Pushing the envelope. Making a good system great through collaboration.

Collection, curation and reporting of research outputs is a Government-driven requirement for all Australian universities. While most universities have Institutional Repositories (IR) in place, only a handful have developed a fully integrated model where all research outputs are submitted to the repository and all necessary assessment data is captured through the deposit process.This paper describes the development of the CSU institutional repository - Charles Sturt University Research Output (CRO) which succeeded in collecting all reportable research publications for 2007 within its first year of operation. The successful development of CRO was dependent on the ability to create a flexible system which could capture and manage known data requirements and accommodate the addition of others. Asking and achieving more from the 'out of the box' repository software relied on effective partnerships not only between Charles Sturt University and the UNILINC library network, but also with the support of the system vendor and importantly the local research community.The achievement of such a model - that is sustainable, scalable, and integrated within the institution's community and research processes ' resulted from effective leadership, collaboration, innovation and partnerships across the institution and beyond.