[IRTalk] Theses and Institutional Repository

Mon Apr 24 11:17:36 SAST 2017

Hi Ina, all.

I'm going to go a bit off-topic, please excuse me :)

As I've mentioned before, I'm not from the IR space, but come a
background that is first research, and then infrastructure
development. In my world, we take it for granted that data is
distributed _and_ that it is uniquely identified, so that we can
access and process it from anywhere, and that in 20 years it will
still be citable and findable. The infrastructure that DataCite e.g.
is building on top of DOIs is making it - the metadata search tool,
the integration with ORCID, the various APIs that research software
engineers can rely on in order to consume and publish entire datasets
- is making it a great time to be a scientist.  There is a very slow
uptake of DOIs in South Africa, from what I can see (please send me
counterexamples !) and this is really stifling the development of
other data infrastructure.

When I completed my Ph.D. 10 years ago (!), I had to deposit my thesis
with UCT, and it's still available in the library, but I had no way to
cite (not to mention store) the TB of simulated data that went along
with it. The documentation of what I did with the code was published
but the code itself was not. In fact, the code that generated those
simulations which my Ph.D. rests on is lost now and my Ph.D. has
become something closer to an informed opinion than actual science.

This process of publishing the code is now so easy that it is almost
malpractice _not_ to do something like make a new release in Github
ingest it to Zenodo with a DOI. I'd had to see IR's in SA left out of
this new generation of data-centric scholarship. I don't know what
kids these days are doing, but when it comes to my workflow, it starts
with an Overleaf project for the paper, (which is a git repo), and a
git repo for the code. It doesn't matter whether that's a project to
build and test distributed computing facilities or confirm the
analysis of a physics dataset - everything is code, and this is at the
heart of how we see reproducibility.

Long story short, we really need to show practical workflows which
answer questions like "where do I deposit my thesis", that make it so
easy to do that people just fill out a few forms, and have that
contribution turn up on their ORCID page the next day...

And yes, realistically the response of most researchers and students
in many domains to what I've just written might be "dude, what are you
on about ?" - to which I say "Chill and let the librarians take care
of it".

I'd love to lend a hand on whatever I can, so if anyone feels like
I've touched on something important, let's work on it :)

Happy Monday all !
Bruce

On 22 April 2017 at 11:24, Ina Smith <Ina at assaf.org.za> wrote:
> I think also keep in mind how you plan to monitor usage and impact of full text duplicated. Many IRs have not implemented DOIs yet, and rely on the persistent URL generated by the system, with the expectation that metadata will be harvested, rather than the full text being duplicated.
>
> I agree with Bruce that the DOI will guarantee consistent citations, if people learn to cite correctly (which unfortunately they do not always do). If DOIs are implemented and cited, DOI systems also provide usage/impact statistics, which can be used for reporting, tracking usage and impact, which might lead to funding etc.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: IRTalk [mailto:irtalk-bounces at lists.lib.sun.ac.za] On Behalf Of Van der Westhuizen, Ansie
> Sent: Friday, April 21, 2017 3:58 PM
> To: Bruce Becker <BBecker at csir.co.za>; Tyson Mabunda <ttmabunda at uj.ac.za>
> Cc: irtalk at lists.lib.sun.ac.za
> Subject: Re: [IRTalk] Theses and Institutional Repository
>
> Dear Tyson
>
> I am responsible for the Unisa Institutional Repository (http://uir.unisa.ac.za) which is an open access repository. We are allowing linking of our ETDs by other institutional repositories, but not uploading of the fulltext. In other words, a record  may be created in the other repository, but a link should be created to the handle in the UnisaIR from where the full-text/ object may be accessed.
>
> Regards
>
> Ansie van der Westhuizen
> Non-commercial Digital Developer
> IR Content Management: Collection Development Unisa Library
>  +27 12 429 3426
>     0865482628
>
> mailto:vdwesapj at unisa.ac.za
>
>
>
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: IRTalk [mailto:irtalk-bounces at lists.lib.sun.ac.za] On Behalf Of Bruce Becker
> Sent: 21 April 2017 2:22 PM
> To: Tyson Mabunda <ttmabunda at uj.ac.za>
> Cc: irtalk at lists.lib.sun.ac.za
> Subject: Re: [IRTalk] Theses and Institutional Repository
>
> Hi Tyson,
>
> I'm not a librarian, but I bump into this kind of issue all the time, and it mostly raises questions of uniqueness and discoverability (others have commented on the IP aspects)
>
> In principle there shouldn't be a problem with depositing the object in more than one repository - as long as the DOI is the same, and the metadata is clean.
>
> I stand to be corrected on this, but for example the DataCite schema allows you to deposit identical objects https://schema.datacite.org/meta/kernel-3.1/example/datacite-example-relationTypeIsIdenticalTo-v3.0.xml
> - this could be used...
>
> The whole point of having DOIs is to ensure that objects are persistently available even if they move or if  copies are destroyed, so it would make sense to have them in more than one library. You need to make sure that you are however describing a _copy_ of the object, and not depositing a new object, so that OAI-PMH is not confused, etc.
>
>
> Maybe have a look at https://data.datacite.org/ and https://schema.datacite.org/
>
>
>
> On 21 April 2017 at 14:07, Tyson Mabunda <ttmabunda at uj.ac.za> wrote:
>> Dear Colleagues
>>
>>
>>
>> UJ staff member completed her Thesis (year:2010) at TUT as TUT
>> student, and now she want her Thesis available on the UJ repository.
>>
>>
>>
>> How do you handle such request?
>>
>>
>>
>> NB: the copyright owner of the Thesis is TUT
>>
>>
>>
>> Univ of Namibia –example: http://41.205.129.132/handle/11070/1910
>>
>>
>>
>> Let’s talk
>>
>>
>>
>> Kind regards,
>> Tyson Mabunda
>>
>> UJ Institutional Repository
>>
>> University of Johannesburg
>>
>> 0115592688
>>
>>
>>
>>
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>
>
>
> --
> Dr. Bruce Becker, Coordinator, South African National Grid
> http://orcid.org/0000-0002-6607-7145
> http://www.africa-grid.org
> Meraka Institute, CSIR Meiring Naude Road Pretoria 0001 South Africa
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>
> Please consider the environment before printing this email.

-- 
Dr. Bruce Becker, Coordinator, South African National Grid
http://orcid.org/0000-0002-6607-7145
http://www.africa-grid.org
Meraka Institute, CSIR Meiring Naude Road Pretoria 0001 South Africa
+27 12 841 3746 (w) | +27 12 841-4829 (f) | +27 84 989 6169 (m)  | +
39 392 622 9279
AIM/GTalk/Skype/MSN/Jabber : brucellino