Lorcan Dempsey, Networkflows, Lorcan Dempsey's blog, January 28, 2006. Excerpt:
As more of our working, learning and playing lives moves onto the network we need better workflow support. One can state one of the major challenges facing libraries in these terms. Historically, users have built their workflow around the services the library provides. As we move forward, the reverse will increasingly be the case. On the network, the library needs to build its services around its users' work- and learn-flows (networkflows). This may provide one way of thinking about institutional repositories. I tend to think about institutional repositories as ways of automating particular processes in support of particular institutional goals. Now, one of the discussion points around insitutional repositories is about which goals they support: open access, curation of institutional intellectual assets, reputation management. And which processes? Over time, it is clear that what we now call institutional repositories will be part of wider research process support. What is currently the institutional repository will be a component of the workflow/curation/disclosure apparatus that develops to support research activities....
A couple of interesting recent indications of direction....I have mentioned before the impact of research assessment on local infrastructure, particularly in the UK and Australia where there is a need to record and report research outputs. Some support issues are discussed in an interesting White Paper by Les Carr and John MacColl. This is one output of the IRRA project, which has also released some software which extends eprints.org and Dspace to provide better workflow support for the Research Assessment Exercise.
Posted by
Peter Suber at 1/29/2006 09:27:00 AM.
The open access movement:
Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature
on the internet. Making it available free of charge and
free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Removing the barriers to serious research.
I recommend the OA tracking project (OATP) as the best way to stay on top of new OA developments. You can read the OATP feed on a blog-like web page or subscribe to it by RSS, email, or Twitter. You can also help build the feed by tagging new developments you encounter.
