These comments also reinforce the need to explore issues such as copyright and classification, both of which are being explored as part of the JISC-funded Embed Project12, for example, adding subject terms to records as a means of enhancing retrieval.
One author who had not deposited work to QUEprints elaborated (see below) by saying that he had been deterred from doing so because of the time and hassle he thought it would involve and the duplicating of the process he had already gone through, putting his work on his own department’s website, especially the process of checking copyright with publishers:
‘There’s quite a lot of hassle involved in sending stuff to QUEprints. I’ve already gone through the hassle involved to put stuff in an open access arena, and some of the hassle involves finding out who the publishers are and contacting the publishers […] I’d quite like the fairies to come along and do it all for me. So that is why I haven’t done it. I think if everyone around me was publishing to QUEprints I would do so as well, but we would probably still want to maintain our own Web site.’
This illustrated a misconception of the effort currently involved in sending work for deposit in QUEprints, staff currently check copyright on the author’s behalf as part of the mediated deposit service. Further research is being conducted within the Embed Project into ways of assisting authors with their copyright needs.