On 18 Sep 2010, at 21:59, Velterop wrote:

On 19 Sep 2010, at 09:45, Leslie Carr wrote:

I’d like to take this opportunity to mention the new JISC DepositMO project whose aim is to increase the ease of deposit into repositories chiefly by allowing direct deposit from word processors, office programs and the computer desktop (“save as…” and “send to…” directly into EPrints or DSpace). Although the repository’s web interface should be a useful and advantageous environment for the author as well as the reader, the fact is that depositing is An Extra Thing to add to the author’s workflow, and it might help to woo some recalcitrant professors if it appeared to be the same thing as “saving a new copy” and it could be achieved in the familiar interface of Microsoft Word.

I don’t think that technology changes alone will stimulate more Self Archiving (improve the repository! make it more friendly! make it faster! make it more useful!) There has to be a combination of social, management and technological advances all pressing in the same direction. Make Open Access policies mandatory, make open access practices a key part of your institutional business activities and make open access technology as useful as possible.

• Develop training materials for one-to-one training
• Develop a Virtual Deskside Coaching Kit to train the trainers
• Develop a sustainable programme of evaluation to supplement the existing e-prints deskside coaching service

Southampton University’s E-Prints service currently offers deskside coaching, which provides an on-demand, one-to-one training service to users.  The DepositMO training programme will be embedded into this deskside coaching service.

During the DepositMO project, we will create training materials to support one-to-one training, and develop a Virtual Deskside Coaching Kit, which will initially be used to train the trainers.  This kit will be tested on trainers in an iterative process, updating and improving the material based on feedback and on developments in the software.  Ultimately the Virtual Deskside Coaching Kit could also be used as an alternative or supplement to face-to-face coaching.

Southampton University currently runs two deskside coaching services, one for e-prints and one for subject-based queries.  The subject-based deskside coaching service is centrally co-ordinated; requests are forwarded to appropriate staff, and are then followed up for evaluation once the training has been completed.  We will use the evaluation model of the subject-based service to assess the impact of the training programme on users of the repository.  There is also the potential to transfer the administration of the e-prints deskside coaching service to the subject-based deskside training, in order to benefit from a more formalised administrative approach while retaining the specialist knowledge of the e-prints deskside team.