John Laudun!

John Laudun!

A Multi-Input !
Multi-Output Institutional Repository  
Premise
The modern research and teaching
university must emphasize that it both
creates knowledge that it disseminates
directly through diverse channels and
that it teaches others how to create
knowledge, offering them models in how
they too might go about commoditizing
their own creativity.
Proposal
The institutional repository, built on open
community software and standards, is the
foundation major research universities are
building for re-establishing the university as
central to knowledge creation: the collection
of raw research, the publication of analysis
and results, the opening of institutional doors
to higher education’s many publics.
 Theses &
Dissertations
Open Access
Publications

Special
Collections

Public Relations

Undergraduate
Research

Inputs Outputs

Faculty Faculty
Publications Development

University
Archives Teaching

Research Data Open Access

Data
Usage Scenarios
Someone Needs an Expert
Before: UL staff consult a static list only partially completed
by some faculty once a year.

After: UL staff search a repository which is constantly being

updated and kept fresh by faculty members who are using it
for a variety of functions. Expertise can be narrowed and
potential collaborations can be generated. That is, staff can
create knowledge.
Organizational Assessment
Before: Once a year faculty fill out workload forms; there is
no way to generate “the big picture” without plodding
through reams of paper.

After: Administrators can instantly glimpse what faculty, as

individuals or as a group, are doing. Workloads can be
immediately discerned by combining data from the ULIR and
ISIS. Faculty do not spend time compiling reports because
the data is captured every time they enter a new record in the
repository.
Special Collections
Before: Archives and Centers digitize materials on their own
and either build their own infrastructure or participate in an
infrastructure over which the university has no control and no
opportunity to brand.

After: Archives and Centers work with ULIR staff to deposit

materials. Units are free to develop their own user interfaces
for special needs or collections by using open source
software like Omeka.
A Timely Opportunity Arises
Before: Journalists and others contact faculty and staff
directly, many of whom do not necessarily know what others
are doing.

After: Communications staff work with university

administrators to assess the university’s potential responses
and then gather a team of faculty and staff experts who can
then be delivered to the community as a complete package.
New Forms of Publications
Before: Faculty and staff work independently and often with
third-parties to develop a communication platform or
publication over which they have less than the desirable
amount of control over the final product.

After: Faculty and staff work with ULIR staff to develop new
forms of data collection, which themselves become another
form of publication, and new forms of communications which
remain within the scope of the university’s activities and thus
maintains the university’s essential role in knowledge creation
and distribution.
Researcher Needs Data Storage
Before: Faculty and students store valuable research data on
individual drives that are subject to loss or corruption.

After: UL researchers work with ULIR staff to establish

protocols for data collections/sets to be uploaded directly
into the repository. Rights and usage by others are built into
the system, allowing researchers to share their data with
others, an additional form of publication emerging in the
digital era. Just as importantly, the repository becomes the
safe place for researchers to house their data, securing its
future and their own.
Finding New Publishing Possibilities
Before: Faculty experiment with and deploy media
individually, often working with third parties that claim the
output.

After: Faculty work with appropriate staff — Faculty

Development, Audio-Visual, Digital Humanities Lab — to
develop materials that are curated through the repository and
then made a part of a selective portfolio published through
establish channels, e.g. iTunes University.*

* Requires an iTunes University strategy. An institutional repository would be one place to house the infrastructure necessary for maintaining
a strategy.
One Faculty Case
One faculty member, a folklorist, imagines the
following possibilities:
•  Collection and storage of raw research, e.g.
audio, images, video, research notes.
•  Publication of green/gold materials, e.g. pre- or
post-print materials as well as draft materials not
yet otherwise available.
•  Hosting of interim results and other media
products, e.g. podcasts and videos.