A content management strategy – implementing OJS and OCS at Swinburne University library

Teula Morgan, Swinburne University of Technology, Hawthorn, Australia

Presented on: July 12, 2007, at 1:45pm in SFUHC Fletcher Challenge Theatre

~Click for Abstract~

~Blogger’s Commentary~

From theory to practice there can often be big gaps, when we suddenly find ourselves face to face with unexpected obstacles and unforeseen delays. It is therefore very comforting when others can share their experience and insights to provide inspiration for the rest of the world. In this case, the experience of Swinburne University in their implementation of OJS and OCS may be one in many, but in terms of the bigger picture, once again, we are presented with the immense potential and endless possibilities of open access. Once again we find ourselves wondering, “If this university is doing it and doing well, why is the rest of the world not doing it too?”

Swinburne’s approach of having a practical, visible, adaptable and usable content management strategy can easily be adopted by any university library wishing to join the Open Access movement. The strategy is practical in the sense that instead of wasting time trying to define things or hoping to solve every single problem, Swinburne simply jumps into action by identifying what is missing in the current system and then deciding how these issues can be resolved given presently available resources. In both examples that Teula Morgan discussed about the implementation of OJS and OCS, the motivation stemmed from the fact that something was wrong with the current picture: researchers had legitimate needs but appropriate publication venues or conference management was unavailable. From Teula Morgan’s presentation, it is apparent that Swinburne realizes the importance of making trade-offs – not only in terms of balancing user needs with feasibility, but also being able to make choices in favour of maximizing benefits for as many people as possible. Swinburne clearly sees the advantages of Open Access, and not solely for the university’s own reputation. By being one of the numerous universities now using OJS, Swinburne is making a great contribution to increasing the openness and quality of knowledge in today’s information-driven society by successfully exploiting new technologies (such as open-source software like the OJS). Moreover, Swinburne’s project strengthens global and academic connectivity – not only are scholars of similar interests more connected, but knowledge is also linked more closely from one place of the world to another.

Swinburne University’s participation in the Open Access movement is undoubtedly a source of inspiration for the rest of us. Certainly, educational institutions have a moral responsibility to assert, on behalf of individuals, the right to knowledge. Swinburne’s project is a declaration against privatization of knowledge, and with all things considered, Swinburne has adopted a very optimistic approach towards seeking a balance between the commons and the anti-commons.

~Summary of Presentation~

Teula Morgan discusses the Why’s and How’s in the implementation of Swinburne Online Journals and Swinburne Online Conferences.

Why? – Supporting open access (OA)
-partners in ARROW project to support digital repositories
-promoting OA publishing & OA research repositories

Why? – Promoting Swinburne research
-increase recognition and prestige of Swinburne
-enhance exposure and discoverability of content
-making content more visible through OA
-RQF (Research Quality Framework) impact factor

Why? – Supporting content management
-library playing a role

How? – Content Management Strategy
-distinguish between data management and content management
-distinguish between storage and publishing
-adopt a ‘use’ perspective rather than management or compliance perspective

Swinburne’s approach – ensuring that the strategy is:
1) practical
-no definition discussions
-acknowledge that resources are limited
-not tackling the impossible
-developing a Swinburne university-wide content management strategy by starting to do it (the library being a leader in managing information content, as it always has been)

2) visible
-to consider: why this content? who will be interested?
-supporting the creation and dissemination of quality Swinburne content, improving the impact and profile of Swinburne outputs

3) adaptable
-not attempting to solve everything at once & not waiting for the ultimate solution
-be prepared to respond to the community & change if necessary

4) usable
-adopting a multi-software approach to managing content
-emphasizing what is practical

Project identification
-go for projects that will give maximum benefits
-examples for implementing OJS & OCS:

Example: Journals
-Research groups interested in dissemination of their work identified gaps in current publication avenues or a gap in audience. OJS was seen as an appropriate and accessible place to publish.
-OJS was beneficial for promoting Swinburne research, contributing to the institutional repository and providing effective research tools.
-The first journal title went live in 2005. The journal is still going, and this sustainability means minimal continuing work. This enables researchers to manage their own content.

Example: Conference papers
-Conference papers were hard to be found. Copyright & peer reviewing status were unclear. Researchers were wasting time and no support was provided to manage conferences.
-OCS provided benefits for promoting & disseminating Swinburne research, supporting real needs of the community, enabling researchers to manage their own information, and dealing with OA material with clear copyright & self-archiving instructions.
-Swinburne is currently doing community consultations to identify needs.
-OCS was selected and implementation is in process.
-Swinburne is also planning the roll out of the 1^st conference with a pilot group.
*sustainability: OCS ties in with OJS work, and minimal additional work is expected once service is established.

Lessons learned
-important to engage with users: why are we doing this?
-be adaptable: priorities and activities change as we find out and understand more
-be flexible: prepared to understand differences and work in different ways
-maximise content visibility

Q&A Period
-There is a need for automatic extraction of metadata.
-Discussions about the Swinburne library’s search interfaces are currently going on. There probably will not be one place to search for everything, as there are different subject areas for different users.

~About the Presenter: ~
Teula Morgan is the Manager of Online Services Projects at Swinburne University library.

~Related Links~
Swinburne University of Technology, library website
Swinburne Online Journals
ARROW at Swinburne
ARROW – Australian Research Repositories Online to the World