About ReStore Project
ESRC invests heavily in research methods projects which create, as part of their activities, online training and resource materials, often with considerable interactive or reference-value content. Typically, the development of an on-line resource is time-consuming and expensive and the full value of the resource only comes into play close to the point at which funding ends. User awareness of these resources often grows following completion of the initial award, while the value of the resource will often deteriorate, seriously limiting the returns on the initial investment by ESRC. Where no continuation funding is in place, resources frequently become unserviceable, either because the content details become outdated or because sites cease to function properly for a wide range of technical reasons, even though their core content remains valuable to researchers. Once funding has ended and project teams have dispersed there is little opportunity to update or maintain resources with the consequence that valuable materials are lost to the research community
Rationale behind ReStore Project
In response to the above challenge, ESRC funded the "Sustaining online resources in research methods" project with the aims to preserve, sustain and actively maintain selected online method resources beyond the initial fuinding award. It was intended that the prototype service, now entitled ReStore (http://www.restore.ac.uk), would take on the medium-term hosting and maintenance of selected online research methods resources, ensuring that they are technically functioning, subject to essential content updating and that indexing and external promotion are maximised. Funding this service provided a strategic way forward for ESRC to address the decay of quality over time in a focused and well-managed way, intervening to quality assure and preserve selected resources immediately after the end of the funded project when they are at their peak utility