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Breakout session: Managing research outputs - embedding repositories into institutional research processes |
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Bill Hubbard, SHERPA, University of Nottingham |
18 April 2008 |
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This breakout group looked at the current state of repositories and the way that they are evolving in both content and functionality as they become embedded into research processes. In responding to user needs and expectations, repositories are developing from the initial goal of simply holding digital duplicates of published research papers into something more comprehensive, with the potential to be a genuinely new tool in research support. The wider range of content they are now amassing, in particular research data in response to funding agency requirements, means that their holdings represent a far fuller picture of research outputs. Developing additional functionality includes supporting cross-linking between research output types, data and text-mining, as well as information management tools for both institutions and individuals. This means that repositories are likely to become more akin to virtual research environments rather than simply dissemination tools.
Discussions touched on two other features: the way that repositories might be able to assist in-house publication of research outputs and the integration of repository content into standard commercial search and abstracting services.
One significant issue is that by expanding the content and features, the copy of the article as published becomes just one of many outputs which can be integrated to provide a richer research-output resource. Such a resource can be used in a variety of institutional and extra-institutional processes, going beyond dissemination and information management to become a dynamic development environment for active research.
Given the existence of the web, the development of cross-institutional virtual research environments seems almost inevitable. Institutions, researchers, publishers, data archives and other services will all respond to such developments in their own way. Repositories and the repository infrastructure seem well placed to provide underlying information for such environments. This may well point the way in which repositories can develop and become more closely integrated into institutional research processes.
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