Publishing scientific research: is there ground for new ventures?

This paper highlights some of the issues that have been reported in surveys carried out by the RIOJA (Repository Interface for Overlaid Journal Archives) project (http://www.ucl.ac.uk/ls/rioja). Six hundred and eighty three scientists (17% of 4012 contacted), and representatives from publishing houses and members of editorial boards from peer-reviewed journals in astrophysics and cosmology provided their views regarding the overlay journal model. In general the scientists were disposed favourably towards the overlay journal model. However, they raised several implementation issues that they would consider important, primarily relating to the quality of the editorial board and of the published papers, the speed and quality of the peer review process, and the long-term archiving of the accepted research material. The traditional copy-editing function remains important to researchers in these disciplines, as is the visibility of research in indexing services. The printed volume is of little interest

For whom the gate tolls? How and why to free the refereed research literature online through author/ institution self-archiving, now

"All refereed journals will soon be available online; most of them already are. This means that anyone will be able to access them from any networked desk-top. The literature will all be interconnected by citation, author, and keyword/ subject links, allowing for unheard-of power and ease of access and navigability. Successive drafts of pre-refereeing preprints will be linked to the official refereed draft, as well as to any subsequent corrections, revisions, updates, comments, responses, and underlying empirical databases, all enhancing the self-correctiveness, interactivity and productivity of scholarly and scientific research and communication in remarkable new ways. New scientometric indicators of digital impact are also emerging (http://opcit.eprints.org) to chart the online course of knowledge. But there is still one last frontier to cross before science reaches the optimal and the inevitable: Just as there is no longer any need for research or researchers to be constrained by the access-blocking restrictions of paper distribution, there is no longer any need to be constrained by the impact-blocking financial fire-walls of Subscription/Site-License/Pay-Per-View (S/L/P) tolls for this give-away literature. Its authors/researchers have always donated their research reports for free (and its referees/ researchers have refereed for free), with the sole goal of maximizing their impact on subsequent research (by accessing the eyes and minds of fellow-researchers, present and future) and hence on society. Generic (OAi-compliant) software is now available free so that institutions can immediately create Eprint Archives in which their authors can self-archive all their refereed (published) papers for free for all forever (http://www.eprints.org/). These interoperable Open Archives (http://www.openarchives.org) will then be harvested into global, jointly searchable 'virtual archives' (e.g., http://arc.cs.odu.edu/). 'Scholarly Skywriting' in this Post Gutenberg Galaxy will be dramatically (and measurably) more interactive and productive, spawning its own new digital metrics of productivity and impact, allowing for an online 'embryology of knowledge'." (author's abstract)"Alle referierten Fachzeitschriften (refereed journals) werden bald online verfügbar sein; die meisten sind es schon. Das bedeutet, dass jeder von jedem vernetzten Arbeitsplatz in der Lage sein wird, Zugang zu diesen Zeitschriften zu haben. Die Literatur wird durch Zitierung, Autor und Schlagwort-/ Gegenstand-Links vollständig untereinander verbunden sein, wobei einmalige Leistung und Nutzungsfreundlichkeit in Zugang und Navigation gewährleistet werden. Fortlaufende Entwürfe von vorreferierten Vordrucken werden mit den offiziell begutachteten Entwürfen verlinkt, genauso wie mit allen anschließenden Korrekturen, Revisionen, Aktualisierungen, Kommentaren, Antworten und zu Grunde liegenden empirischen Datenbanken. All das verbessert die Fehlerbehebung, Interaktivität und Produktivität von wissenschaftlicher Forschung und Kommunikation auf bemerkenswerten, neuen Wegen. Neue wissenschaftsmetrische Indikatoren digitaler Auswirkungen kommen gerade auf (http://opcit.eprints.org), um den Online-Verlauf des Fachwissens auszuwerten. Jedoch gibt es eine letzte Barriere zu überwinden, bevor Wissenschaft das Optimum und das Notwendige erreicht: Gerade weil Forschung und Forscher nicht mehr an den Zugang blockierende Beschränkungen der Papierverteilung gebunden sind, gibt es auch keinen Bedarf mehr, abhängig von den wirkungsgehemmten finanziellen Fire-Walls von Gebühren für Subscription/Site-License/Pay-Per-View (S/L/P) für give-away Literatur zu sein. Deren Autoren/Forscher haben ihre Forschungsberichte immer umsonst gestiftet (und deren Gutachter/Forscher haben umsonst beurteilt) mit dem alleinigen Ziel, die Auswirkungen auf ihre nachfolgende Forschung (indem sie auf die Sicht und Meinung von Forschungskollegen aus Gegenwart und Vergangenheit zurückgriffen) und somit auch auf die Gesellschaft zu maximieren. Generische (OAi-konforme) Software ist nun frei zugänglich, so dass Institutionen sofort Eprint-Archive erstellen können, in denen ihre Autoren die Möglichkeit haben, alle ihre begutachteten (veröffentlichten) Dokumente kostenfrei für immer selbst zu archivieren (http://www.eprints.org/). Diese vollständig kompatiblen Offenen Archive (http://www.openarchives.org) werden dann in globalen, untereinander durchsuchbaren 'virtuellen Archiven' gesammelt (http://arc.cs.odu.edu/). 'Wissenschaftliche Himmelsschrift' (Scholarly Skywriting) in dieser PostGutenberg Galaxie wird grundlegend (und messbar) interaktiver und produktiver, indem sie ihre eigenen, neuen digitalen Maße der Produktivität und Auswirkung erzeugt, wobei eine online 'Embryologie des Fachwissens' berücksichtigt wird." (Autorenreferat

