Bringing a buzz to NECTAR Outcomes and impact

Bringing a buzz to NECTAR: Outcomes and impact Miggie Pickton 'How embedded and integrated is your repository? ‘ JISCrte event, Nottingham, 10 th February 2012

Context for the project • Well established (since 2007/8) repository at a ‘new’ university • Already successful in research reporting but less so in providing open access to full text • Highly mediated service proving difficult to sustain • Mandate for electronic submission of theses took effect January 2011 • Like everyone else, we’re wondering how we can best support the REF

Project objectives • To modify university procedures for submission to NECTAR increase researcher involvement, encourage the deposit of full content and further embed NECTAR in researcher workflows. • To implement technical and procedural changes as necessary to ensure NECTAR is compatible with the requirements of the British Library’s ETh. OS service. • To implement technical and procedural solutions (when available) to ensure NECTAR is ready to support the Research Excellence Framework (REF). • Through implementation of the Eprints Kultur plugin and rebranding of the repository interface, to better display the creative research outputs of the institution and to visually embed NECTAR within The University of Northampton’s new university website.

Project objectives • To implement the sector’s best ideas for new ‘added value’ services from NECTAR to increase the perceived benefit of NECTAR. • To provide a programme of appropriate training, advocacy and promotional activity to support the changes described above. • To collaborate with colleagues in the Repositories Support Project (RSP) and UKCo. RR to ensure that best practice is followed.

Project outputs - website • NECTAR rebranded to match the university website • Eprints Services implemented the Kultur extension in NECTAR. This included: – Scrolling display of images on home page – Reformatted item pages which present full content (if available) before metadata • Other changes to home page content: – replacement of the ‘top 5 papers’ list with a ‘latest additions’ list – minor changes in response to researcher feedback

Project outputs - workflow • Changes to data entry procedures have been implemented and promoted • In conjunction with the university’s Graduate School: – metadata (including Abstracts) have been uploaded to NECTAR for all University of Northampton theses – procedures for submission of electronic copies of theses have been updated and approved by Research Degrees Committee • With Eprints Services’ help we have made the changes necessary for NECTAR to comply with ETh. OS; we are now waiting for ETh. OS to start harvesting our data

Project outputs – advocacy and liaison • Advocacy activity included presentations to research groups and School Research Forums – where possible with School NECTAR administrators and Academic Librarians in attendance • NECTAR training sessions were offered as part of the university’s IT training programme • An Open Access Week event was planned and heavily promoted but eventually postponed due to poor uptake. . . • . . . but our VC has promised to host a future event and shown his support for OA in an interview

Project outputs – value added services • Researchers are now notified by email when their items are deposited in live NECTAR (thank you to William Nixon) • NECTAR bibliographies on School Research web pages have been revised in response to researcher feedback (e. g. Science and Technology) • Personal NECTAR bibliographies are now output to staff profile pages (e. g. Livingstone) • Improved statistics for NECTAR usage are gathered on a regular basis (using Google Analytics and IRStats)

Project outcomes – NECTAR stats • Researcher activity: – 293 researchers now have NECTAR logins – 69 of these have already entered details of 321 items • Increase in full content: – no. of items with open access content have increased by 50% – twice as many again have restricted content – mostly awaiting processing

Project impact - Northampton • The ability to enter their own work has increased researcher engagement, and the likelihood of full text being uploaded • The publications lists on staff profile page have gone down particularly well, prompting queries to the NECTAR team and increased interest in the repository • Research managers and administrators value the information they can derive from NECTAR. • The need for additional support for NECTAR has finally been recognised; a new ‘Research Information Specialist’ was appointed in December

Project impact – beyond Northampton • We have taken existing tools and services and applied these to NECTAR • Our experiences have been described in the project reports, two technical notices, several events and a forthcoming article in ALISS • We are happy to share our experiences, through the UKCORR-DISCUSSION mailing list and personal communication – please do get in touch

If you want to know more about any part of the project then please contact Miggie Pickton NECTAR Queen Bee miggie. pickton@northampton. ac. uk We are grateful to the JISC for their support.