Attitudes and Aspirations in a Diverse World: The Project StORe Perspective on Scientific Repositories

Abstract

Project StORe was conceived as an initiative to apply digital library technologies in the creation of new value for published research. Ostensibly a technical project, its primary objective was the design of middleware to enable bi-directional links between source repositories containing research data and output repositories containing research publications. Hence, researchers would be able to navigate directly from within an electronic article to the source or synthesised data from which that article was derived. To achieve a product that directly reflects user needs, a survey of researchers was conducted across seven scientific disciplines. This survey exposed the spectrum of cultural pressures, preferences and prejudices that influence the research process, as well as a range of practices in the production and management of research data. Aspects of the research environment revealed by the survey are considered in this paper in the context of repository use and, more broadly, the requirements, roles and responsibilities necessary to good data management.