The USER Project

To prepare for this project we searched the literature looking at three key areas:1) the healthcare sector; 2) behavioural studies, and 3) theoretical studies. See the Bibliography for a list of relevant references.

NHS healthcare repositories represents a gap in the literature:

• There is no substantial literature on NHS Repositories. 
• No literature was retrieved looking at NHS Repositories or repositories from within the healthcare sector looking at theory. 
• No Literature was retrieved looking at user behaviour in NHS or healthcare repositories.
• There are a number of survey-based studies, however, no studies from the UK NHS or from a healthcare perspective.  
• The majority of studies are from an US, academic perspective.

A number of general themes emerged, briefly summarised here: 

• A lack of engagement with self archiving and awareness among researchers of repositories.
• A small number of studies compare repository usage with ResearchGate. 
• A number of studies look at contents of repositories, including the types of literature deposited and their role in archiving grey literature.
• A number of studies look at funder policies, mandates and issues around copyright, including researcher awareness and knowledge of these issues. 
• A significant section of the literature are case studies.  Broadly, these explore the nature of repositories, the motivations or circumstances of the introduction of repositories and marketing or liaison with users, researchers, and faculty. 
• There are a number of  general surveys of the repository landscape,  these studies are generally of historical interest as events have moved on. 
• There are a number of studies looking at the barriers and enablers to using repositories.