Rights and Rewards in Blended Institutional Repositories Project

PEDESTAL

Platform for Exchange of Documents and Expertise Showcasing Teaching At Loughborough

http://pedestal.lboro.ac.uk/

Sue Manuel

Rights and Rewards in Blended Institutional Repositories Project

• Funded under the 2005 JISC Digital Repositories Programme

• Three project partners - based at Loughborough University– Department of Information Science– EngCETL (Engineering Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning)– The University Library

What is PEDESTAL?

• Demonstrator repository for teaching and learning resources

• User requirements – survey, interviews, existing tools (repository and social systems)

• Informal/social approach to sharing resources

• Structured around users not the content

• Curiosity – what are colleagues doing in their teaching?

• Discover – new ways of creating resources and new teaching methods

• Exchange – ideas, information and skills

• Share – teaching resources with colleagues

• Comment - provide feedback on resources

Key concepts

PEDESTAL

Key features – Open Access

• Search - search across a number of university services – repositories and websites

• Tags - communities, groups, people, folders, files, blogs - around interests or projects

• Communities - join communities and groups around interests or projects

• Comments - give feedback on resources – what was useful, how it was used, what was amended

Search

• Tags – people, folders, weblogs

• Google Mini Search Appliance – cross-search, or individual collections - PEDESTAL, Institutional Repository, Image bank, VLE, websites

Search results

Tags Google

File access

• Download – link to download and record of number of downloads

• Read comments – link to read comments and display number of comments on a file

• Personal Profile Page – Information automatically pulled in. Supplement this with additional detail

• Weblog - discuss teaching interests, resources and events

• Comments - add a comment to describe resources for others

• Community - join communities and groups around interests or projects

Key features – Loughborough University staff

Profile

• Brings together current role, biography, teaching and research

• Opportunity to describe teaching interests

• List of research outputs from the University’s Publications Database – links to Library Catalogue and Institutional Repository

• List of folders – resources on PEDESTAL

• Link to a personal weblog

Create a profile

• Web form to input details

• File upload for image

• Tags to describe expertise and interests

• Select ‘Special Interests’ - communities

Create folders

• Range of access permissions – Public, Logged on Users (L’boro staff), Restricted or Private

• Metadata – folder name, description, keywords

• Tag – group / community

Upload files

• Browse to file – upload button

• Read and accept licence terms and conditions

• Amend file name and add descriptive information

Blog

• Import an existing weblog

Favourites

• Manage links to regularly accessed resources– Add people, folders or files– Delete at a later date

PEDESTAL activity – April - June 2007

• 45 people have added to their profile

• 46 folders created

• 104 files uploaded

• 9 weblogs imported

• 202 tags

• 346 downloads

• 62 files have comments added

• 21 favourites

• Advertising PEDESTAL – began end April 2007

Current activity:

Further information

PEDESTAL developerMelanie Bates – m.r.bates@lboro.ac.uk

Project DirectorCharles Oppenheim - c.oppenheim@lboro.ac.uk

Research assistantsSue Manuel - s.manuel@lboro.ac.uk

tel: 01509 227187Steve Loddington - s.p.loddington@lboro.ac.uk

tel: 01509 227187

Project website: http://rightsandrewards.lboro.ac.uk/PEDESTAL website: http://pedestal.lboro.ac.uk/