Michael Boock

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Metadata Workflow at Oregon State University Libraries

In July 2005, the Oregon State University Libraries began accepting electronic versions of student theses and dissertations into ScholarsArchive@OSU, the librarys institutional repository. By January 2007, all Oregon State University graduate students were required to deposit their final research. This article compares past processes and workflows for print theses and dissertations with the present workflow for electronic. We provide the rationale for changes and review the cost- and time-savings produced. We describe the changing roles of students, technicians, and librarians in the metadata process as well as the value of students describing their own work.

The Use of Value Engineering in the Evaluation and Selection of Digitization Projects

Objective - The authors describe a simple and effective tool for selecting digitization projects from competing alternatives, providing decision makers with objective, quantitative data. Methods - The paper adopts the value engineering methodology for the selection, evaluation and ranking of digitization project proposals. Project selection steps are described. Selection criteria are developed. Digitization costs are presented as an equation. Project value is determined by calculating projected performance of digital collections based on the established criteria over cost. Results - Scenarios are presented that evaluate and rank projects based on an evaluation of performance criteria and cost. The communication and use of rating criteria provides selectors with information about how proposed collections are evaluated. The transparency of the process output is easily communicated to stakeholders. Conclusions - Value engineering methodology provides a tool and a process that gives decision makers a set of objective, quantitative data upon which selection of digitization projects is based. This approach simplifies the selection process, and creates transparency so that all stakeholders are able to see why a decision was made.

It Takes More Than a Mandate: Factors that Contribute to Increased Rates of Article Deposit to an Institutional Repository

INTRODUCTION Many institutions have open access (OA) policies that require faculty members to deposit their articles in an institutional repository (IR). A clear motivation is that a policy will result in increased self-archiving. The purpose of this longitudinal study is to compare the impact of a campus-wide OA policy and mediated solicitation of author manuscripts, using quantitative analysis to determine the rate of article deposits over time. METHODS Metadata for faculty articles published by authors at Oregon State University between 2011 and 2014 was produced by integrating citation metadata from a bibliographic database and the IR. Author names, affiliations, and other metadata were parsed and matched to compare rates of deposit for three separate time periods relating to different OA promotional strategies. RESULTS Direct solicitation of author manuscripts is more successful in facilitating OA than an OA policy—by number of articles deposited as well as the number of unique authors participating. Author affiliation and research areas also have an impact on faculty participation in OA. DISCUSSION Outreach to colleges and departments has had a positive effect on rate of deposit for those communities of scholars. Additionally, disciplinary practice may have more influence on its members’ participation in OA. CONCLUSION Until more federal policies require open access to articles funded by grants, or institutional policies are in place that require article deposit for promotion and tenure, policies will only be as effective as the library mediated processes that are put in place to identify and solicit articles from faculty.

Measuring Open Access Policy Compliance: Results of a Survey

INTRODUCTION In the last decade, a significant number of institutions have adopted open access (OA) policies. Many of those working with OA policies are tasked with measuring policy compliance. This article reports on a survey of Coalition of Open Access Policy Institutions (COAPI) members designed to better understand the methods currently used for measuring and communicating OA policy success. METHODS This electronic survey was distributed to the COAPI member listserv, inviting both institutions who have passed an implemented policies and those who are still developing policies to participate. RESULTS The results to a number of questions related to topics such as policy workflows, quantitative and qualitative measurement activities and related tools, and challenges showed a wide range of responses, which are shared here. DISCUSSION It is clear that a number of COAPI members struggle with identifying what should be measured and what tools and methods are appropriate. The survey illustrates how each institution measures compliance differently, making it difficult to benchmark against peer institutions. CONCLUSION As a result of this survey, we recommend that institutions working with OA policies be as transparent as possible about their data sources and methods when calculating deposit rates and other quantitative measures. It is hoped that this transparency will result in the development of a set of qualitative and quantitative best practices for assessing OA policies that standardizes assessment terminology and articulates why institutions may want to measure policies.

Article Deposit Services in Support of Federal Agency Public Access Requirements

INTRODUCTION Academic libraries have experimented with a variety of services to encourage article deposit to institutional repositories, with varying degrees of success. Universities now face the challenge of meeting federal agency public access requirements. Following the White House Office of Science Technology and Policy public access directive in 2013, Oregon State University (OSU) initiated an article deposit service to help faculty meet funding agency requirements and facilitate deposit of articles to both federal agency repositories and the institutional repository. This case study describes the article deposit form developed by the library to encourage article deposits to the institutional repository and federal agency repositories, the processes and people put in place to request and deposit the articles, and the impact of the service on the number of articles deposited to federal agency repositories. DESCRIPTION OF PROJECT In the two years since the article deposit service was initiated, a total of 102 articles have been deposited by the library to the PubMed Central or PAGES federal agency repositories. The inclusion of a request for faculty to indicate federal funding in the article deposit form has not resulted in increased article self deposits. Identifying and requesting National Institutes of Health and U.S. Department of Energy funded articles from faculty for deposit to the institutional repository and to the agency repositories has also not received substantial uptake. The majority of articles that have been deposited to federal agency repositories by the library were received after library staff reviewed bibliographies of grant funded research for compliance with public access policies. NEXT STEPS As a result, the library is now working with the university office of research to promote a service that asks faculty for a bibliography of their articles that result from NIH or DOE funding, identifies those that need to be deposited to the agency repositories, and provides a link to the library’s article deposit form for them to initiate article deposits to the institutional repository and to agency repositories.

Between a Rock and a Hard Place: Managing Government Document Collections in a Digital World

An Oregon State University Libraries (OSUL) study groups review of its current policies, practices, and costs provides an illustrative case study of the challenges in managing government documents during this period of transition from print to digital. In its exploration of more aggressive approaches to greatly increasing access to electronic collections and reducing the size of the print footprint, OSUL learned that the current requirements of the Federal Depository Library Program (FDLP) hamper such efforts. This case study provides background on prior internal studies, OSULs participation in a shared housing agreement, statistics on size and current usage of its government documents, and the costs to receive, process, and provide access to its document collection. It concludes with the recommendations for OSUL to be as proactive as it can be under the current FDLP rules and regulations while bringing projected costs to manage government documents more in line with higher priorities.

TECHNICAL SERVICES REPORT

This column will feature reports on what is going on in the rapidly changing, ever-fascinating field of Technical Services. Each quarterly issue will consist of reports on systems, including new developments at the bibliographic utilities and networks, conference happenings and reports from meetings, whats new in technical services publications, as well as reports from technical services professionals on their research and projects. Such reports, announcements, and brief articles for consideration for inclusion should be sent to: Barry B. Baker, Editor, Technical Services Report, Director of Libraries, University of Central Florida, P.O. Box 162666, Orlando, FL 32816–2666.