Repository Interface for Overlaid Journal Archives: costs estimates and sustainability issues

The RIOJA project (http://www.ucl.ac.uk/ls/rioja) investigated the feasibility of an overlay journal model in collaboration with the arXiv and in the scientific domain of astrophysics and cosmology. Scientists in this community are active users of e-prints repositories such as the arXiv. Furthermore, they have the support of Professional Associations and Learned Societies that have been pioneers in adapting to new publishing models and in particular electronic journals. Long term access to information as well as maintaining provision to sustainable systems/services is important to various parties in the scholarly communication system: the creators of information, developers and managers of services, libraries, publishers, funders and also users. Although scientific journals have been in existence since the 18th century (Lawal, 2001), factors such as increased journal subscription prices in the last decades and the emergence of new technologies have triggered discussions on the potential of new business models for publishing research. Furthermore, the advent of the open access movement also contributed to exploration of the issues around free access to information and provision of sustainable services. Exploring aspects of sustainability is something that should be seen over a period of time and whether launching, converting or simply maintaining a new or existing system/service the needs of the community it serves should be taken into account. Scientific journal publishing is a complex process. Besides disseminating scientific knowledge, registration of a claim for new discovery and a quality “stamp” it also facilitates social factors. Besides making research findings available and contributing to the advancement of knowledge, publishing is also a means for measuring quality of the work of scientists, allocating funding, and acknowledging contributions to knowledge. In this report, we will try to provide an overview of a new publishing model, that of the overlay journal. We will discuss the use of the arXiv by scientists in astrophysics and cosmology as well as the role of professional associations and learned societies in the publishing process for this community. We will briefly explain the methods employed to compile this report. We will also briefly present the RIOJA toolkit before we try and identify costs in the publishing process associated with the functions of registration, certification, and awareness and archiving. This report does not aim to provide a comprehensive report of actual journal publishing costings. Despite the fact that there are studies in existence that tried to document costs associated with journal publishing, the information presented there rarely corresponds to the actual costs of individual journal functions. In addition, the interviews with publishers and editors did not reveal any substantial information about costings that have not already been reported in the literature or are available on some publishers' websites. Where appropriate, this report aims to acknowledge studies conducted previously as pointers to further reading and, where applicable, to compare reported findings to observations made during the development and implementation of the RIOJA toolkit (described below). We will conclude this report with some of the issues reported in the literature around sustainability of services and some brief suggestions for further work

On the Impact of Information Technologies on Society: an Historical Perspective through the Game of Chess

The game of chess as always been viewed as an iconic representation of intellectual prowess. Since the very beginning of computer science, the challenge of being able to program a computer capable of playing chess and beating humans has been alive and used both as a mark to measure hardware/software progresses and as an ongoing programming challenge leading to numerous discoveries. In the early days of computer science it was a topic for specialists. But as computers were democratized, and the strength of chess engines began to increase, chess players started to appropriate to themselves these new tools. We show how these interactions between the world of chess and information technologies have been herald of broader social impacts of information technologies. The game of chess, and more broadly the world of chess (chess players, literature, computer softwares and websites dedicated to chess, etc.), turns out to be a surprisingly and particularly sharp indicator of the changes induced in our everyday life by the information technologies. Moreover, in the same way that chess is a modelization of war that captures the raw features of strategic thinking, chess world can be seen as small society making the study of the information technologies impact easier to analyze and to grasp

From Consumers to Creators: Wikistoriograhy and the Consensus of Collaborative Learning in the Landscape of Web 2.0

This thesis reviews the significance of Wikipedia in an approach to internet historiography. Wikipedia incorporates Web 2.0 methods to create a new way to study and revise history through a consensus of multiple users and editors. The argument of the thesis is structured to address some of the qualms many academics have about Wikipedia, examine how historiography functions in an internet driven world, and finally how Wikipedia fits into the puzzle of internet historiography. It concludes that Wikipedia, the largest user-based information site in the world, must be at the forefront of discussion surrounding internet historiography

A multi-disciplinary perspective on emergent and future innovations in peer review [version 2; referees: 2 approved]

