VADS Kultivate. Royal College of Art - Case Study

Transcription

1 VADS Kultivate Royal College of Art - Case Study Implementing a repository for research practice in post-graduate art, design and visual communication. Jonathan Warner, Head of Computing July 2011

2 About RCA Located in the heart of London, the Royal College of Art is the most influential, wholly postgraduate university of art and design in the world. The RCA has a distinctive role in preparing its postgraduate students for careers in art, design and the creative sector indeed the College is widely viewed as a crucible of the creative industries.

3 RCA Students and Staff The Royal College of Art is an entirely post-graduate Art and Design university with around 1,000 full time MA students, 100 enrolled PhD/MPhil students, and 40 or so active research staff. About 70% of RCA s activity is design or visual communications, the remaining 30% is Fine Art. 1,500 students by

4 About the Research Repository RCA research repository is designed to support the collection, archive and publication of the College's research practice, processes and outputs. The repository is an open access academic resource, to which anyone at College has access, and from which all research staff are able to manage and publish their own research, workin-progress, bibliographic records and data to the World.

5 Timetable August Eprints Services engaged November Custom development begins, prototypes for Pilots presented April RR ready for full production within RCA September every current RCA researcher since the last RAE represented on the RR. September % of completed, digitised PhD theses and research staff outputs on the RR. REF 2013/14 - all research staff to have an official profile, metadata and abstracts, 60% with full text and/or supporting data.

6 General Requirements The deposit and publish process should be lightweight and simple enough to become a natural part of RCA's research methods and practice, but rigorous enough to provide standard metadata for easy discovery by the global research community and for use by the REF. The RR should support materials and outputs from practice or project-based researchers, with a variety of curated evidence, such as exhibitions, documentation, objects, data and multimedia. RCA will also use the RR to archive existing PhD theses and other valid legacy research outputs.

7 Requirements for Research Staff Researchers should be able to manage the self-archiving, review and publishing process end-to-end. The RCA RR should launch with KULTUR and MePrints extensions, for the full constituency of RCA students, researchers, editors, and departments, with complete 2008 RAE data.

8 Pilots Home visits were made to 7 researchers to listen, learn and gain feedback, which was directly incorporated into the repository build. The pilots were shown the RR, and how to decide what material constitutes research outputs and how to add Items. The pilots were prompted later to add and expand Items.

9 Branding Based on the graphical framework of the RCA/Research home page, but using a slimmer banner to contain the user and search menus...

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14 RR Home Page The result is a synthesis of recognisable RCA styles containing standard repository content, abstract and citations, allowing sample content and latest items to dominate... Development mantra: Simplify, Reduce, Reuse Simplify, Reduce, Reuse

15 Item Types We limited Types to those that best represent our valid, publishable research outputs, whatever their character or content (is there an App for it?) We eliminated specific media Types such as 'Video', 'Image' and 'Audio'... paper, cd, blog, cloth, biscuit... We reasoned that a deposit Type should primarily describe the attributes of a published research output, rather than the media or technical characteristics. Types

16 Item Types The question in our mind was always: What is a valid research output? and What form does the publication and evidence take? Documents, files and objects should support, but not define the publication record. We even considered elimination of Artefact Type for similar reasons, but left it as a catch-all category for visually inclined researchers who are makers of objects. Types

17 Subjects, Vocabulary and Keywords We chose HESA Joint Academic Coding System (JACS) Version 2.0 for Subjects. We decided not to use the Keywords field, instead we would rely on fully defined fields for search, which include text from 'Title' and Description to capture words in natural language, as well as from the controlled vocabulary for Subjects. Details

18 Users, Authors and Disambiguation We integrated RR user logins with our directory and enabled new records to automatically fill with full name, contact , department and their research Hub. To ensure creator/author disambiguation, an RCA UID was added to our user directory, and set to automatically populate new RR records. RCA IDs were then retrospectively applied to previously imported RAE Items and matched to Author surname, associating records to the correct researcher. We also added permissions-based Roles to the directory, and set the RR so any user logging in will automatically match a role and receive their correct access level.

