QUT ePrints Update

Importing Records from Research Master into QUT ePrints

By the end of the year, the Government expects every University in Australia to have institutional repository records for all of their publications for 2003-2007. If possible, the records should have open access fulltext copies attached. This is part of the Government’s ‘Accessibility Framework’.

QUT  has a head start in that QUT ePrints already has well over 14,000 publications listed (over 8,000 have open access fulltext attached).  However, there are still a large number of 2003-2007 publications by QUT academics that have NOT been deposited in QUT ePrints.

In order to achieve full coverage within the tight timeframe, the Library will be “Importing” the bibliographic details for these missing publications from the Office of Research’s Research Master database to create basic eprint records.   Unlike the records created when a paper is deposited by the author, the imported records will not have abstracts or fulltext copies attached – but at least the bibliographic details will be ‘Google-able’.

The Office of Research is currently gathering details of Pre-QUT Publications by academics who have joined QUT since 2003.  Forms to report these pre-QUT publications were recently distributed to Schools by the Office of Research (the information is needed for ERA).

The Library will arrange another bulk import in a few months time to create basic records for any of these Pre-QUT publications not already in QUT ePrints.  Pre-QUT Publications form

Implication: There is no need for Schools to employ administrative staff to create basic (i.e. no fulltext) eprint records for pre 2008 publications.

Note: This is an exceptional, one-off situation, driven by the need to comply with external timeframes. Remember that for new publications (2008 onwards), the University expects all academics to report all of their research-related publications via QUT ePrints .  The ‘accepted manuscript’ version should be deposited by one of the authors (or a person to whom they have delegated the task) – as per University policy  – before the accepted manuscript version is lost.  This is the version that incorporates any changes made following  post-peer review but not yet copy-edited or formatted by the publisher.

New QUT ePrints interface and HERDC

The move to the later release of EPrints software gave us the opportunity to progress our plans for merging the repository deposit process with the HERDC reporting process. In the long-term, the will reduce some of the double-handling that is currently taking place with regards to reporting of publication data. However, it has impacted on the the deposit process and the search/browse functionality.

More information will be required for items nominated for inclusion in the HERDC. For HERDC, the Office of Research needs to have Faculty/School/Institute/Centre affiliation information at the author level instead of the paper level.
We have now created a new search feature called “Affiliation”. This will gather together all records that include the specified affiliation (eg CARRS-Q). Of course, it assumes that the relevant affiliation data w ill be entered by the depositor. You will find the Affiliation search in the left-hand margin of the new QUT ePrints home page.

You can also access this feature directly via this link: http://eprints.qut.edu.au/cgi/affiliation_report/

The feature allows you to nominate an affiliation and limit the search to retrieve specific document types and/or date ranges. It is quite slow (as it involves a lot of database checking) – but it does work. Future plans include offering a list of affiliations to select from when a name is entered in the deposit form and the ability to create an rss feed from reports.

This Affiliation search gathers together all the records that meet the search criteria specified. If a Faculty (School. Institute or Centre) wishes to have a link to all their publications in QUT ePrints, they can run andAffiliation search and then copy the URL from the address box.

HERDC Integration: This is still a work in progress. So far, we have implemented a system of genrating a semi- completed HERDC form from any records in QUT ePrints. Anyone with a QUT staff username and password can generate the form. It does not have to be the author or even the depositor.