Thom explained that the Innovation Zone is a JISC-funded initiative focussing on supporting developments in repository infrastructure in the UK, managed by the Innovation Support Centre at UKOLN and the RepositoryNet (RepNet) at Edina. Support is within four main areas:  technical knowledge-exchange through expert workshops;  sharing of key information on repository components and use cases via a knowledge base;  trials of APIs with developer communities through DevSCI; and the incubation of prospective services, an area currently under development and available soon.

Thom is keen to hear from anyone who has repository-related service with an API they would like to trial with developers. The Innovation Zone is able to offer help in putting you in touch with developers and making links with other projects in complimentary areas of work.

The incubation aspect of the Innovation Zone support will be available soon and can help with new development initiatives such as repository infrastructure innovations, prospective components and microservices. Again, Thom is keen to hear from people who have projects that could benefit from incubation.

To find out more and engage with the  Innovation Zone, leave a comment here and/or contact Thom.

Brian Kelly of UKOLN ISC presented a poster in the Poster Minute Madness session on Tuesday, promoting the paper “Can LinkedIn and Academic.edu Enhance Access to Open Repositories?” which he co-authored with Jenny Delasalle of the University of Warwick. The poster focusses on the importance of adding ‘Google juice’ to your institutional repository by generating more links to individual papers deposited in an IR.

Brian has the largest number of downloads from OPUS, the IR of the University of Bath and he has an h-index of 11 for his papers on accessibility in particular are being well-cited. Research carried out by Brian and Jenny suggests that the large number of downloads and citations may be due to inbound links from popular services such as LinkedIn and Academic.edu.

More research needs to be done in this area, but should repository managers be acting on the current findings? There are obvious benefits of actively encouraging researchers to link to their papers from popular profile services used by their fellow researchers. Jenny’s review of the sector suggested repository managers are not being pro-active in promoting the use of such services. Why is this? What, if any, are the barriers?

Brian wrote a blog post that summarises the paper and another about the poster session. Jenny has blogged further thoughts on the original paper as part of this ongoing discussion.

For those not able to attend or wanting another look, there is a SlideShare presentation available,  based on the poster.

The debate carries on, so if you didn’t have time to contribute during the session or you weren’t able to attend the conference, please join in by leaving a comment on Brian’s blog and/or tweeting at Brian and Jenny.

Although the title may seem a little dull, the report is rather exciting. I’ve been given a brief that includes assessing what I would consider to be some of the most useful outcomes of projects – the potential use of a development project by the wider community, the potential for technologies to be developed beyond the life of an individual project and the potential for building future collaboration between institutions based on shared interests identified during the review.

The term ‘assessment’ has connotations of an end, something that is done when the work is finished. What interests me in the assessment brief I’ve been discussing with the JISC programme managers involved in Inf11 is the joint emphasis on what has been achieved, and how that might be built on into the future. It’s inspiring to think that the projects included in this report will be used to share knowledge and develop technologies in one form or another into the future in the areas that they were working on during the Inf11 programme.

The report itself will be based on a review of final reports from the selected projects plus discussion with the project managers/staff who worked on the projects. The delivery date for this work is May 2012.

Her current work is focussed on:

• Metadata and its practical application in the HE workplace
• Emerging trends in library technologies
• Repository synthesis within HEIs

Stephanie is also a member of the JISC Observatory team.

Her recent areas of work include:

• The Metadata Forum, an initiative managed by UKOLN and funded by JISC. This Forum aims to build a community around metadata, for all practitioners who use metadata in their work, at whatever level of knowledge.
• CERIFy, a JISC-funded project that aims to help UK Higher Education institutions engage with the CERIF standard for Research Information Management and Current Research Information Systems (CRISs).

Stephanie also runs workshops and speaks at conferences in the these areas. Most recently, this has included:

• Running a ‘Beginners Guide to Dublin Core’ at the DCMI 2011 conference in The Hague.
• Giving a joint paper on the CERIF standard at the Repository Fringe 2011 conference.