Version 0.1 October 2009 [ download PDF]

The CIARD Pathways provide an introduction to the ways in which research outputs can be made more available, accessible and applicable for the stakeholders who will derive benefit from this knowledge. The internet in general, the open access movement, and the development of digital repositories, have created new possibilities for enhancing the visibility of research outputs and have greatly increased the potential audience for them.

Repositories and other websites offer the possibility for institutions and individuals to capture research outputs in a structured way and in the longer term to preserve them. Putting research outputs into a repository or properly structured website will allow greater use, reuse and long term preservation than if they were on a shelf gathering dust. One of the advantages of this approach is that each piece of content can be described in some detail via the input of associated 'metadata' - much like a catalogue record in a library management system - which therefore allows searching across items within a repository or website. If the site follows the appropriate protocols and standards the metadata can then be harvested by external services and exposed to the wider world.

If you are involved with the development of a repository or structured website, whether your expertise is in library/information management, ICTs, research or management, the CIARD Pathways will show you a route to the implementation of this development. The following Pathways focus in particular on best practice technical and policy approaches. By following them you will ensure that your website/repository can fulfil its purpose of making research outputs more accessible and available:

1.   Digitize older outputs, to be ‘born again’ digital

2.  Put in place institutional policies that enable the sustainable development of a repository

3.  Preservation of digital documents and data 

4.  Develop a repository for digital content 

5.   Maintaining web links and managing broken ones

This group of Pathways introduces:

•    The policies that need to be put in place to ensure that a repository or other website will be well managed, effective, accepted by all stakeholder groups within the institution and elsewhere, and sustainable into the longer term.

•    Building a repository, using metadata and data classification and exchange protocols, which will ensure that your research outputs can be retrieved efficiently and can participate in the open exchange of data with similarly constructed repositories around the world.

•    Capturing older research outputs in digital formats – ‘back-digitization’.

•    How to manage permanent access to your content and to deal with broken and missing links.