I work on a [project](http://www.rubric.edu.au/) that is investigating
institutional repositories, so I see quite a lot of them, and have more
than a few opinions. But as it says in my email signature, this is all
funded by the Australian Government:
> RUBRIC is supported by the Systemic Infrastructure Initiative as part
> of the Commonwealth Government's Backing Australia's Ability - An
> Innovative Action Plan for the Future
> ([http://backingaus.innovation.gov.au](http://backingaus.innovation.gov.au/))
And we have relationships with other projects funded from the same
source. We're using software they they have developed and/or endorse, so
the 'official' outputs from the RUBRIC project have to be rather
carefully considered.
We also have to tiptoe around issues like software vendors who tell us
stuff about their plans that they don't want made public.
So I've been a bit coy about discussing repository software here. It's
easier to write about software that we are [not dealing with at
work](http://ptsefton.com/blog/2006/05/03/learning_about_'the_learning_edge'),
about which I know practically nothing, than to think up an appropriate
wording to say something about a bit of software I know quite a bit
about as part of the RUBRIC project.
But by not reporting on what's going on we're losing part of the story,
and delaying the publication of useful insights and technical tidbits by
months, so I'm going to try, along with the RUBRIC C-team bloggers
(that's [Caroline](http://sophiaca.wordpress.com/),
[Corey](http://techxplorer.wordpress.com/) and
[Cameron](http://cameronloudon.com/blog)) to report on some of the
interesting things we're finding out, and at point out where we think
the most important issues lie – but be aware that we are a little
constrained by the terms of our project and our inter-project
relationships.