Abstract

The goal of this project was to determine whether there was sufficient evidence from JISC-funded virtual research environment (VRE) and selected digital repository projects to develop a portrait of the scholar in the current virtual research environment. This was achieved by interviewing the relevant project managers. While the projects have collected data about user behaviours of specific scholars within specific disciplines, the focus was not to identify specific user behaviours but to develop products and technologies to embed into the workflows of scholars within specific disciplines; therefore, there was no conscientious effort to query a large random sample of scholars within the different disciplines. It was determined that there was not enough empirical data to develop a portrait of the virtual researcher using the evidence from these completed projects. However, after interviewing and reviewing the interview transcripts of four digital repository project managers and seven VRE project managers (three of which were community engagement projects) as well as reviewing the project reports, papers, presentations, and some of the collected data, a number of common themes emerged. These are outlined in this paper.