Engaging practice researchers in open repositories: beyond A.B.C.

Practice based research works arise from the synergy of research and practice. They are expressed in multiple formats; often in combination and existing separately from their tangible evidence and requiring specialist description, preservation and discovery. A significant proportion of research at the University of Kent is derived from creative and practical disciplines, and we were surprised to discover that only 3% of deposits on our publications repository (KAR) were not Articles, Books or Conference papers. We were neither recording, preserving nor disseminating our practice research works nearly as well as our articles, books and conferences. This presentation will describe how we responded to the needs of our practice-based researchers, the solutions we identified, and the surprises we encountered.