Planning Documents

Before planning the implementation, it is advisable to consider your potential repository functions. Initial thoughts will develop as you work through the suggested planning documents.

A visual checklist was developed by Massey University to track all of their planning issues. Working documents were developed from this list to provide work plans, an issues register and project overview.

It is helpful to develop the big picture documents, such as a visual diagram or project charter; the following examples may be helpful.

Project Charter

• Generic example of an Institutional Repository Project Charter

• University of Newcastle Institutional Repository Project Charter

Project Goals

Goals can be included in the Project Charter documents or outlined separately:

• University of New England Project Goals

Scanning the environment

A survey of the local community will involve them in the implementation of the project and help to understand the state of institutional readiness. It will also assist in planning a marketing program or to identify champions in the community who can participate in governance and promote the implementation and uptake of the Institutional Repository (IR).

A sample Academic Survey is available in the LEADIRS (Learning About Digital Institutional Repositories) workbook (refer to page 52). This was used by two of the RUBRIC Partners to assess institutional readiness.

• University of Newcastle Survey

• University of the Sunshine Coast Survey

Other useful tools:

• Pre-workshop survey from Cornell University 2005 workshop on Digital Preservation

• Survey Monkey is a useful tool for creating an online survey

Know Your Audience

You need to know the community in order to pitch your message and provide solutions. It is helpful to understand academic work habits; the way they publish and the way they search for information. Alma Swan from Key Perspectives Ltd reports that “the usual pathway followed to obtain an article not instantly available via a library subscription is much the same in sciences, social sciences, and arts and humanities”. Typical steps followed by a scholar:

• seeks access to the full-text, anticipating immediate and free electronic availability via the local library; if that fails:

• tries Google to see if an Open Access version is available; if that fails:

• emails a friend in another institution with better library provision to see if they can email the article; if that fails:

• emails the author; if that fails:

• orders article via inter-library loan

• consults a subject librarian for expert help

Discoverability problem or non-existence problem was a post to various discussion lists in July 2007 containing this information on the search habits of academics.

Operational Structure: Staffing Models

The key staffing issues to plan for include:

• governance, including legal

• day to day operational management

• training and development

A Steering Committee (see information below) is vitally important for governance during the project phase.

The internal management structure of a production system also needs consideration during the planning stage. Develop an appropriate structure to ensure staff have core competencies and are able to:

• encourage submission from academics

• advise on metadata requirements

• develop content management policies

• organise permissions

• address copyright issues from a legal and practical perspective

• train other staff as the repository grows

Staffing requirements at USQ estimates hours of engagement at each level and provides a useful reference. Positions identified included:

• Institutional Repository Coordinator

• Editor

• Software Administrator/Technical Support

• Technical Support in the ITS area

• Marketing / Support Officer

Access to specialist staff such as a Lawyer or Contract Officer is also need to ensure all legal aspects of your IR are considered. Existing faculty liaison staff can be used to market and promote the service to the wider community.

Sample position descriptions:

• Digital Repository Manager (Macquarie University)

• Project Officer (Macquarie University)

• RUBRIC Coordinator (University of the Sunshine Coast)

• RUBRIC Project Manager (University of Newcastle)

Common repository roles and skill sets needed for the development and management of an institutional repository have been compiled by SHERPA in response to requests for examples of repository job descriptions.

Training is an important aspect of staff preparation. Operational training will need to be undertaken by staff involved in the day to day running of the repository.

A Frequently Asked Questions file (FAQ) for staff and also new users of the system can be a useful training supplement.

Steering Committee and Project Governance

Early identification of project stakeholders is important. Try to include in this group some people with the ability and organisational connections to champion your cause and smooth the way if difficulties are encountered.

This Steering Committee Outline helps you to consider the role this Committee will take in establishing an IR at your institution.

The Access Management section explains why you will definitely need legal advice when establishing an IR. You may not need to include a legal person on the Steering Committee but you do need to develop a strong professional relationship with your University Lawyer and Copyright Officer in order to discuss and resolve the many legal issues which will arise.

• Terms of Reference for the Steering Committee were put together by the University of the Sunshine Coast.

Flinders University adopted a two-tiered approach, establishing:

• the Flinders Academic Commons Working Group includes library and humanities staff (Associate Librarian, Network Librarian, Humanities Liaison Librarian, RUBRIC Project Manager plus the Head of the Humanities ASRI, a Humanities academic and the ASRI research development officer). This group was responsible for starting the FAC. They set out initial policies and have addressed issues as they arose during the installation phase. They consider the recruitment of content and expansion within the humanities area.

