Cyberspace has introduced new and intriguing means for knowledge sharing as well as new structures of mediated knowledge-building communities. Considering the various forms of online communities, it should be difficult to overstate the significance of Wikipedia as a landmark in building communal knowledge repositories.

Wikipedia is an online collaboratively written encyclopedia. It has unique aspects of users' involvement in the production of content and its function as a community. In less than five years of existence, Wikipedia has acquired both avid advocates and ardent adversaries. Although there have been some public and academic debates about the quality of its content, as the rapid growth of its articles and numbers of active users (Wikipedians) continues, most people agree that at least the English version of Wikipedia is approaching critical mass where substantial content disasters should become rare. Wikipedia's existence and success rely on users' inputs. Our chapter focuses on Wikipedians' incentives for contributing to Wikipedia. The popular observation is that Wikipedia only works in practice. In theory, it can never work. How does Wikipedia mobilize the levels of participation that make it “work in practice”?

Wikipedia's growth, from the time of its foundation in 2001, has been impressive in all conceivable dimensions. Expansion metrics have accelerated in terms of volume, numbers of articles, visitors, and percentage of contributors. There are, by the time of this writing, 250 language editions of Wikipedia. The English-language version is the largest. It contains more than two million articles.

When Lewis Carroll's Alice falls down the hole into Wonderland, she encounters a variety of situations in various places: a garden, a forest, a pool, a kitchen, a castle, and a courtroom, among others. The characters she meets who become her acquaintances, friends, and enemies differ depending on her location in her travels, and, of course, her size. She follows the White Rabbit who is terrified of her larger-than-human height in the hallway. She learns to adjust her size to match the places, objects, animals, and people who cross her pathways. People have likened “cyberspace” to the world found through the mirror, the virtual reality on the other side contrasted to the everyday physical world.

As the experience of people online accumulated, researchers differentiated modes of relating within cyberspace such as the use of the asynchronous and the synchronous or real-time media. They have begun to illuminate differences in the types of spaces, places, or settings online (see Baker, 2002, 2005; Baker & Whitty, 2008; McKenna, 2007; Whitty & Carr, 2006). A current line of inquiry attempts to explicate interactions that originate but do not remain in cyberspace, or relationships that span online and offline places. Researchers of online relationships recognize that people online often “felt as though they have gotten to know each other quite well” (Walther & Parks, 2002, p. 549) before meeting offline (Baker, 1998), entering “mixed mode relationships” (Walther & Parks, 2002, p. 542).

“Every technological innovation creates deviant as well as respectable possibilities” (Edgley & Kiser, 1981, p. 59). Edgley and Kiser (1981) were referring to “Polaroid sex,” that is, instant photography methods used to create homemade pornography. A quarter of a century later, this statement may equally be applied to the Internet. Ever since the beginnings of the World Wide Web, people have engaged in online sexual activities. These activities include, but are not limited to, cybersex, hot chatting, locating others to have sex with offline, seeking information or advice about sexual health, romance and relationships, downloading pornography, and purchasing erotic materials.

In this chapter, we explore the many types of available online sexual activities and the types of people who engage in these activities. We also examine the pros and cons of the sexy side of the Internet. On the one hand, we argue that the Internet can be used to explore one's sexuality, but on the other, some people become too obsessed with engaging in online sexual activities. Importantly, the Internet can also be used to educate both adolescents and adults about sexual issues. Finally, this chapter turns to examine the future of online sexual activities.

The Beginnings of Internet Sex

People have been engaging in Internet sexual activities since its inception. Although at first individuals were limited to textual exchanges, many found no difficulties with talking “dirty” online and reconstructing the body online.

We can expect, within a fairly short time frame, that each research-based institution in Europe will have a repository and that the research outputs from each institution will be collected in and disseminated through the repository. Within the scope of this publication, a digital repository is being defined as

• 1. Containing research results,

• 2. Institutional and/or thematic, and

• 3. OAI-PMH compliant.

Institutional repositories contain scholarly publications (reports, working papers, preprints, post prints and published versions of articles and books) produced by universities or research institutions. Thematic repositories are usually organised around a specific discipline or research domain. All digital repositories, either institutional or thematic, comply with the Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting (OAI-PMH), which enables their contents to be widely shared. Digital repositories contribute to the open access movement by providing platforms for researchers to make research results freely available on the web. They contribute to improving the visibility of research results, typically scientific articles, and are as such an important part of the digital repositories infrastructure vision for European research (DRIVER).

This DRIVER's Guide to Repositories aims to motivate and promote the creation, development and networking of digital repositories. The guide does not provide strict directions on how to construct a repository, or network of repositories. It contains comprehensive and current information on digital repository-related issues in the research community and is particularly relevant to repository managers, decision makers, funding agencies and infrastructure services as stakeholders. This guide not only supports the institutions that already participate in the current EU-funded DRIVER network, it also reaches out to institutions that are about to get started with repositories or aim to further extend their current services or impact.

DRIVER has identified five specific, complex and longer-term issues which are essential to either the establishment, development or sustainability of a digital repository:

• – the business of digital repositories

• – the population of repositories

• – intellectual property rights

• – data curation

• – long-term preservation

The success of a repository depends on having addressed these five issues sufficiently. Good practices and lessons learned as part of this report will assist stakeholders in both their day-to-day and long-term challenges, and can help them avoid reinventing the wheel. These issues will be addressed in five chapters, which all focus on inter- and transnational approaches.

Overview

It will be surprising if there are any tertiary-level research-based or teaching institutions in Europe that do not have a digital repository within a few years. Worldwide, repositories have been increasing at an average rate of about one per day over the last year or so and this can be expected to gather pace further. The reasons for having a repository are so compelling, the advantages so obvious, the payoff so potentially large, that no institution seriously intent upon its mission, and upon enhancing its profile and internal functioning, will want to disadvantage itself badly by not having one (or more).

Digital repositories can also be developed and maintained by a subject community (or entity acting on behalf of a subject community). These are more usually established by harvesting content from institutional repositories, but there are a few exceptions where subject community repositories attract content from the creators directly. Institutional and subject repositories have many purposes in common, but institutions find additional, institution- specific advantages in having a repository, too. Digital repositories have a number of functions or foci:

• – to open up and offer the outputs of the institution or community to the World

• – to impact on and influence developments by maximising the visibility of outputs and providing the greatest possible chance of enhanced impact as a result

• – to showcase and sell the institution to interested constituencies – prospective staff, prospective students and other stakeholders

• – to collect and curate digital outputs (or inputs, in the case of special collections)

• – to manage and measure research and teaching activities

• – to provide and promote a workspace for work-in-progress, and for collaborative or large-scale projects

• – to facilitate and further the development and sharing of digital teaching materials and aids

• – to support and sustain student endeavours, including providing access to theses and dissertations and providing a location for the development of e-portfolios

This chapter covers the business issues around digital repositories – their raisons d’être, putting forth a business case for repositories, the costs and resources associated with them, and the things managers must think about and plan for in sustaining and developing them. Repositories can cost a lot to establish, or very little.

Introduction

Within the DRIVER project, work package seven consists of several introductory studies regarding topics relating to setting up and maintaining digital repositories. Difficulties with solving copyrights problems often hamper the filling of digital repositories and hinder a smooth management of the repository. Questions about ownership of the works in the repository, or getting permission to use a work in accordance with the ideas and principles of open access frequently take a lot of time or even hinder the creation of a fully accessible repository. Examples or models to overcome the copyright problems would be most helpful. Therefore, within the context of the DRIVER study, a study on intellectual property which provides examples and models is indispensable.

The aim of this inventory study is threefold. Firstly it gives an overview of copyright and other intellectual rights relevant for digital repositories. Secondly it provides insight in what (study and experimental) work on intellectual property is already being done in the EU. Furthermore the study provides models to continue working with and for developing digital repositories in the EU context, in order to arrive at sustainable development and operation at the local, national and international levels. It is written for those who are involved in the process of setting up a repository, or those who are running one.

