Enhancing and testing repository deposit interfaces

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Description/Abstract

Native content deposit interfaces of popular repository softwares such as DSpace and EPrints have changed little since their introduction over a decade ago. The more recent emergence of SWORD, a means of abstracting the deposit interface from the underlying repository software, provides opportunities for experimenting with new deposit methods. The Developer Challenge event at recent Open Repositories conferences has provided award-winning examples. The JISC DepositMO Project has developed two new repository deposit interfaces, in the process both contributing to and using the new SWORDv2 protocol. These interfaces aimed to reposition deposit in the context of popular authoring and desktop management tools, also to reschedule repository deposit from end-of-creation to an in-progress activity, thereby seeking to change the culture, or modus operandi (the ‘MO’ of DepositMO), of repository deposit. These interfaces have been extensively tested with users. This paper illustrates use of these interfaces and summarises the test results. We discovered it is possible to demonstrate an initial wow! factor for repository deposit, but this is harder to sustain in practice. Briefly, we describe a short follow-on proposal, which aims to adapt and apply these tools to demonstrate increased rates of deposit of repository content.