Enhancing and testing repository deposit interfacesSteve Hitchcock, JISC DepositMO Project

ECS, WAIS, University of Southampton

OR2012, 7th International Conference on Open Repositories, Edinburgh, 11 July 2012

http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/340997/

In this talk …

• Open access IRs under pressure• Adding value for users• Repositioning deposit in the user workflow

and applications; new deposit interfaces• SWORDv2• User testing results• Boosting deposit rates for real repositories?

Credits and acknowledgements

• PI: Les Carr• Development: Richard Boardman, Dave Tarrant, Tim

Brody, Richard Jones, Alex Wade• Testing: departments of archaeology and chemistry,

and the e-Prints Soton, EdShare (all Southampton) and Kultivate repository teams – coordinators of these teams: Graeme Earl, Jeremy Frey, Kate Walker, Debra Morris and Marie-Therese Gramstadt, respectively.

• Biscuits and sweeping up: Me

IRs under pressure• Recommendations from Report of the Working Group on

Expanding Access to Published Research Findings (Finch)i. a clear policy direction should be set towards support for

publication in open access or hybrid journals, funded by APCs, as the main vehicle for the publication of research

ix. the infrastructure of subject and institutional repositories should be developed so that they play a valuable role complementary to formal publishing, particularly in providing access to research data and to grey literature, and in digital preservation

• PeerJ Open Access & Peer-Reviewed. Starting at $99 - for life

@stevehit PeerJ: I still don't see the magic bullet here. If PeerJ can make it by 'lowering the financial barriers' then IRs will be shot #openaccess

Crisis? What serials crisis?

DepositMO has been to Edinburgh before - Repository Fringe, Aug 2011

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kPZ3n6sJqaU@depositMO Good to see both DepositMO tools got a spontaneous round of applause during Dave’s show. So that’s a tick for flashiness #jiscdepo

#depositmoInteractive Multi-Submission Deposit Workflows for Desktop Applications

David Tarrantdavetaz@ecs.soton.ac.ukElectronics and Computer ScienceOR2010, Madrid, 6-9 July 2010

A borderline paper?

“It’s curious, then, that there have been few published studies or user testing of repository interfaces.”

Is this statement supportable? SeeRepository usability review, 24-26 January 20121. Designing for metadata2. User deposit interfaces3. New deposit protocolsModus Operandi for Repository Deposits bloghttp://blogs.ecs.soton.ac.uk/depositmo/tag/repository-usability-review/

EPrints deposit interface (part of)

SWORD deposit interface

Facebook SWORD client http://blog.stuartlewis.com/2009/06/02/how-does-the-facebook-sword-client-actually-work/

Why SWORD?

Simple Web service Offering Repository Deposit • SWORD (2007) single interface, deposit in

multiple repositories. ‘Fire and forget’.• SWORDv2 (2012) items can be created,

updated, replaced, or deleted (CRUD).• SWORDv2 endpoints built into current

versions of EPrints (3.3) and DSpace (1.8)

Word Add-in deposit client

Watch Folder – a file manager-based deposit interface

Watch Folder – does this look like anything you’ve seen elsewhere?

Microsoft SkyDrive integrated into Windows Explorer, Apple Finder (April 2012)http://mashable.com/2012/04/23/skydrive-update-100gb-storage/A repository is NOT a hard drive - different paradigm

User tests of of new deposit clients • Controlled test environment: a pair of Web-

connected laptops running Windows 7, directed at a demonstrator EPrints repository running the SWORDv2 extensions.

• Test users included new as well as experienced repository users, most working in observed pairs.

• Results were based on what users did, using repository records and observer notes; what users said, in before- and after-test questions; task completion and time taken.

Results of user tests• On average, both direct deposit clients took less

time to deposit an item than via the native repository interface

• This time advantage is realised where less stringent metadata requirements apply or where the tool assists with metadata completion, as the Word Add-in does with simple bibliographic information

• The Watch Folder does not provide the simplest means of metadata control, and in some cases additional time was incurred to complete this stage

• User testing resultshttp://blogs.ecs.soton.ac.uk/depositmo/tag/user-testing-results/

Lessons of user tests• The wow! factor is harder to sustain in practice, noticeably

as a user’s collection size grows and issues of metadata control and versioning become more critical. It’s not just about the initial deposit.

• There are no simple comparisons to be made between the instant deposit tools (Word Add-in and Watch Folder) and the more structured native repository deposit interfaces. Instant deposit may be at the expense of providing careful metadata now.

• Further refinements to the tools might be able to improve metadata control without losing deposit time.

Where could we offer deposit with maximum speed and minimal metadata?

DataFlow services summary – adding SWORDFrom JISC UMF DataFlow Project Introduction to DataStagehttp://vidaas.oucs.ox.ac.uk/docs/David%20Shotton%20-%20overview%20of%20DataFlow.pdf

From DepositMO to DepositMOre

From an impenetrable acronym – changing the Modus

Operandi of repository deposit – to a play on words with a

self-explanatory goal – getting more stuff into your repository• JISC confirmation: recent

• Start: soon, tbc

From DepositMO to DepositMOre

Defying psittacine (and classic comedy sketch writing) convention

… Just restingFrom an impenetrable acronym – changing the Modus

Operandi of repository deposit – to a play on words with a

self-explanatory goal – getting more stuff into your repository• JISC confirmation: recent

• Start: soon, tbc

Why DepositMOre?

• Over 50% of test users indicated these new deposit tools would encourage them to submit more of their own content to the repository.

• DepositMO performed usability tests and cannot tell us how these tools might impact on deposit rates of real repositories.

• DepositMOre, was proposed to demonstrate increased deposit rates using in-tool statistical tracking.

DepositMOre toolsWatch Folder: extending the user interaction model for intelligent bulk ingest to deal with 100s of documents, involving original user testers from within arts and archaeology, communities that generate large volumes of non textual digital objects.

EasyChair Deposit Tool, lists a user’s authored items in Easychair, which hosts over 15,000 conferences. The tool checks if these items are present in the user’s selected repository. Any that have not been deposited can be added with one click.

New

X Word add-in: impact of a content creation tool on deposit rates will be less immediate.

Conclusions• DepositMO and DepositMOre aim to show

how different repository deposit tools can support users with different deposit demands, widening the base of repository users.

• With the growing emphasis on managing research data, especially using data repositories, the need for choice in repository deposit – offering tradeoffs between time to deposit and degree of documentation – is going to become more acute.

Useful contacts

• Twitter: @depositmo• Blog http://blogs.ecs.soton.ac.uk/depositmo/ • Web downloads

http://www.eprints.org/depositmo/ • Email sh94r@ecs.soton.ac.uk