workflows

within your institutional repository and set up appropriate mechanisms

to deal with incoming content?

Activity 9

14. Identify members which will participate in the evaluation, and present a training

session on how to use the software

15. IT deploys software on developmental server, implementation team and other role

players evaluate, and IR manager forward evaluation report containing requests for

changes (e.g. to submission form) to IT Unit

Activity 1016. IT deploys software on developmental

server for the second time, implementation team and other role players

evaluate, and IR manager forward evaluation report containing requests for

changes to IT Unit. It could be necessary that the deployment on

the developmental server has to be tested for a third time.

Activity 11

17. IT deploys software on quality assurance server, implementation team and other role

players evaluate, and IR manager forward evaluation report containing requests for

changes to IT Unit. It could be necessary that the deployment

on the quality assurance server has to be tested for a second time.

Activity 1218. IT deploys software on production server,

implementation team and other role players evaluate, and IR manager forward

evaluation report containing requests for changes to IT Unit.

Keep on testing until software is flawless.

19. Create Communities & Collections for champions, and populate in order to

demonstrate to library staff and community

Activity 13

20. Register IR with international harvesters, search engines,

have it listed on web pages etc

21. Start developing a marketing presentation (which can be customized for specific subject areas), marketing leaflets, training material, online help e.g. copyright clearance process

Activity 14

22. Introduce IR to library management

23. Introduce IR to library Steering Committee

26. Introduce IR to library staff

Activity 1527. Provide training to subject librarians

(Collection Administrators)

28. Provide training to Submitters (appoint students etc)

29. Provide training to cataloguers (Metadata Editors)

Activity 16

30. Establish the following (will replace initial implementation team):

IR Steering CommitteeIR Policy Advisory Group

IR User Group

Activity 17

31. Introduce IR to rest of community e.g. departments, individuals, etc.

Also host open sessions over lunch hour, use organisational newsletters,

present at meetings & conferences. Negotiate for submitters.

Activity 1832. Invite all to register new collections.

Communicate procedure on e.g. IR home page.

33. Frequently communicate e.g. via e-mail, monthly newsletter, etc.

Frequently communicate statistics.

34. Launch IR when ready … Invite principal, vice-principals, heads of faculties &

departments, other major role players, etc.

Activity 19

35. Budget each year and plan for the following year. Keep monitoring server capacity,

stay updated through mailing lists & reading articles, attending conferences etc.

SustainabilityThis planning checklist covers resourcing repositories

for sustainability. (adaptation from the Repository Support Project, the UK:

http://www.rsp.ac.uk/) Here are the questions to ask yourself:

1. Have you properly and fully specified the requirements of your repository?

2. What is the anticipated growth of your repository?

3. Are you running a pilot project or a production service? If the former, who, when, if and how will it

transfer to a production service?

Sustainability 24. Who will answer support/help desk queries relating to

the repository?

5. Have you considered how your repository may grow over the next year, 3 years, 5 years, 10 years?

6. Which digital formats can the repository commit to preserve in the longer-term?

Is the repository collecting author source formats? Is there a viable action plan for monitoring the formats

stored in the repository and the preservation risks associated with those formats?

Do you know which tools are available to do this?

Thank you!Questions?

Iryna Kuchmairyna.kuchma[at]eifl.net; www.eifl.net

The presentation is licensed with Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License