19 Workflow We placed Type before Upload to encourage good metadata capture before any documents are added. We condensed and collapsed all non-mandatory fields to keep the forms short and lean. We made the field order logical and consistent. We cut out the Review process specifically for Research Staff allowing them to Save or Publish directly. Research Office are notified of new deposits by . Research staff can act as Editors of their OWN records if they wish. Details

20 Workflow Stages Default EPrints Workflow was too general and demanded too much information over too many stages, so we reduced the number of fields from 58 to 40, and we merged Details with Subject fields on one page - reducing WF to just 4 stages: Type > Details > Upload > Deposit We condensed the Subjects pick list to just 3 parent categories for the most likely RCA subject areas. W Creative Arts and Design K Architecture Other Details

21 Uploads The file name appears in the abstract icon label, to avoid Untitled appearing where they lack a description (common issue) eg: We also added a plugin, which optionally allows Zipped files to be expanded as mutiple documents, rather than files - useful for uploading collections of images. Upload

22 Recommendations Emphasise how an RR can support the research process, not just the outputs Visit as many researchers as possible in their natural habitat User feedback is the most important asset when implementing a DR Simplify, reduce, remove, reduce, standardise and automate processes Make MEPrints profile as the first point of entry after login Populating with existing RAE data and institutional user data is a great way to backfill with valid content:- new users then automatically inherit records, access rights and other attributes.

23 Recommendations Interrogate what the Research Office (and funders) define as a research output and make the information design fit the expectations and practice of real researchers Give guidance on Subject categories to Researchers Test even more than we did from a Researcher s perspective KULTUR and MEPrints extension are of universal benefit A simple spreadsheet can be used to design and describe most aspects, features and options when developing a custom DR workflow Illustrious alumni research encourages deposits

24 Conclusions We allow Research Staff to act as Editors of their own records Enthusiastic pilots provide a pool of experienced advocates Researchers are able to use the RR to add complex Items and feedback was positive Around 100 records were added by pilots. Some improvements we made could be generally applied to the EPrints core (tabs layout, Zip handling etc) All Research Staff have managed the deposit process themselves with minimal help RCA Research Online is not yet public, we will let you know when it is...

25 Conclusions A personal portfolio of items in the RR, owned and managed by users and available for their own Items may help researchers to collect stuff, which they may later curate into specific Projects and Items of research. We (all) need to think about and define what we mean by 'research', 'practice', 'outputs' and 'evidence'... "...I can only add that research for art, craft and design needs a great deal of further research. Once we get used to the idea that we don't need to be scared of 'research - or in some way protected from it - the debate can really begin." Christopher Frayling, RCA Rector: , from: Research in Art and Design (Royal College of Art Research Papers, Vol 1, No 1, 1993/4). Royal College of Art, London.

26 Project Containers The EPrints workflow could be simplified for depositors by setting up re-usable, proforma Project 'containers'. Projects could allow any number of Items to be related to each other and managed as a whole, and enable collaborative ownership of Projects. This would also allow users to browse, join and even add their own items to Projects. All contained Items then relate to the same research project, making repeating deposits quicker, more manageable, consistent and discoverable.

27 Acknowledgements RCA Research Office Jeremy Aynsley: Director of Research / Head of School of Humanities and History of Design, jeremy. aynsley@rca.ac.uk Jamie Gilham: Senior Research Manager, Research Office, jamie.gilham@rca.ac.uk Andrew Loveland: Research Administrator, Research Office, andrew.loveland@rca.ac.uk RCA Research Pilots Noam Toran: Tutor, Design Interactions, noam.toran@rca.ac.uk Felicity Aylieff: Senior Tutor, Ceramics & Glass, felicity.aylieff@rca.ac.uk Anthony Dunne: Head of Department, Design Interactions, tony.dunne@rca.ac.uk Freddie Robins: Senior Tutor - Mixed Media, Textiles, freddie.robins@rca.ac.uk Michael Schwab: Visiting Tutor, CHS, michael.schwab@rca.ac.uk Jo-Anne Bichard: Research Fellow, HHC, jo-anne.bichard@rca.ac.uk Mark Hampson: Senior Tutor, Printmaking, mark.hampson@rca.ac.uk

28 Acknowledgements EPrints Services Timothy Miles Board School of Electronics and Computer Science University of Southampton, UK Beta testing Neil Parkinson: Special Collections Manager, Library, RCA Computing Services Pádraig Coogan: Network Administrator, Computing Services, Paul Cross: Computing Support Technician, Computing Services,

29 Links Software and Resources EPrints: Fedora Commons: DSpace: Digital Commons: Open Access: org/dlib/march05/harnad/03harnad.htm Digital Repositories Universtiy of the Creative Arts EPrints: University of the Arts London EPrints: Goldsmiths Arts EPrints: html British Library: LSE: