Digital lifecycles and file types: final report

The Rights and Rewards in Blended Institutional Repositories Project is funded by the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) under the Digital Repositories Programme. This represents a cooperative venture between the Department of Information Science (DIS), the Engineering Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning (engCETL) and the University Library. The two year project aims to establish a single Blended repository to meet the teaching and research needs of this institution. It will address the motivational issues facing depositors of teaching materials with a focus on the associated Rights and Rewards. This digital lifecycles study will identify the most appropriate materials for submission to the project’s demonstrator repository. This takes into account factors like: granularity, persistence and multimedia types that can be supported for both teaching and research materials. It also documents the existing lifecycles of these items and the tools and specifications needed within a repository frameworks to support these lifecycles. For example, it will identify appropriate granularity of teaching resources and appropriate methods for content packaging. The results of the study will help to identify which types of files are currently in use, which formats should be supported by the repository system ultimately selected for the demonstrator repository. This information is likely to be of benefit to other projects and institutions in the process of setting up an Institutional Repository (IR).