The second objective is "To develop a set of support services to sustain the collaborative development of distributed research information networks across regional universities ".

RUBRIC activities for this objective will include:

• B1 Providing technical support services to partners during the project

• B2 Developing a knowledge base to capture support issues and lessons learned by experience of participants

• B3 Publishing documentation on establishment issues, including installation, configuration and cultural change issues

• B4 Creating training materials for support staff

• B5 Developing a plan for hand-over of support to University helpdesks

• B6 Collaborating with FRODO projects to contribute to existing workshops and information exchanges already established for dissemination of software, deployment, support and sustainability information

What does this mean RUBRIC will do?

B1: A central Technical Team has been established at USQ to provide centralized support services for all RUBRIC partners during the life of the project.  This means that partners will have a significantly reduced need for local technical expertise and can focus their energies on business case development and addressing local cultural change issues.  The Technical Team will establish centralized repository infrastructure that will be used to house demonstrators at USQ in the first instance.  Partner data will be loaded into these demonstrators and manipulated by the Technical Team.  The RUBRIC Metadata specialist will work closely with partners to consider issues relating to metadata management and data quality.  Finally, the Technical Team will provide advice and assistance in any local deployment of repository infrastructure amongst the partner sites.

B2:  The RUBRIC Toolkit will be the main knowledgebase developed by the central RUBRIC team, in conjunction with partners and through consultation with the FRODO projects.

B3: All documentation produced by the RUBRIC team will be entered into the RUBRIC Toolkit for posterity and continued access by the wider Australian higher education community.

B4: Training materials will be developed as required and made available to all partners.  Where appropriate, it will also be stored on the RUBRIC Toolkit.

B5: Based on the technical experience that is developed through the lifecycle of implementation and deployment with a partner site, the RUBRIC team will provide handover to that partner's existing university help desk systems in such a way that the repository infrastructure established will be able to be managed and maintained locally.

B6: Where possible, RUBRIC would like to collaborate with the FRODO and newer MERRI projects to contribute regional experiences to the national knowledgebase of developing institutional repositories.  This contribution will be made through formal and informal mechanisms and will involve speaking at conferences and events, publishing and ensuring knowledge is captured and made available to the broader community online.