• the Flinders Academic Commons Committee comprises library staff only. It includes the University Librarian, both Associate Librarians, Metadata Librarian, Senior Liaison Librarian, Network Librarian, Medical Librarian and Executive Assistant to the University Librarian. It was formed once the FAC was established with a view to taking it to other areas of the university. It deals with higher level policy issues.

The University of Southern Queensland Steering Committee dealt with issues such as:

• regular demonstration of progress and customisations

• monitoring and reporting on related IR projects

• goal setting - target audience, content scope (initial content, future content), method of submission, how it would be used

• design of interface

• the role and purpose of statistics

• marketing strategies

• managing copyright

• impact on library policy

• relationships with other areas within the university

Community Engagement

The Steering Committee will form a crucial part of your community engagement. It is generally through these meetings that you will develop a Marketing and Communication plan for your organisation.

The Marketing plan covers:

• to whom you need to promote the IR (target audience)

• what you want to achieve with the marketing campaign (for example, to encourage submissions into the repository)

• the timing of information releases and specific milestone celebrations, such as a launch or media release

• the running of promotional activities – whether this will include releases to the local press, newsletters and emails, flyers or bookmarks, posters, information sessions, training sessions etc

There may be existing processes which can be used to market the IR at a low cost. Strategies employed by the University of Southern Queensland were:

• emailing notices generated from the library system containing a promotional statement

• using faculty librarians to promote the service at faculty meetings

Many useful resources exist to assist with developing the marketing plan, including:

• Marketing in the RUBRIC Toolkit

• The LEADIRS workbook Chapter 2

• A Communication Plan is also useful to ensure you will regularly inform key stakeholders.

• A sample Communications Kit available from MIT.

Risk Management Assessment

Risk management is a systematic process of making a realistic evaluation of the true level of risks to your IR. Before risks can be properly managed they need to be identified. Consider these questions: What can go wrong? What can we do to prevent it? What do we do if it happens?

A risk management plan should include risk management tasks, responsibilities, activities and budget. The Managing a Repository section raises a number of key risk management issues relating to sustainability.

Sample assessment plan

• University of Newcastle Risk Management assessment

Further plans to assist with disaster management planning can be found in the Digital Preservation Management section.

Service Models

Service models help to define the user community, content, criteria for inclusion, collection management policies, digital rights management, core services and value added services.

An excellent worksheet for developing a Service Model created by the DSpace team at MIT is useful during the planning phase of the project, with the disclaimer that the unique needs of the institution will “dictate the parameters of your service definition” DSpace (2007) .

The LEADIRS workbook provides a Service Model Definition Checklist on page 41.

The New Zealand Institutional Repositories wiki also has a section on service models in the Repository Architectures section.

Timelines

The more time consuming aspects of establishing an IR relate to:

• acquiring data

• gaining the confidence of contributors and the organisation

• managing rights such as copyright, intellectual property, moral rights and access issues

• procedure development for workflows

• policy development

• organisational issues such as institutional support, buy-in and awareness

• embedding activities to ensure that the IR is properly resourced, managed and sustainable in the organisation's strategic plans

This sample timeline tool will help you plan your project and prioritise activity.

Budgetary Considerations

There is a large investment to be made in establishing an IR, although the level of staffing, amount of equipment and other associated costs will vary with the size of the organisation.

It is useful to consider basic IR establishment costs in the following areas:

• staffing

  • project management

  • technical support

  • repository coordination

  • data coordination

• hardware

• software

• staff development and travel

Staff positions may not all be full-time. Staff requirements might be different in the production phase compared with the project or pilot phase because:

• training requirements may vary

• technical requirements for batch loads and data migration may vary

• less technical support for customization may be required on the production system

A travel budget is a good idea to ensure that the university stays well informed of national developments.

Action plans to assist with cost planning can be found in the Digital Preservation Management section.

Reflections

Reflections on the Planning Phase from the University of Newcastle RUBRIC Project Manager.

References and Further Reading

Refer to the Further Reading section at the end of the Toolkit for bibliographic details of works referenced in this section.

Action plans to assist with planning can be found in the Digital Preservation Management section.

“RUBRIC Toolkit: Planning” produced July 2007

Copyright 2007 RUBRIC