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UDSpace: UDelaware's Institutional Repository

Becoming a UDSpace department/program representative

 

If you are a department administrator, UDSpace can be a space where department members' research material is deposited on a regular basis. Once material has been deposited, it can be linked from a department website, and it will be more discoverable because it is indexed in Google Scholar. This section of documentation is intended to help you and your colleagues develop a plan to use UDSpace most effectively. You can also consult with the UDSpace team in order to develop a plan that will work for you. We will provide training and orientation to get any representatives from your department or team set up.

We recommend that you read through the sub-pages in the Getting material into UDSpace and Policies sections. Questions that you will need to think through include:

What kind of structure will work best in your community to present material?

Once a structure has been set, in general, it cannot be changed. Simple structures are usually better than complex ones, in the long run. In most cases we recommend using collections, rather than making use of the sub-community structure. Collections work well for a set of material, either associated with a specific event (a conference or symposium), or a specific genre (white papers, reviews, etc.)

What process will you use in order to gather material from your faculty and/or staff (and/or grad students and postdocs, if applicable)?

In some cases, faculty and staff may turn in material for deposit on a continuous and ongoing basis, either via email or using a digital dropbox using Qualtrics or Google Forms; in other cases, as the UDSpace coordinator for your department, you may remind people at certain points of the year to turn in submissions for UDSpace. If you gather metadata using a survey, you will want to plan carefully to make sure that you are gathering the information you need -- your faculty will appreciate being able to get material into UDSpace easily and efficiently.

What kind of subject keywords will you use in your metadata?

The Metadata Tips section describes the metadata that UDSpace can present, including metadata for subject keywords. Members of the department or program that you are representing can likely suggest subject keywords that will be recognized within the discipline that you are representing. 

Keywords play an important function in helping users browse your UDSpace community. When they have arrived at UDSpace and are on the URL for a particular publication, they will see a list of subject keywords for other material in your UDSpace community or collection. Keywords are case-sensitive -- so UDSpace treats "biology" and "Biology" as separate keywords. It's important to do at least a little bit of thinking about how you will use keywords in advance, so that users browsing your community are able to effectively find material, rather than seeing a list of keywords that basically mean the same thing. 

Ineffective use of keywords Effective use of keywords
  • biological science
  • Biological Science
  • Biological sciences
  • Biological Sciences
  • biology
  • Biology
  • biofilm
  • biology
  • biophysics
  • bronchioles
  • cell metabolism
  • conservation biology

It may seem tedious to think about your keyword strategy when you are getting started with UDSpace, but it is much less work to think about keywords in advance than it is to retroactively curate and clean up an ineffective use of keywords.

What information do you need in order to effectively assess activity in your UDSpace community?

In some cases, the UDSpace team may be able to provide reports on a regular basis, depending on what you are interested in tracking. In other cases, we may be able to recommend alternative strategies of getting the data you are looking for. We are happy to meet with you in order to discuss possible options.