The starting point of this study is the central position of the author in the landscape of scholarly information. It examines the legal relationships an author has to go into to make his work fully openly available. The background for this study is the open access principle as articulated in various declarations regarding open access. Three different relationships are the subject of the study: the legal relationship between the author and his/her institution, the legal relationship between the author and the publisher, and the legal relationship between the author and society.

The relationship author-institution will cover the topics of copyright ownership of scholarly publications and copyright policies. The strand authorpublisher goes into the matter of the key needs for authors and publishers, publishing agreements and the principles an author might take into account when publishing an article in a journal that is not an open access journal. The relationship author-society is a more complex one. The terms and conditions under which a work can be made available will be discussed. The digital deposit licence is the most important topic here.

Introduction

Scientific research increasingly creates and uses digital data in many different ways and in a wide range of formats. Data curation activities are required to maintain and preserve the digital research data as well as to facilitate its future reuse. Increasingly science will be carried out through distributed global collaborations enabled by the internet. The Grid infrastructure will provide ‘e-Science’ with powerful large-scale computing resources and dedicated repository management software.

This chapter on data curation is closely related to chapter 6 by Barbara Sierman on digital preservation, as both studies are concerned with the longevity and long-term storage of digital objects. The main difference between the two chapters is that her chapter on digital preservation takes organisation and management aspects into consideration whereas this chapter on data curation takes the digital object as its starting point. Despite the fact that the two reports emphasise different aspects, some overlap is unavoidable.

This chapter consists of five parts. The first part contains an elaboration on the concept of data curation. Next, features of scientific digital objects are described for which data curation is relevant. The third part covers data quality issues. Next, some remarks are made on data curation tools and procedures; the tools, procedures and concepts that are described in this section are examples of practical implementations of data curation. The last part of this chapter contains concluding remarks. As data curation is a relatively new term and used within the context of a wide number of projects, initiatives and organisations in different ways, it is impossible to cover all aspects and details in an objective way. This chapter is based on a number of published information sources and empirical observations.

What is data curation?

According to Wikipedia, a curator is a person in charge of a cultural heritage institute (e.g. an archive, gallery, library, museum) who cares for the institution's collections. The object of a curator's concern necessarily involves tangible objects of some sort, whether it is artwork, collectibles, historic items or scientific collections. The role of the curator encompasses collecting objects, making provision for the effective preservation, conservation, interpretation, documentation, research and display of the collection, and to make the collection accessible to the public.

Introduction

This study investigates the challenges in populating repositories in Europe based on six good practices. These case studies have been selected to represent the current types of repository and repository service models in existence, with which most repository or related service managers can identify. Good practices have been chosen as a means to inspire the challenged or even disheartened. Cases have been analysed on a number of aspects such as policy issues, organisational choices, the establishment of the repository or service, population mechanisms, take-up, services, advocacy and legal issues. This contribution is intended as a guide to models which stimulate the population of repositories. The in-depth analysis of the cases on the DRIVER website www.driver-community.eu is of advantage to the reader who is seeking detailed information about a particular context.

This chapter has been primarily written for the repository manager. This can be an institutional repository manager, a departmental one, or a broader-reaching national or international disciplinary one; it can also be the manager of a service which has been established to bring together research from a number of sources. However, all managers have one thing in common: populating their archives is a challenge. A choice of solutions to the common problem will be provided and common guidelines to improve on population efforts conclude lessons learnt from these cases. The library director or information manager responsible for research information will also be interested in this study. It is important for these senior managers and policy makers to comprehend the complexities surrounding the challenges in populating repositories in order to make the necessary cultural changes. Higher-level European policy makers can use the results of this study for policy and funding programme development.

This study particularly focuses on the policy and organisational issues which have influenced deposit rates, which includes highlighting repository services. It likewise investigates take-up mechanisms on levels of senior management as well as within the research community. Various advocacy initiatives will be outlined which have supported these. Legal issues which either prevent or even stimulate the deployment of content are included in the analysis. These areas and their critical success factors and inhibiting factors for the population of the digital repositories and services are used as the basis for identifying concrete guidelines for better guaranteeing researcher take-up and content deployment in the future.

