Strategic Policies and Mandates
Univeristy of Leicester Examples
Policies for repositories do not exist in isolation. They need to be created in harmony with the wider strategic policies of the institution. An important first step is to find out about existing policies. It is likely that an institution will have high-profile vision statements and defined agendas in areas such as research, teaching, theses and intellectual property. Do not underestimate the usefulness of existing policies. They can help align and embed a repository with the institution. In contrast, if such policies do not exist then the repository can act as a catalyst for their creation.
One of the most powerful policies is a mandate that makes it compulsory for every relevant member of staff to ensure that their research outputs are deposited in the repository. Many funding councils are considering making deposit a condition of continued research funding and, internationally, consortia of institutions are in the process of ratifying their mandates. It could be argued that mandates are the single most effective way to ensure success.
It is less common for learning and teaching material deposit in repositories to be mandated, although there may be mandates to deposit within an institutional VLE. Repositories can be linked to VLEs to harvest material, particularly if there is a policy to make learning and teaching materials more openly available through institutional repositories.
