JISC's Digital repositories programme, a £4m JISC programme to enhance the implementation and development of digital repositories in the UK, has recently launched a wiki called DigiRep, managed by the Programme’s support team, writes Julie Allinson. This dedicated Programme support team has been established by JISC to support the work of the Programme and its 25 projects. This support work is shared jointly by CETIS (the Centre for Educational Technology Interoperability Standards) and UKOLN and has five team members: Sarah Currier and Mark Power from CETIS, based at Strathclyde University and Bolton University respectively, along with Rachel Heery, Julie Allinson and Mahendra Mahey from UKOLN, at the University of Bath.
The remit of the support team is varied, and includes giving advice and guidance to projects, helping exploit synergies across the programme and beyond, synthesising project and programme outcomes, liaising with other national and international repositories activities, including feeding into the JISC/DEST (Australia’s Department for Education, Science and Training) e-Framework and scoping a repository reference model. Another important role is in collating project outputs, particularly scenarios, use cases and workflows, and using these to scope the repository landscape with the aim of developing a repository typology and taking forward the repository ecology outlined by Kerry Blinco and Neil Maclean. DigiRep is a central tool for this support work, facilitating communication, discussion and collaboration between the support team and projects, who are encouraged to contribute and enhance the content. Through DigiRep, project and support team output can be disseminated, and discussed, without going through an editor or web manager....
Keen to foster repository-related discussion and sharing, the programme support team has also set up a mailing list, JISC-REPOSITORIES@JISCMAIL.AC.UK. Within only a couple of weeks, subscribers numbered in excess of 600, representing more than 30 countries. JISC-REPOSITORIES has highlighted the need for such a discussion list and a number of lively debates have already occurred, including one on the very definition of a repository and the different types that definition might include. Such discussion can only help in our work towards establishing the scope and nature of the emerging repository space. To subscribe send either visit: repositories mailing list or email JISCMAIL@JISCMAIL.AC.UK with the message Subscribe and your full name.
Posted by
Peter Suber at 2/10/2006 09:02:00 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.