Introduction

The growth of institutional repositories and their valuable digital content raises questions as to how to preserve this content for the long term. In this chapter the main topic is the long-term preservation of digital material and its consequences for institutional repositories.

In 1999 Jeff Rothenberg was one of the first to raise the question on how we can preserve digital material over the years. In his article he imagined that he left his grandchildren a CD-ROM and a letter, in which he told them that the way to his fortune could be found on the CD-ROM. But they found this CD-ROM in 2045. Could they find the treasure, could they read the obsolete CD-ROM? This article was the starting point of many discussions. During the last decade, many articles have been written and conferences organised around the theme of digital preservation. Everyday, new projects and insights are made public on the websites of the preservation communities. Despite all these efforts, digital preservation has not yet attained its full development. For institutional repositories, with their collections of science treasures waiting to be found by contemporary and future generations, the question of how to preserve this valuable material for the long term and how to keep this accessible over the years, becomes vital. Unfortunately, a clear and simple recipe with rules and guidelines on how to perform digital preservation in a consistent manner has not yet been written. Digital preservation is a relatively new area, and one in which a broad community is still searching for the best way to handle digital material for the long term. This means that starting points are still subject to discussion (like the OAIS model) and that, although the goal is clear, the necessary tools to reach this goal are still to be developed or to be improved.

In this chapter, one of the main goals is to raise awareness. It is important for every institutional repository manager to be aware of the aspects of digital preservation and to be familiar with the solutions and measures he/ she is supposed to take for his/her repository.

This chapter will describe various aspects of digital preservation.

Austria

The Austrian Academy of Sciences Press operates the institutional repository of the Austrian Academy of Sciences. The press is both a publishing house and an institutional repository. Publications by scientists of the Austrian Academy are uploaded as far as external publishers involved give the institutional repository permission to do so. The Austrian Academy only uploads publications to the repository on the basis of a general agreement that has to be signed by the director of the institute before the upload to the repository starts. The Austrian Academy of Sciences Press developed a user guide (available in German) at http://www.epub.oeaw.ac.at/dokumentation. The contact person is Herwig Stoeger, [email protected].

The central body in Austria for the funding of basic research is the Austrian Science Fund Organisation (FWF). The FWF is a signatory of the Berlin Declaration and committed to the support and promotion of open access to scientific publications. Therefore the FWF expects the results of research it supports to be made publicly available free of charge. Researchers participating in FWF projects should attempt, as far as possible, to secure lasting and non-exclusive rights for the electronic publication of their results, for the purpose of non-profit-oriented utilisation in their contracts with publishing houses. If there is an embargo period, this period should last no longer than six to twelve months. The FWF reimburses the publication costs.

If the results of projects are published in a conventional peer-reviewed journal, an application for reimbursement of costs associated with the submission of scientific articles to refereed Open access journals may be sent to the FWF. The FWF has a website with information about open access. There is a small paragraph regarding copyright aspects; it refers to the Creative Commons website and the RoMEO e-prints site. The website also points to the Open access publishing models of Blackwell, Oxford University Press and Springer.

The URL of the web site is http://www.fwf.ac.at/en/public_relations/oai/ index/html.

Contact person is dr. Falk Reckling, [email protected].

Belgium

The department of research of the Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB) is in charge of the legal framework for the relationship author-institution regarding intellectual property rights.

The DRIVER project aims to create a knowledge base for European research. In order to develop state-of-the-art technology and to harmonise European practices, the DRIVER project first had to investigate the present type and level of European repositories. Therefore an inventory study of the current state of digital repositories in 25 countries of the European Union has been conducted. The research for the study was started in June 2006 and completed in February 2007. The study is a follow up of an earlier SURF study carried out in 2005, which covered 10 European countries. A digital repository is in this study defined as:

• 1. Containing research results

• 2. Institutional and/or thematic, and

• 3. OAI-PMH compliant

This publication contains the final results of the study, which are input to the DRIVER project by indicating the status of most European repositories, and anticipating future trends in the development of European repositories, which will form the basis for future DRIVER services and technologies. What this publication shows is that the European repository landscape is constantly changing. Therefore an update of the inventory study is foreseen for 2008, as part of the DRIVER II project.