Public Health Scotland has launched a Repository of Covid-19 research with the aim of bringing together and providing easy access to Scottish COVID-19 research on a single shared platform.
The Repository contains research about COVID-19 in Scotland as well as research on COVID-19 undertaken by Scottish researchers.
The Repository aggregates details of research publications from across a number of different Scottish repositories. Objectives of the Repository include making research easier to find; raising awareness and bringing Scottish research to an international audience; and encouraging a collaborative, cross-sectoral approach to COVID-19 research in Scotland.
We are delighted that records from our own Open Access repository STORRE are included in the Repository results. Public Health Scotland approached the Library’s Research Support team to work with us to ensure COVID-related publications by Stirling’s researchers would be included.
STORRE records are initially created in our Worktribe research management system where they can be tagged with a “COVID-19” tag. Records in Worktribe are then copied into STORRE, where the related full-text publication files can be made publicly available on the web. The Public Health Scotland Repository can use the COVID-19 tag to identify STORRE records that are related to COVID-19 and so automatically includes the appropriate, relevant records from STORRE in their aggregated Repository.
Researchers can manually add the COVID-19 tag to their Worktribe records, but there is no need to do this. Our developer, Michael White, has created a clever computer script that searches any Worktribe record for mentions of the terms: COVID-19; COVID or Coronavirus. If any of these COVID terms appear in the record, for example in the title or abstract, then the COVID-19 tag will be automatically added. This means there is a simple, automated workflow that ensures any relevant Stirling publications will be automatically identified and included in the Public Health Scotland Repository.
You can access the Public Health Scotland Repository directly at: https://www.publichealthscotland.scot/our-areas-of-work/covid-19/covid-19-research-repository/. Or via our ‘A-Z list of online resources’ (from the Resources tab, in the University Portal) or from our COVID-19 Research Support guide.
Clare Allan
Senior Research Librarian