The University of Derby recently had their very well attended Pilot Project Briefing Day, informing their researchers about their new UDORA repository. The day was hosted by Richard Finch, Academic Services Manager for the University Library and Melanie Keady, E-Resources Development Manager.

It was a pleasure to be invited to speak at the event and present the benefits of an open access repository for the university and individual researchers.  The presentation was  followed by an in-depth demonstration of the functionality of UDORA and the service they could expect to receive from Open Repository.

Copyright issues and publisher’s policies had been identified as a primary concern for participants prior to the briefing day. Therefore, presentations by RSP about general open access and the availability of Sherpa Romeo and Juliet as tools to identify what is required to make publications open access and the policies of publishers in relation to this, were very well received.

It was exciting to see a lot of enthusiasm from researchers about the repository and I am looking forward to the progress of the pilot project and UDORA’s official launch later this year.

If you have any questions about UDORA or Open Repository, please do get in touch.