Open Access Mandates and the "Fair Dealing" Button

We describe the "Fair Dealing Button," a feature designed for authors who have deposited their papers in an Open Access Institutional Repository but have deposited them as "Closed Access" (meaning only the metadata are visible and retrievable, not the full eprint) rather than Open Access. The Button allows individual users to request and authors to provide a single eprint via semi-automated email. The purpose of the Button is to tide over research usage needs during any publisher embargo on Open Access and, more importantly, to make it possible for institutions to adopt the "Immediate-Deposit/Optional-Access" Mandate, without exceptions or opt-outs, instead of a mandate that allows delayed deposit or deposit waivers, depending on publisher permissions or embargoes (or no mandate at all). This is only "Almost-Open Access," but in facilitating exception-free immediate-deposit mandates it will accelerate the advent of universal Open Access.Comment: 12 pages, 5 figures, 32 references. To appear in "Dynamic Fair Dealing: Creating Canadian Culture Online" (Rosemary J. Coombe & Darren Wershler, Eds.

Open Access Mandates and the "Fair Dealing" Button

We describe the "Fair Dealing Button," a feature designed for authors who have deposited their papers in an Open Access Institutional Repository but have deposited them as "Closed Access" (meaning only the metadata are visible and retrievable, not the full eprint) rather than Open Access. The Button allows individual users to request and authors to provide a single eprint via semi-automated email. The purpose of the Button is to tide over research usage needs during any publisher embargo on Open Access and, more importantly, to make it possible for institutions to adopt the "Immediate-Deposit/Optional-Access" Mandate, without exceptions or opt-outs, instead of a mandate that allows delayed deposit or deposit waivers, depending on publisher permissions or embargoes (or no mandate at all). This is only "Almost-Open Access," but in facilitating exception-free immediate-deposit mandates it will accelerate the advent of universal Open Access

Quality Assurance in the Age of Author Self-Archiving

Published in Currents and Convergence: Navigating the Rivers of Change: Proceedings of the Twelfth National Conference of the Association of College and Research Libraries April 7-10, 2005, Minneapolis, Minnesota, ed. Hugh A. Thompson, 190-195, Chicago, IL: Association of College and Research Libraries, 2005. </p