<font><font><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'trebuchet ms', sans-serif">[Forwarding from Arthur Sale, via the JISC-Repositories list. --Peter Suber.]<br><br></font></font></font><div class="gmail_quote">
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<h1><span style="line-height: 115%; "><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'trebuchet ms', sans-serif"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Advice on filling your
repository</span></font></span></h1>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'trebuchet ms', sans-serif">Arthur Sale, University of Tasmania, 26 March 2010 </font></p>
<h1 style="margin-left:18.0pt"><span><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'trebuchet ms', sans-serif"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">1.</span></font><span style="font:7.0pt "Times New Roman""><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'trebuchet ms', sans-serif"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">
</span></font></span></span><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'trebuchet ms', sans-serif"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Preface</span></font></h1>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'trebuchet ms', sans-serif">I was moved to produce this by Hugh Glaser’s remarks
that no-one was prepared to offer advice to beginners or people transitioning
to a properly mandated repository. This advice is not new. It has been said by
many others in part, and I have been preaching it in Australia and New Zealand
for at least five years. It is however firmly based on experience, and
knowledge of what works and what doesn’t in many universities, right
around the world.</font></p>
<h1 style="margin-left:18.0pt"><span><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'trebuchet ms', sans-serif"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">2.</span></font><span style="font:7.0pt "Times New Roman""><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'trebuchet ms', sans-serif"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">
</span></font></span></span><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'trebuchet ms', sans-serif"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Long-term target</span></font></h1>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'trebuchet ms', sans-serif">The long term target of every repository manager must be
that depositing research publications should become an automatic part of an
academic’s work pattern, just like submitting their research for
publication, or setting their examinations. I take this as so obvious that I
will not argue it. </font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'trebuchet ms', sans-serif"> The only known route to achieving this is
via what is called a “mandate”. As an important transition to
getting the long-term target to happen, and happen worldwide, institutions (and
research funders) have to require their employees (grantees) to deposit their
research publications in an OA repository. This is unexceptionable and few
complain about it. Alma Swan’s studies support this as does actual on the
ground evidence. Again, I will not argue this, except to note that it is the
only strategy known to fill repositories with more than 50% of the available
research publications. This is well documented. See for example </font><a href="http://eprints.utas.edu.au/388/" target="_blank"><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'trebuchet ms', sans-serif">http://eprints.utas.edu.au/388/</font></a><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'trebuchet ms', sans-serif">. </font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'trebuchet ms', sans-serif"> Once depositing and making publications Open
Access (OA) is universal (or even as low as 50% of the world) the momentum of
the technological revolution will be unstoppable, and academics publishing
quality papers will rush to deposit. It has already happened in Physics and
Computer Science in case you think this is fanciful. Mandates will no longer be
required except to deal with problem cases or will exist as an historical
leftover from the beginning of a technological change. Those academics that
don’t accept this will be the cast-offs of that generation of scholars,
just like previous scientific revolutions such as that for plate tectonics.</font></p>
<h1 style="margin-left:18.0pt"><span><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'trebuchet ms', sans-serif"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">3.</span></font><span style="font:7.0pt "Times New Roman""><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'trebuchet ms', sans-serif"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">
</span></font></span></span><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'trebuchet ms', sans-serif"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Short term targets</span></font></h1>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'trebuchet ms', sans-serif">Assuming that you do not have an enlightened senior
executive, each repository manager has to adopt a different strategy. If it
isn’t oriented towards gaining a mandate in the long term, you are
wasting your time, unless you believe in prayer and miracles. Voluntary
persuasion has consistently been shown to achieve around 15% (sometimes a little
higher) of available deposits. See </font><a href="http://eprints.utas.edu.au/264/" target="_blank"><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'trebuchet ms', sans-serif">http://eprints.utas.edu.au/264/</font></a><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'trebuchet ms', sans-serif">.
