IR Services- Drafting Policy as a Group
The IR services group has started setting policy and determining our repository’s scope. The group has divided into two-person teams, each of which is tackling one key area connected to the IR’s configuration. Here are the areas we’ve tackled so far:
Purpose- What is our repository’s raison d'etre?
Intellectual Content- What does the repository include, content wise.
User Communities- Who can submit content to the repository? (i.e. faculty, staff, grad students, undergrads)
Noa and Gabe, for example, are working on the ‘Intellectual Content’ section. We’re trying to determine which types of scholarly content will be accepted, and how submitted materials will be vetted. This also involves looking at the file extensions DSpace can handle and comparing them to the file types we’re interested in collecting in the IR (will we be supporting Illustrator working files, even though they can’t be displayed through the system?). ‘Intellectual Content’ also involves a digital preservation component: many institutions advise submitters on the support level they offer for a given file type, that is, let them know whether they’re confident that they’ll be able to host and display the file type down the line. Determining what Temple is able to support long-term --or whether we should commit to anything at all-- is extremely complex, requiring the input of multiple IR stakeholders and technical staff.
We’re still working through these issues, but we already know that we’re going to recommend to the main group: the creation of a libguide or wiki along the lines of MIT’s. This approach would allow our institution’s IR policies to be displayed transparently, but would also serve to ‘pay it forward’: Much of the progress made thus far in both the IR Services and IR Services Metadata groups are attributable to Institutions like MIT that have made their policies available publically. Uminn is a good example- they’ve posted their policies in their own IR, which we were able to find through google, and which has informed the metadata group’s work.