...
Where are you getting the URLs for the data sets?
We'll We’ll use the EZID system from the CDL (http://www.cdlib.org/services/uc3/ezid/). Jim Mullins mentioned that Purdue is a provider of DOI's through the CDL program, too. Jim is interested in participating in the research data support issues identified in the arXiv road map.
Have you identified any priorities based on the document that proposes a collaboration agenda with publishers and societies?
In celebration of the arXiv's arXiv’s 20th anniversary, on September 23, 2011 Cornell University Library (CUL) hosted a meeting at Cornell with the representatives from several publishers and societies that are interested in Cornell's sustainability planning efforts. There is a report that provides a synopsis of the discussion and recommends next steps for continuing this dialogue. Since the meeting, the Cornell team has had a couple of exchanges but we decided to wait and form a small working group with representation from MAB and SAB before continuing our work. One of the proposed MAB sub-groups will focus on this work.
Can arXiv's arXiv’s success translate into other disciplines (expanding arXiv's arXiv’s scope)?
We frequently receive requests to extend arXiv to include other subject areas. We have adopted a measured approach to expansion, as there is significant organizational and administrative effort required both to create and to maintain new subject areas. Adding a new subject area involves exploring the user-base and use characteristics pertaining to the subject area, establishing the necessary advisory committees, and recruiting moderators. While we anticipate that arXiv will become increasingly broad in its subject area coverage, we believe this development must occur in a planned and strategic manner. We are making an effort to provide information about arXiv as a service and business model in order to share our experience and provide a case study for sustaining open access services.
...
ORCID is a community-based effort to provide a registry of unique researcher identifiers and a transparent method of linking research activities and outputs to these identifiers (http://about.orcid.org/). arXiv is very interested in this work. Simeon Warner is a member of the initiative's initiative’s board of directors.
How are we planning to increase the number of new memberships?
We currently have 134 organizations that pledged a five-year support for arXiv. These are good-faith intention and are not seen as a lump-sum payment or a legally binding contract. The purpose of the arXiv member relations sub-group will be to develop strategies to broaden partnerships, including strategies such as working with scientists to increase awareness about arXiv's arXiv’s business model and collaboration with libraries. Broadening our membership base will help us build a strong financial base, engage a larger community, and also allow reducing the annual membership fees.
...
We will be inviting members from the SAB to MAB and vice versa (as suggested in the SAB (to be completed in April'13 April’13 and MAB bylaws:
https://confluence.cornell.edu/display/culpublic/Member+Advisory+Board+Bylaws
...
David Morrison (Scientific Advisory Board member) noted that there were two tracks of work going on: changes in the governance model and changes in moderation as Paul Ginsparg's Ginsparg’s role will be transitioned to a subject advisory committee (the physics subject advisory group that Steve mentioned during the first call).
...
We often receive questions about the feasibility of providing submission-based statistics and comparing them with our current institutional downloads statistics. We struggle with this issue because we recognize the importance of this data for libraries but are not able to put sufficient resources in creating and maintaining detailed statistics. The author metadata for arXiv is not sufficiently consistent to support any systematic analysis but we ran some numbers based on submitting authors' email address affiliations. Based on sampling, we have some preliminary results, which indicate that submission- and download-based data exhibit similar characteristics (interestingly based on SCOAP3 data, use and submissions from Japan is 7%). We would like to undertake some metadata remediation to improve the authorship data for existing submissions (ORCID) but this is not a short-term project and will require significant resources (relates to the question about arXiv's arXiv’s priorities).
Will the arXiv subgroups include members from other groups, such as publishers or SAB?
...
Member Relations - sample topics include --> special services for membership (such as providing additional statistics to member institutions), strategies for promoting libraries' research laboratories' role in arXiv's sustainability to scientists
Members: Jim, Eva, Molly, Zhixiong
Financial Planning - sample topics include --> raising additional funds in order to lower the current tier structure or to support R&D projects, creating a lower-priced tier for members from developing countries, guidelines for using reserve funds, communication with members and scientists about arXiv, assessment of the current financial model, adding new arXiv members
Members: Uwe (Esther), Yuri, Philip
Collaboration with Publishers and Societies --> please see the September 2011 planning meeting summaryabout the outcomes of a collaboration discussion with a group of publisher and society representatives - we would like to review, prioritize, and move our initial meeting recommendations into action
Members: Catriona, Carol, Tim, Diane, Tommy
Research and Development Agenda --> moving beyond the current sustainability model that focuses on operations to a strategic plan for arXiv's further development and innovation, setting R&D priorities, assessing collaboration opportunities, setting a 3-5 year strategic plan for arXiv (encompassing all aspects of arXiv, not limited to technologies)
Members: Tommy, Mackenzie
Conference Call Participants
...