It seems inevitable that national research assessment exercises will become all-electronic, and likely that materials for assessment wil be accessed in institutional repositories. Furthest developed on this path is Australia with its Research Quality Framework (RQF). Announced in December 2006, the
Australian Scheme for Higher Education Repositories (ASHER) program will provide $25.5M over three years to equip Australian universities with repositories in preparation for the RQF: (a) to establish or modify the RQF repository, (b) to upgrade repositories, and (c) to transform the RQF repository into an accessible OA repository. In other words, in three years all Australian universities will have repositories.
To introduce institutions in Australia to this initiative two colloquia on
The RQF Explained were held in Sydney (13 Feb 2007) and Melbourne (15 Feb 2007). Here are the issues that affect repositories, extracted from a
report on the Melbourne meeting by Arthur Sale.
- The RQF will work with
all repository software in use in Australia, provided they are slightly adapted to RQF needs. There are six in rough order of installations: EPrints, DSpace, ProQuest (bepress), VITAL, a single instance of Fez, and a possible Ex Libris site. Universities are not required to use the same software, and a software will
not be mandated.
- The RQF will be conducted
all-electronic. This intention may be compromised slightly for books as research outputs and odd outputs such as architectural drawings.
- Don’t forget that evidence is not just journals, books, chapters and conferences, but can be very many things, both in the quality arena (‘best four publications’) and in the impact arena (evidence of impact). Examples: contracts, environmental impact studies, reports, maps, architectural or engineering drawings, art works, music and drama performances, software, exhibition catalogues, attendance counts.
Arthur added some personal thoughts on the drivers and followers in this initiative: "I was surprised by many speakers’ and questioners’ attitudes (revealed by what they said or sometimes did not say) about the Open Access agenda. This did not generally apply to DEST, but did to sector participants. While recognizing that the colloquium was about the RQF, it was as though university attention has been focused on the RQF agenda to the exclusion of all else."
"Some comments suggested that the RQF would shape repositories, where the influence is the other way around. University repositories exist to provide accessibility and improve citations independently of the RQF, and the RQF will have to adapt to this reality, with a few minor changes required in the repository software. It seems that DEST knows this, even if the sector doesn’t."
