EM-Loader Project
The EM Loader ("Enhanced Metadata Loader") project is a collaboration between Textensor Limited, the developers of PublicationsList and EDINA, developers of The Depot, a UK-wide repository for academic papers. The project is funded by the JISC research council [EM-Loader page on JISC website] in order to investigate ways of using convenient researcher-friendly front-ends like PublicationsList as a way of making it easier for researchers to add their papers to a repository. Initially we will be using web services interfaces based on SWORD to deposit into The Depot's installation of ePrints - but the same interface will also work with other repository systems such as DSpace or Fedora.
EM-Loader is a research project - if you are interested in using PublicationsList as a front end to your repository, please contact Fred Howell (fred[at]textensor.com) for details.
Project Aim
Many research institutions are setting up institutional repositories - databases of research papers and data - produced by their staff members. Open access to research is one aim of these repositories - so anyone can read the papers without having to pay to read them in journals. Another aim of these repositories is to make 'bean counting' exercises quantifying research output and impact easier, for funding assessment exercises such as the UK RAE and the follow-on REF.
The problem... is that it can be hard to motivate researchers to spend the necessary time to fill out all the forms containing the bibiographic metadata for their papers and uploading them again - after they have jumped through all the hoops the journals and reviewers impose regarding formatting of their papers, doing yet another batch of administrative form-filling to re-enter the same information into their repository seems too much like work with no immediate reward. [sample blog post], and as a result many institutional repositories end up neglected and empty, a waste of the resources used to set them up and missing out on the opportunities opened up by making research easier to access.
The EM-Loader approach... is to split the problem into two; a front-end system PublicationsList which gives researchers a good reason for keeping their personal publications list on the web and up to date - every researcher needs to maintain their own web page listing their publications. Using publicationslist pre-prepares all the necessary metadata and bibliogaphic information on their papers, which can then be submitted in batch mode to their institutional repository database for archiving and reporting; the submission can be automated with the researcher simply having to confirm that they want their papers added.
PublicationsList as a 'negative click' repository submission system
PublicationsList has a user interface focussed on minimizing the amount of effort required to create a professional web page listing a researcher's publications. Biomedical researchers, with their papers indexed by the PubMed database can simply search on their author name and select their papers - all the details will be imported by the built in PubMed search engine. Other researchers can import citation information from the online Web of Knowledge citation database, or import from their EndNote and most other bibliographic formats like BibTeX, Reference Manager etc.
Having assembled all the citation metadata for all papers, the full text PDF versions can be attached, and all a researcher's papers can be submitted in batch mode to the local repository.
I think this is a great initiative. I found it extremely easy to use, especially since I already had a list of all my publications readily available in bibtex format. So it only took me 5 minutes to create my publication list online!
I think this publication list is a great idea. The usage is fast and uncomplicated. Congratulations!
I think it is brilliant. A great way of keeping correspondents up to date is to add the URL to my email signature.
I just love the functionality and easy interface of publicationslist.org! It is amazing how simple it is to edit and get references published in no time at all!
Screenshot 1 - Deposit button
A new 'Deposit' button is added to the PublicationsList interface to synchronize entries with the institutional repository.
Screenshot 2 - Synchronize publications list with repository
The researcher can review the operations which are needed to synchronize their publications list with their repository before confirming.
Screenshot 3 - Extra metadata for full text
Some repositories require the researcher to confirm that they have copyright permission to submit the full text version to their repository, so extra fields are added to let them set the embargo periods.
Screenshot 4 - An article deposited via SWORD in The Depot
Deposited articles can be viewed in the repository's web interface; all the complete bibliographic metadata will be pre-populated from the publicationslist entries.
Project timescale
The project started March 2008 and runs until Feb 2009. We are planning to start usability testing with researchers in Autumn 2008 to help refine the workflows.
For developers...
The draft API document describes the current API used to synchronise a publicationslist with a repository, and explains how SWORD is used for full text submission.
Contact us - repository installations
We are looking for new repository installations to work with and help evaluate the system - please contact Fred Howell (fred[at]textensor.com) if you are interested in ways EM-Loader could saving your researchers time and increasing the rate of deposits in your repository.
You will be able to use the PublicationsList service on our servers, or the code will be available to install locally to your in-house system.