Research Repository Blog

As in previous terms, the Library Repository Team are offering training sessions for all UWE research staff who use, or are interested in, the UWE Research Repository. These sessions will take place on the Frenchay and Glenside campuses.

The Introductory sessions will provide information about what the repository is and why we have one, answers to some common FAQs, and give you a chance to use the repository. There are four sessions in total, running in April, May and June.

The 'Hints and Tips' session (Frenchay only, in June) will provide you with a chance to ask questions, advice on how to make the deposit process faster, and advice on improving your searches.

If you would like to sign up for any of the above sessions, please use the booking form at http://www.uwe.ac.uk/library/eprints/training.htm. Please contact the Repository Team at eprints@uwe.ac.uk with any queries.

The repository team have now put together the report giving an overview of repository statistics from Dec 2011-Feb 2012. The report shows:

• The number of live records in the repository
• The amount of unique visitors to the repository
• The number of items deposited to the repository, and who deposited them
• What percentage of records are full text, and which faculty they are from
• What country visitors to the repository come from, and how they find the repository
• The top keywords used to find the repository in search engines
• The number of full text documents downloaded
• The top ten most downloaded items
• The number and percentage of full text items for each faculty
• The top five most downloaded items for each faculty

UWE researchers can view the full report at https://share.uwe.ac.uk/teams/rep/stats/, but highlights also appear below:

As of 29 February 2012 there were:

13, 727 live records (up 229 since November 2011)
2060 full text records (up 170 since November 2011)
15 % full text

Unique visitors are currently at 2,300 per week, having risen from 1,800 per week in late November.

Items deposited Dec 2011-Feb 2012:

* Total deposits include items that have been self-deposited by individuals; deposits added by Faculty Research Officers (FROs) and mediated deposits, which are deposited by the UWE Research Repository team

Of the four faculties, the Faculty of Creative Arts, Industries and Education (ACE) has the highest full text percentage, with 27.3% of their items having full text attached. They have overtaken the Faculty of Business and Law (FBL), who now have full text attached to 24.7% of their items.  However, if we disregard records from legacy databases, which do not have full text attached, the Faculty of Engineering and Technology (FET) still have the highest full text percentage, with an impressive 59.2% of their records having full text attached.

The top five most downloaded items are listed below:

Paper details	Faculty	No. of downloads (Dec 2011-Feb 2012)
Braun, Virginia and Clarke, Victoria (2006) Using thematic analysis in psychology. Qualitative Research in Psychology, 3 (2). pp. 77-101. ISSN 1478-0887	Faculty of Health and Life Sciences	9330
Clarke, V. (2010) Review of the book "Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis: Theory, Method and Research". Psychology Learning & Teaching, 9 (1). pp. 57-56.	Faculty of Health and Life Sciences	548
Moody, S. and Melia, S. (2011) Shared space: Implications of recent research for transport policy. Working Paper. University of the West of England, Bristol. (Submitted)	Faculty of Environment and Technology	170
Barton, Hugh and Grant, Marcus (2006) A health map for the local human habitat. The Journal for the Royal Society for the Promotion of Health, 126 (6). pp. 252-253.	Faculty of Environment and Technology	248
Sloman, L., Cairns, S., Newson, C., Anable, J., Pridmore, A. and Goodwin, P. (2010) Effects of smarter choices programmes in the sustainable travel towns. Project Report. Department for Transport.	Faculty of Environment and Technology	181

UWE authors can view the top five downloaded items for each Faculty at https://share.uwe.ac.uk/teams/rep/stats/

 

In the past, this blog has tended to cover news about the UWE Research Repository. However, there are of course many other useful repositories and services out there which are also of great benefit of researchers. One example is the Oxfam GB iLibrary.

The Oxfam iLibrary showcases Oxfam research, programme and policy information from anti-poverty and campaign work worldwide. The repository came about after a realisation that there was no single, secure deposit location for the charity's digital assets. By having simple search and deposit functions, it aims to be usable by everybody, whether or not they have a background in repository use.

Oxfam iLibrary is supported by BioMed Central, and uses their hosted solution, Open Repository. The repository is available on the new Oxfam Policy & Practice website at http://policy-practice.oxfamhosted.co.uk/publications, and there is more information about it at http://www.openrepository.com/news/press/153

The left hand navigation bar on the repository home page has always been a good starting point if you're not sure what you're looking for on the UWE Research Repository. It lists the majority of actions and pages available to you on the repository. Until recently, this list has remained the same. However, there have been a number of changes to the repository over the past two years, and it was time to give this navigation bar a bit of a make-over. The basic functionality remains the same - it's just that what you see should now be a little more organised and, hopefully, easier to find.

The bar is now split into 7 sections. Along with links back to the UWE and repository home pages, you can also find sections on searching, browsing, statistics, a link to this blog and help. If you are a UWE author you will also find a section especially for you, which takes you to a list of training events, information on how to deposit and copyright, and a list of FAQs, amongst other things. I hope this new list helps you to find what you are looking for more easily - any feedback is much appreciated!

The Browse by Creator pages on the UWE Research Repository have never been the easiest of repository pages to navigate. This was partly due to the fact that the page was just one long list of author's names - and that includes the name of every author in the repository, regardless of whether or not they are based at UWE. This isn't a feature of the page that we can change - but we can change how these names display.

Recently we have updated the pages so that they list names alphabetically using an A-Z list. So now if you click on "A" at the top of the page you will only see those authors whose surname begins with A. This is still a sizeable list, but much more managable than the list was previously! Some letters (try "I" or "Z") even fit on one page. 

The other reason that the list is difficult to navigate is because authors whose work was added to the repository from an old publication database often have more than one instance of their name in the repository. We are already working on amending these records, but having an A-Z list of names makes it far easier for us to spot, and therefore amend, these entries. All of this will therefore result in a much clearer, tidier Browse by Creator list.