[EP-underground] EPrints Round Table Workshop

Below is a notice of an important meeting to consider the future of 
Eprints software. The meeting is free but is by invitation only. We are 
very keen for members of this list, the active Eprints community, to 
join us at the meeting. If you want to be there and wish to be invited, 
please contact Steve Hitchcock <[email protected]> as soon as 
possible.

As this is an international list, and this is a one-day meeting in 
London, it will not be possible for many important people in this 
community to be there. That is why we are inviting you indirectly at 
this stage. Formal invitations will follow in the next few days. The 
number of invitations will be limited for practical reasons to ensure 
an active discussion at the meeting in which everyone there can 
participate.

If you *cannot* join us but wish your views on the issues below to be 
heard, again please send your comments to Steve Hitchcock so they can 
be raised at the meeting.


Putting Eprints software into the user community
Wednesday June 23, 2004, at SOAS, University College London, 10 a.m.-4 
p.m.

An invitation-only round-table workshop organised by JISC and the 
School of Electronics and Computer Science (ECS) at Southampton 
University
- to consider the transition towards more community-led technical 
development and user support for Eprints software
- to be joined by developers, implementers, administrators, community 
leaders, users and key stakeholders

Background

The Eprints software has the largest -- and most broadly distributed -- 
installed base of any of the repository software systems, according to 
the Open Society Institute [1]. From its origins in 1997 as software 
designed to manage the Cogprints archive of papers on cognitive 
science, through to its current support for OAI-compliant institutional 
archives, development of Eprints software at ECS Southampton University 
has been largely funded by JISC. As a result, Eprints is free, GNU open 
source software.

In terms of the growth of eprint archives, Eprints has reached a 
pivotal moment. We may be about to witness a significant expansion in 
the number of institutional archives and of usage as awareness grows of 
the benefits of open access provided by author self-archiving. A larger 
user community will demand more, and more varied, support than one 
developer institution alone can provide at a time when Eprint archives 
are beginning to assume greater importance in the digital 
infrastructure of institutions.

Similarly, in terms of funding, JISC and Eprints have reached a 
critical junction. As Eprint archives must seek institutional funds to 
grow, it is a natural development for Eprints software to assume the 
characteristics of successful open source projects, driven by shared 
community goals and needs.

Purpose

The time and opportunity have now arisen for the Eprints user community 
to accept and take on a shared responsibility for the devolution of 
ideas and support for the software to a wider base.

Eprints has shown itself to be a system capable of meeting the needs of 
current institutional archives. What will be the future needs? The 
meeting will consider technical development, user and community 
development, and management issues.

What are the technical requirements of future implementations? Can 
technical development of Eprints be managed as distributed open source 
software within the community? How can the danger of fragmenting the 
software be avoided?

How can institutions attract users, and how can these users be properly 
supported? Is there a need for an expanded Eprints user forum (beyond 
current eprints mailing lists), and what shape should it take?

How should the transition towards more community participation be 
managed? What are the funding needs of a new business model, and how 
should these be met? Is there a market-based solution, or is some 
direct funding still necessary?

This round-table workshop is an opportunity for invited key users to 
shape the strategy that will guide Eprints software through this 
important transition. This will be a participation-led meeting, with 
breakout sessions to allow interested groups to focus on technical and 
user issues.

Note. For those planning to attend the PALS meeting on institutional 
repositories in London, that meeting is on the day following this 
round-table.

[1] Crow, R. (2003) "A Guide to Institutional Repository Software". 
Open Society Institute
http://www.soros.org/openaccess/software/

For a graphical list of Eprint archives, see the Institutional Archives 
Registry
http://archives.eprints.org/eprints.php



Christopher Gutteridge - [email protected] - 023 8059 4833