Open Access News

News from the open access movement


Saturday, June 04, 2005

Launch of the R4L repository

This month marks the launch of R4L (Repository for the Laboratory), a JISC-funded, Eprints-based, open-access repository for data and documents from laboratory science in the UK. From the web site: 'This project will address the area of interactions between repositories of primary research data, the laboratory environment in which they operate and repositories of research publications into which they ultimately feed (through documented interpretation and analysis of the results and in explicit linking and citation of the data sets). It will develop prototype services and tools to address the issues of working with, disseminating and reporting on experimental data. In collaboration with scientific equipment manufacturers the project will develop methods to make raw experimental data available and richly annotated with metadata, as it is generated in the laboratory. The possibilities for aggregating heterogeneous raw experimental data from different sources and experiments, via effective management of the repository for the laboratory, will also be explored and prototype tools developed to enable, manipulate and derive reports for publication purposes. It will also engage in discussions with publishers and societies to determine anticipated requirements.'