.jpg)
Ruth Quinn is an Administrative Officer for Research & Development in RBI (Research, Business and Innovation). She has worked with the Repository Team as part of her role centrally administrating the upcoming REF (Research Excellence Framework), which will take place in 2014.
Ruth first learnt about the repository when it was still in its early pilot stages, before the system had gone live. She attended an Administrators planning meeting, as she was told having some knowledge of the system would be useful for planning for the REF. Since then, she has worked with the Repository Team to promote both training opportunities and the repository staff themselves to academics and other faculty staff. She also worked with the team to ensure that ’I can actually pull out exactly the information that the REF requests in its submission’.
Late in 2010, academics who wish to be considered for the REF were asked to upload their top six outputs to the UWE Research Repository. Where possible, it was asked that the full text be uploaded. But if this wasn’t possible due to copyright or other issues, the bibliographic record (with no full text attached) was accepted. These records were then made available to the REF Leaders in the faculties to review.
There are a number of benefits to using the repository in this way. Ruth states that
It is really useful to store all the publication information centrally in one place. All the bibliometric data that will be required for the REF is collected on the repository.
It was initially hoped that using this system would enable staff working on the REF simply to download all of the relevant publication information into the HEFCE system, rather than duplicating data entry.
Of course, the UWE Research Repository is not only there to help with the REF. It is also a way of enabling academics to make their work available via open access, and Ruth acknowledges the benefits of this. She has been able to use it in her own work in the Research Support Service:
I’ve used the search facility in the repository to suggest potential partners for research projects and to find appropriate people to send funding opportunities to.
Ruth says that she’d like to see more multi-media on the repository. ’It looks great when you go on and there’s something new that pops up, something visual’. She acknowledges that there are concerns around copyright, but that these can be overcome with the use of Creative Commons licenses and relevant reuse restrictions.
Another benefit of the UWE Research Repository is that PhD students can upload their work to it. Ruth says ‘I would have thought that would be a very useful tool… they can link to their publications when applying for jobs or creating a web profile… it’s a free tool that they’ve got at their fingertips’.
Overall then, the repository is not just a place to store material for the REF (although that is an important function), but also ‘another tool for academics to promote their research. Both internal and external people can use it to find partners for their research’.
· Sign up for a training session: http://www.uwe.ac.uk/library/eprints/training.htm
· Learn more about Creative Commons licensing: http://creativecommons.org/
· Or just ask us! To learn more about the following:
o How the UWE Research Repository will be used for REF 2014
o Adding art and design material to the UWE Research Repository
o Adding your work as a PhD student, or your thesis, to the UWE Research Repository
Or to ask us any other questions, get in touch with the Repository Team: eprints@uwe.ac.uk