abstract
- The NOA project collects and stores images from open access publications and makes them findable and reusable. During the project a focus group workshop was held to determine whether the development is addressing researchers’ needs. This took place before the second half of the project so that the results could be considered for further development since addressing users’ needs is a big part of the project. The focus was to find out what content and functionality they expect from image repositories. In a first step, participants were asked to fill out a survey about their images use. Secondly, they tested different use cases on the live system. The first finding is that users have a need for finding scholarly images but it is not a routine task and they often do not know any image repositories. This is another reason for repositories to become more open and reach users by integrating with other content providers. The second finding is that users paid attention to image licenses but struggled to find and interpret them while also being unsure how to cite images. In general, there is a high demand for reusing scholarly images but the existing infrastructure has room to improve.