Norwegian Open Research Archives (NORA)

•How and why is the NORA project adding value to the institutional repositories established in Norway?

Elin StangelandThe University of Bergen Library

elin.stangeland@ub.uib.no

Marianne MoeNorwegian University of Science and Technology Library

marianne.moe@ub.ntnu.no

Overview

• Open Access and institutional repositories• Institutional repositories in Norway• The NORA project (Norwegian Open Research Archive)• Collaboration advantages• Alternatives to NORA• Comparisons• Future development

Institutional repository (IR) – a definition

• digital collection capturing and preserving the intellectual output of a single or multi-university community (SPARC)

http://www.sparceurope.org/Repositories/

• an online locus for collecting and preserving – in digital form – the intellectual output of an institution, particularly a research institution (Wikipedia, 2006)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institutional_repository

The content of an IR

• Varies from repository to repository depending on the institution’s policy– In general:

• Peer-reviewed articles (pre-print and post-print)• Conference articles• Theses (PhD and masters)• Working papers• Book chapters• Various presentations

Open access on Norway

• The Norwegian Association of Higher Education Institutions (UHR) recommended in a letter to the member institutions in 2005 that their institutions should:– Set up and develop institutional open publishing

archives…– Cooperate with other institutions with regard to a

collective publishing archive– Adopt guidelines recommending that authors publish

their scientific articles in parallel, i.e. publish their scientific articles both in scientific journals and in the institution's own publishing archive

IRs in Norway

• University of Oslo– Masters theses– PhD theses– Reports

• DUO-software

• University of Bergen– Journal articles– PhD theses– Masters theses

• DSpace

• University of Tromsø– Currently:

• Masters theses on a VT ETD-db platform– DSpace installation

in progress- The Munin service

available in September

• Norwegian University of Science and Technology– Masters and PhD theses– Reports– Conference papers

• Diva

• Pepia project– A joint project between BIBSYS and 22 libraries– Estimated date of completion: November 2006

The NORA project

• Part I - 2005• Establish a national search service for open institutional repositories (IRs)

in Norway; the service will be part of the Norwegian Digital Library (NDB)– This includes the development of an OAI-PMH harvesting service

• Stimulate Norwegian universities, university colleges and other research institutions to establish local institutional repositories

• Create a harmonised metadata model for Norwegian IRs • Make the service available through a standard search protocol (for example

SRU/W) for use in local search systems (such as library portals)• Establish the service as part of NDB’s common search system through a

standard search protocol (for example SRU/W)• Supervise area development and inform the Norwegian research community

on open repositories and open access in general

• Part II – 2006• Continue development of the national search service for open IRs in Norway.

– This also includes implementation of Open URL support• Assist local IRs to facilitate for metadata harvesting• Harvest and ascertain quality of metadata in local IRs• Make NORA available internationally through global vendors of search services• Harmonise use of indexing schema• Develop an URN:NBN-service together with the national library, and establish an

internationally adapted resolution service• Create support for submission of articles to the IRs through Frida, a CRIS used

by the largest Norwegian universities.• Establish an information web-site about Open Access in a Norwegian context• Supervise area development and inform the Norwegian research community on open

repositories and open access in general

NORA

Collaboration advantages

• Financial advantages• Central access point to all IR resources in Norway• Standardization

– Required support for OAI-PMH– Common metadata model– Norwegian Science Index

• Submission via CRIS• Support for SRU/W etc.

Alternatives to NORA

• Disciplinary repositories– arXiv.org– EconPapers

• OAI service providers– OAIster– BASE

• Google and Google Scholar• Scirus

NORA compared to other services

• Search limited to Norwegian academic resources• Facilitated participation• Subject searching• Integration with CRIS

• Main target – a common gateway to Norwegian research documents

Future developments

• Common vocabulary for document types and resource types

• Add new repositories to NORA• Version control• Implement the use of the Norwegian Science Index for

subject indexing purposes• Lobbyism – make Norwegian research funding bodies to

make self-archiving a pre-requisite when funding research

Questions?