Advocacy Options

A number of different advocacy strategies can be used, including top-down and bottom-up approaches, alongside blanket and targeted activities. The resources available will need to be considered and will affect the scope of the advocacy strategy. Some suggested approaches could be:

Top-down

• Explore institutional requirement for deposit (mandates)

• Obtain supporting statements from the very highest level of the institution

• Invite stakeholders to join repository steering groups to assist in exploring unique institutional challenges; influencing the strategic position of the repository

• Keep the Pro-Vice Chancellors and key committees informed of developments and successes. This ensures the repository is embedded in the organisation

• Include repository deposit and use within formal staff development and performance review mechanisms

Example of a supporting statement in the form of a podcast from the Vice Chancellor of Nottingham University

Bottom-up

• Locate repository champions. Enthusiastic early adopters can act as change agents, taking your messages out on a peer-to-peer basis

• Demonstrate how new researchers/teachers can contribute, and gain a flying start to their careers. Repository usage statistics can provide powerful encouragement

• Engage students, especially graduates, by promoting the use of open access research material. In turn they will influence their peers and mentors

• Inform and involve support staff, ensuring they understand the importance of the repository to the institution's strategy

Targeted

• To ensure there is some initial content in order to encourage more deposits, institutional repository managers and librarians can identify so-called 'green' publishers - those who allow self-archiving in any form - and then asking the academics who have published in those journals for permission to deposit those papers in the institution's institutional research repository. To check the list of publisher copyright policies on self-archiving, visit RoMEO.

• Work with departments most likely to benefit from the repository, such as:

• those reviewing research management/reporting processes

• subject areas with Funder Mandates

• those who's academics publish in wide range of journal publications

• subject areas where academics already publish to Open Access friendly services such as PubMed Central and Arxiv

• teaching departments with strong partnerships outside the institution can see the benefits of making resources open through the managed repository

• articulate the benefits of managing versions, metadata and usage statistics that a repository brings for those academics who already publish learning and teaching materials on the open web

Advocacy can also use an intellectual, emotional or political message to achieve its intended results.

Other approaches to encourage self-archiving practices include presentations at events; the use of posters; and organising workshops and training. A starting point could be to organise a departmental staff briefing and present the launch of the repository, outlining its key features, benefits and future plans. This can be extended to a bigger event to invite key institutional staff such as Heads of Department, Heads of Research and senior administrative staff.

It is clear that having a repository is useless without having a significant amount of content in it. The main problem faced by most repository managers is how to get staff to deposit content in a repository. It seems that just asking them to do this voluntarily produces little content. Some research suggests that having some sort of publications policy or 'mandate' in place (i.e. staff are obliged to deposit) results in a higher rate of self-deposit. However, not all institutional environments are comfortable with this perceived level of interference with academic freedoms and it remains an area of much debate.