Peer review of research articles is a core part of our scholarly communication system. In spite of its importance, the status and purpose of peer review is often contested. What is its role in our modern digital research and communications infrastructure? Does it perform to the high standards with which it is generally regarded? Studies of peer review have shown that it is prone to bias and abuse in numerous dimensions, frequently unreliable, and can fail to detect even fraudulent research. With the advent of web technologies, we are now witnessing a phase of innovation and experimentation in our approaches to peer review. These developments prompted us to examine emerging models of peer review from a range of disciplines and venues, and to ask how they might address some of the issues with our current systems of peer review. We examine the functionality of a range of social Web platforms, and compare these with the traits underlying a viable peer review system: quality control, quantified performance metrics as engagement incentives, and certification and reputation. Ideally, any new systems will demonstrate that they out-perform and reduce the biases of existing models as much as possible. We conclude that there is considerable scope for new peer review initiatives to be developed, each with their own potential issues and advantages. We also propose a novel hybrid platform model that could, at least partially, resolve many of the socio-technical issues associated with peer review, and potentially disrupt the entire scholarly communication system. Success for any such development relies on reaching a critical threshold of research community engagement with both the process and the platform, and therefore cannot be achieved without a significant change of incentives in research environments

Band space: Promoting local musicians on the web

Local Rochester Musicians start off with limited resources to promote their music. One option would be to upload their music for free onto a website. A good example of a free website that introduces new and already familiar bands is MySpace. But sites like MySpace are not only focusing on music. MySpace has a primary focus on people interacting with other MySpace users, sharing their biography, photos, likes, dislikes etc. Amongst the users there are countless distractions that can almost drive a user away from the site. Is there another solution to promote local talent? What if a website can place the main focus onto just local artists? Band Space is a website that promotes local bands and their music on a more personal level. The website is devoted to music and to those who are devoted to loving and playing music. Band Space advertises the music that these bands love to play. Instead of cluttering the page with pointless friend requests and ads for a weight loss program, Band Space will update users on upcoming shows and new talent. Users are able to learn about a band on a more personal level through interviewing and footage from practices and shows. It\u27s a story of how a band came to be and what their dreams are for the future. Endyga, Endever, Ruby Shooz, Pia Mater, and Phoenix are just the start of Band Space. The user can follow along with the interview and learn more about the bands. MySpace only provides a slot for the bands biography. To show the user is much different than telling them what you saw (or what you read). The user can take a walk into a practice space or onto a stage with the band. This is something that MySpace doesn\u27t provide. Band Space is a new way of promoting local musicians on the web. It\u27s something more special than what other free websites have to offer

A multi-disciplinary perspective on emergent and future innovations in peer review [version 1; peer review: 2 approved with reservations]

Peer review of research articles is a core part of our scholarly communication system. In spite of its importance, the status and purpose of peer review is often contested. What is its role in our modern digital research and communications infrastructure? Does it perform to the high standards with which it is generally regarded? Studies of peer review have shown that it is prone to bias and abuse in numerous dimensions, frequently unreliable, and can fail to detect even fraudulent research. With the advent of Web technologies, we are now witnessing a phase of innovation and experimentation in our approaches to peer review. These developments prompted us to examine emerging models of peer review from a range of disciplines and venues, and to ask how they might address some of the issues with our current systems of peer review. We examine the functionality of a range of social Web platforms, and compare these with the traits underlying a viable peer review system: quality control, quantified performance metrics as engagement incentives, and certification and reputation. Ideally, any new systems will demonstrate that they out-perform current models while avoiding as many of the biases of existing systems as possible. We conclude that there is considerable scope for new peer review initiatives to be developed, each with their own potential issues and advantages. We also propose a novel hybrid platform model that, at least partially, resolves many of the technical and social issues associated with peer review, and can potentially disrupt the entire scholarly communication system. Success for any such development relies on reaching a critical threshold of research community engagement with both the process and the platform, and therefore cannot be achieved without a significant change of incentives in research environments

Accessibility of multimedia resources in web

This paper emphasises the importance of providing accessibility of Web-based information resources for everybody, not only for people with disabilities. Due to the continuous technical and social changes of the Web, it is necessary to have in mind that new scenarios and user behaviour are appearing. Nowadays, most of Web sites use multimedia resources and it is indispensable to provide accessibility not only to the resource content, but the access to the resource in the Web site. This work summarises some items to take into account in order to make accessible a multimedia resource and present some best practices including on-line multimedia resources in a Web site.Publicad