Five years of experience has not changed that evidence. The only thing that
will change this in a voluntary environment is the </font><i><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'trebuchet ms', sans-serif">universal adoption</font></i><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'trebuchet ms', sans-serif"> of
OA mentioned above which will drag in most. </font></p>
<h1 style="margin-left:18.0pt"><span><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'trebuchet ms', sans-serif"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">4.</span></font><span style="font:7.0pt "Times New Roman""><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'trebuchet ms', sans-serif"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">
</span></font></span></span><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'trebuchet ms', sans-serif"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Strategies</span></font></h1>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'trebuchet ms', sans-serif">I suppose you are in this situation. You have not got a
mandate. What to do?</font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'trebuchet ms', sans-serif"> Firstly you should accept that the idea of
one person (other than the Vice-Chancellor or one of the Senior Executive
issuing a mandate) changing the work practices of a university is such a
foolish notion </font><i><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'trebuchet ms', sans-serif">a priori</font></i><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'trebuchet ms', sans-serif"> that it can be put aside as a delusion. The
theory of change says that change comes either quickly through fiat (a
mandate), or slowly through evolutionary principles. So here are some
suggestions to start slow but aim at fast.</font></p>
<h2><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'trebuchet ms', sans-serif"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Patchwork Mandate</span></font></h2>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'trebuchet ms', sans-serif">Do not try a scatter gun approach. It won’t work
because your effort is too thinly scattered. Soon backsliders come to balance
the converts. This is common centuries-old missionary experience.</font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'trebuchet ms', sans-serif"> Sit down and identify target departments in
your university and target them. (More missionary experience – go for the
chiefs.) Each university is different so you need to choose </font><i><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'trebuchet ms', sans-serif">your</font></i><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'trebuchet ms', sans-serif"> own
targets. Set in place measures that will ensure that even when you move on to
another target, you have a champion in that target area who will be your
surrogate to deal with backsliding. Support the champion. Massage their ego and
with information. Read the paper </font><a href="http://eprints.utas.edu.au/410/" target="_blank"><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'trebuchet ms', sans-serif">http://eprints.utas.edu.au/410/</font></a><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'trebuchet ms', sans-serif">,
and apply known techniques of change management to the problem. Did I mention
that I was previously a Pro Vice-Chancellor before I retired?</font></p>
<h2><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'trebuchet ms', sans-serif"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Why do we do this?</span></font></h2>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'trebuchet ms', sans-serif">Your first and main answer to an academic should be that
open access increases citations. Counts of publications are now passé, and they
were only ever the crudest form of metric for research impact. Citations are
now the fashion, and they are a less crude surrogate – if an article is
cited at least someone read it! As time goes on we shall see more complex
measures like the SJR and the set of Hirsch indexes coming to the fore in a
basket of metrics that attempt to measure the multi-dimensional aspects of
impact, different for every discipline. Work has to be online to be assessed!</font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'trebuchet ms', sans-serif">You should download Anne-Will Harzing’s </font><i><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'trebuchet ms', sans-serif">Publish or
Perish </font></i><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'trebuchet ms', sans-serif">tool </font><a href="http://www.harzing.com/pop.htm" target="_blank"><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'trebuchet ms', sans-serif">http://www.harzing.com/pop.htm</font></a><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'trebuchet ms', sans-serif">.
Try it out. Demo it to authors. Good for people with unique or rare names, like
me. Not so good for John Smiths. However it shows how online access (in this
case through Google Scholar) can be used to develop sophisticated metrics of
research impact. Has X published one excellent paper in their life twenty years
ago, or has X a record of good papers over that time? It matters.</font></p>
<h2><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'trebuchet ms', sans-serif"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Performance</span></font></h2>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'trebuchet ms', sans-serif">Using performance management to promote your repository is a
double edged sword, so be careful. Some academics might hate you, and then
where are you? Better if a Head of Department asks for help. However, get your
repository able to deliver a research record summary so that a high-performing
academic can attach it to his or her report for performance management. The
Head of Department will get the message...</font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'trebuchet ms', sans-serif">Forget about using your repository for promotion cases, etc
unless you have senior management support. It comes with the mandate territory,
not as a precursor.</font></p>
<h2><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'trebuchet ms', sans-serif"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Things that do not cut any ice</span></font></h2>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'trebuchet ms', sans-serif">Don’t bother to explain that the university
administration would like to know what research is being carried out. 99% of
academics would say “Stuff that!” Don’t try to explain how
when everyone goes OA, then your researchers will have free access to the
world’s literature. They don’t care – they have never paid
for access anyway.</font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'trebuchet ms', sans-serif"> An especial word of warning. Do not publish
lists of individual academics who are most downloaded this month, or similar.
Do not try to award prizes to individual academics. Most academics absolutely
hate this, and you’ve lost them for years. The exceptions are (surprise)
those few at the top. My experience is that the same people are at the top
rather consistently, so what are you doing? Pandering to their ego,
that’s what. And maybe you get pats on the back for your perspicacity. As
a matter of interest, the same object has been consistently top of the UTas
downloads for at least three years! Psychiatry is popular it seems. It probably
has impact above its citation count.</font></p>
<h2><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'trebuchet ms', sans-serif"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Other things that are useful</span></font></h2>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'trebuchet ms', sans-serif">Most of the following tips are very useful with individual
academics, but responses to each one varies widely. They are worth doing
centrally in your repository. Especially they are the answer to the people who
already put their papers on their websites (so they are OA) and think that a
repository isn’t any better than their website. Disabuse them, because
they aren’t converts, they are dyed-in-the-wool OA providers. They
won’t backslide once you’ve convinced them.</font></p>
<ul style="margin-top:0cm" type="disc">
<li class="MsoNormal"><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'trebuchet ms', sans-serif">Put effort into making
sure that Google indexes your repository really well. Many academic crow
about being top of the list in Google on their search term. You
can’t guess that search term – it is the topic of their
research that other researchers are likely to use.</font></li>
<li class="MsoNormal"><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'trebuchet ms', sans-serif">Make sure that your
authors can read good statistics on how often their paper is downloaded.
