Out-of-the-Box Repository Configuration: Supporting Small-Scale Research Community Visibility and Transparency

Configuring a repository software often is a time-consuming process for non-experts. Yet for experts, the integration of a repository in the infrastructure of the institution becomes a challenge as many documented cases prove. The institutional single-sign-on system can be configured in a variety of ways. Linking the repository to the storage system may turn into an even more demanding issue. In addition, some researchers need highly customized data models. At the end, such problems may lead to compromise solutions, in which the data is de facto neither transparent nor in favor of underrepresented communities. Although (technically) the data itself is open access and available, it is hard to access, that is, usage incommodiousness is a barrier to accessing the data. We like to present our experiences with Invenio-RDM, a turn-key research data management repository platform, (which is about to be rolled out and) which lowers configuration costs and diminishes false compromise solutions.