Repository effectiveness (was: JAIRO (Japanese Institutional Repositories Online))

From: Velterop <velterop_at_GMAIL.COM>
Date: Sat, 18 Sep 2010 21:59:38 +0100

Stevan makes the point that deposit takes only about 6 minutes. He's undoubtedly
measured it precisely. I don't know at what point his measurements started, but
I presume at the point where he has already found the submission page (and the
link to it doesn't produce a 404).

mandates are the stick; citation advantage etc. the carrot; but the problem is
that the carrot often lies behind a fence that is difficult to climb.

Might, just might it be that therein lies at least some of an explanation of the
author's passivity? I did a random – unscientific – spot check of a number of
repositories listed on the OpenDOAR web site. It needs a systematic follow-up,
but what I found in my random sample are the following issues:
 1. The OpenDOAR link doesn't always link to a repository, but fairly often to
    the library home page where finding a link to the institutional repository
    can be a challenge.
 2. When one is on a repository page, it is overwhelmingly focussed on search,
    and rarely if ever does it attract attention to submissions
 3. Links to submission forms are sometimes broken (producing the 404 'page
    cannot be found' error)
 4. Submission forms are sometimes very cumbersome
 5. Sometimes, one can only submit an abstract and metadata, not the whole
    article.
What needs to happen is at least the following:
 * Make a repository easy to find (a Google search for "University of X
    repository" more often seems to produce a link to an article or press
    release about the repository than a link to the repository itself, at least
    on the first few pages of the search results – repositories often have names
    or acronyms that make them difficult to find if you don't know the name)
 * Draw attention, unambiguously and very clearly, on the repository home page,
    to the possibility of submitting a paper/manuscript (e.g. a brightly
    coloured "submit now!" button)
 * Make the deposit procedure very, very easy and intuitive. Involve UX experts
    where possible.
 * Make deposit the *prime* focus of the repository. Repositories and their
    contents can be searched in a variety of ways and via many routes, but
    submission of articles can only take place via the repository's own web
    site.
The relentless and repetitive appeal to, and preoccupation with, logic and
rationality should surely be dropped. They don't persuade. As Syun Tutiya so
rightly says about authors, "We have to change them and must not keep telling
them that they are wrong." Empathy has to take the place of nagging. Persuasion
techniques that are more like those used in marketing need to be deployed. And
things like the completely useless bashing of OA publishing ("Gold rush") may
perhaps dissuade some people from submitting to OA journals, it definitely
doesn't help to persuade them to go "green". And Open Access suffers as a
result.

If one cannot motivate authors to self-archive, it's not their 'passivity' that
is to blame, it is one's lack of persuasiveness.

Success!

Jan Velterop


Stevan Harnad wrote:
      [cut]

      But the worry about keystrokes is a particularly silly one, these
      days.
      We have shown that deposit takes only about 6 minutes. (Multiply
      this
      with how many papers an author publishes per year -- and compare it
      with
      the time it takes to do the keystrokes to write the paper itself,
      let
      alone the research on which it is based.)

      [cut]

Syun Tutiya wrote:
            So your reference to your Point #29 is quite correct. I
            agree that
            those who are sitting pretty don't understand the
            relationship between
            impact of and access to scholarly articles, and so I
            would be wrong.
            But that is how they and we are.  We have to change them
            and must not
            keep telling them that they are wrong. Mandating does
            not seem to me
            to change them, but just encourage them to come up with
            reasons for
            not being able to deposit.  You will still have to talk
            to them.
Received on Sat Sep 18 2010 - 22:47:14 BST