Some academics follow these avidly and deduce from the patterns that
someone just cited their work and try to find out who. See </font><a href="http://eprints.utas.edu.au/es/index.php?action=show_detail_eprint;id=410" target="_blank"><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'trebuchet ms', sans-serif">http://eprints.utas.edu.au/es/index.php?action=show_detail_eprint;id=410</font></a><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'trebuchet ms', sans-serif">;
or indeed any paper in the UTas repository that takes your fancy. </font></li>
<li class="MsoNormal"><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'trebuchet ms', sans-serif">Provide an easy service so
that authors can put a link to an up-to-date list of publications on their
personal website. For example </font><a href="http://eprints.utas.edu.au/view/authors/Sale,_AHJ.html" target="_blank"><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'trebuchet ms', sans-serif">http://eprints.utas.edu.au/view/authors/Sale,_AHJ.html</font></a><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'trebuchet ms', sans-serif">.
</font></li>
<li class="MsoNormal"><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'trebuchet ms', sans-serif">Make sure that each author
can download his own paper (even if restricted) wherever they are in the
world. Very active researchers value this a lot, because it is like
carrying a no-weight library of all your publications with you when you
travel internationally. Makes collaborative research a lot easier.</font></li>
<li class="MsoNormal"><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'trebuchet ms', sans-serif">Offer Departmental
seminars on how to use OA information to best advantage. Use Google
Scholar shamelessly (doesn’t really work without OA). Talk about
Harzing’s </font><i><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'trebuchet ms', sans-serif">Publish or Perish</font></i><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'trebuchet ms', sans-serif"> and demo it. Talk lots about
metrics, citations, and Scimago. Throw in citations as a way of searching
forward in time from a significant paper. Especially target postgraduate
(PhD) candidates. They influence more indolent supervisors.</font></li>
</ul>
<h1 style="margin-left:18.0pt"><span><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'trebuchet ms', sans-serif"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">5.</span></font><span style="font:7.0pt "Times New Roman""><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'trebuchet ms', sans-serif"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">
</span></font></span></span><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'trebuchet ms', sans-serif"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Debunking some myths and Summary</span></font></h1>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'trebuchet ms', sans-serif">This advice is meant to be useful to repository managers and
librarians who are new to this Open Access enterprise. However there are a few
extra myths that need to be squashed (not for academic eyes).</font></p>
<ul style="margin-top:0cm" type="disc">
<li class="MsoNormal"><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'trebuchet ms', sans-serif">The metadata entered by
authors is in general as good as or better than that entered by
librarians. Do not try to do better. You are wasting money.</font></li>
</ul>
<ul style="margin-top:0cm" type="disc">
<li class="MsoNormal"><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'trebuchet ms', sans-serif">Since almost all searches
are done by Google, full text analysis rules. Keywords and Phrases are of
such little consequence that it is a pity to waste a librarian’s
time on them when they could be doing something useful.</font></li>
<li class="MsoNormal"><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'trebuchet ms', sans-serif">Copyright issues can be
vastly overdone. If your mandate or your advice calls for the Accepted Manuscript
(aka postprint) as it should, just ignore checking copyright and let it go
up. If a publisher complains (they almost never do nor have any grounds
to), make it restricted without arguing. Do not accept the Version of
Record (aka publisher’s “pdf”) unless it is guaranteed
open access. In case it isn’t tell the author that the submission
has been rejected because they violated copyright. They’ll learn.
They’re good at learning. They won’t learn unless you teach
them.</font></li></ul>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'trebuchet ms', sans-serif">So to summarize: mandates are the only thing that works now.
Persuasion is a weak reed, but worth doing to prepare the ground for a mandate,
but be very selective in who you seek to persuade. Use change management tools
to assist you. The persuasive techniques continue to work once you’ve got
a mandate. Keep them going.</font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'trebuchet ms', sans-serif">Arthur Sale</font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'trebuchet ms', sans-serif">University of Tasmania</font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'trebuchet ms', sans-serif">26 March 2010</font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'trebuchet ms', sans-serif"> </font></p>
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