The EPrints User Group sessions this year promises to be something special. We will be:
  • presenting the latest news from EPrints HQ
  • sharing success stories from real repository managers
  • presenting the latest developments from the community of researchers that work on and with EPrints
  • running workshops on Preservation and Teaching Resources
  • giving an opportunity for feedback and input from the attendees

Session 1 - The State and Future of EPrints

Thursday, July 8th, 11:30-13:00

Les Carr, the EPrints Technical Director, will give an overview of the developments of the past year, and a preview of upcoming features.

Session 2 - Show and Tell

Thursday, July 8th, 14:00-15:30

Short presentations by repository managers on pragmatic solutions to real-world problems.

Portal Workflow Integration
Scott Hill, Cardiff University
Funder Metadata Extension
William Nixon, University of Glasgow
ETD-MS Export and Breadcrumb Integration
Tomasz Neugebauer, Concordia University
Annual Research Report
Miggie Pickton, University of Northampton
Oracle Support
Wendy White, University of Southampton

Session 3 - Community Advances

Thursday, July 8th, 15:45-17:15

Interesting developments that have been going on in and around EPrints.

The Semantics of Reading Lists
Patrick McSweeney, University of Southampton
Collecting EPrints on to 'Shelves'
Wendy White, University of Southampton
Symplectic Integration
Richard Jones, Symplectic
Kultivating Kultur
Carlos Silva, VADS, University for the Creative Arts
Video and Mass Storage
Dave Tarrant, University of Southampton

Session 4

Thursday, July 8th, 17:30-19:00

A couple of interesting papers, and then a chance to quiz the EPrints team.

MePrints: Building User Centred Repositories
Millard, D, Davis, H, Howard, Y, Francois, S McSweeney, P, Morris, D, Ramsden, M and White, S
Repository Software as a Platform for the Registry of Open Access Repositories
Brody, T, Carr, L and Harnad, S
EPrints Panel Q&A
The EPrints Team

Evening Reception

Thursday, July 8th

EPrints will be hosting an informal evening event for the Community and people interested in EPrints. Bring your questions and discussion points.

Venue: Somewhere in Madrid with food and drink — details to follow.

Session 5 - Workshop

Friday, July 9th, 09:30-11:00

Complete Preservation with EPrints
David Tarrant, Steve Hitchcock, EPrints Preservation Team

This workshop focuses on the preservation toolkit for EPrints 3.2. Specifically the storage, format management, risk analysis, preservation planning and preservation action capabilities that can be built directly into the repository interface.

Delegates will be guided through hands on session of uploading, classifying, analysing, planning and action relating to a specific file format as an example complete preservation workflow.

We will demonstrate:

  • Integration of classification tools (e.g. DROID)
  • The use of registry services (e.g. PRONOM and the P2-Registry)
  • How EPrints manages file format and risk information
  • How to download sample sets of files for external examination
  • The usage of simplistic as well as complex preservation plans created by tools such as Plato
  • What EPrints does with a preservation plan.
  • How to review the outcomes of a preservation action plan.

Hands on exercises will cover the full preservation workflow and what to do at each stage.

identification . characterisation . risk assessment . planning . action

A major element of this tutorial could be devoted to preservation planning, an area where EPrints has been working closely with the EU PLANETS project. As a result our partners on this project have designed a comprehensive planning tool called Plato. Although we shall be using example preservation plans produced by this tool, in the duration of the workshop we shall not be demonstrating this tool during the workshop. We do however encourage those who have seen or experience this tool to come along in order to experience what can be done with the direct outputs of the tool.

Materials provided will include all presentations and supplementary materials to support the practicals, such that the full workshop can be experienced by other users.

Session 6 - Workshop

Friday, July 9th, 11:30-13:00

Reinventing Teaching and Learning Repositories
Dr Yvonne Howard, Learning Societies Lab, University of Southampton

Through the Faroes and OneShare projects the EdShare team have developed an innovative approach to teaching and learning repositories, learning from the best practices of Web 2.0 and re-imagining these repositories from the ground up as living sites, whether for a community or an institution. Many existing teaching and learning repositories base themselves closely on the research repository model, but research repositories are about Archiving, and ordinary practitioners rarely want to archive their teaching materials.

Instead, our new repositories e.g. EdShare, HumBox, and Language Box, are based around Hosting content online with inline preview, helping teachers Organize their materials through public collections, and building a better Community through prominent profiles and an open remix attitude to content. Join us to explore the innovative approach we have adopted with hands-on opportunities to try out features such as remixing and profiles.