From users' perspective, arXiv continues to be a successful, prominent subject repository system serving the needs of many scientists around the world. However, under the hood, the service is facing significant pressures. The conclusion of the recent Scientific Advisory Board (SAB) and the Member Advisory Board (MAB) 2015 annual meetings was that, in addition to the current business model with a focus on maintenance, the arXiv team needs to embark on a significant fund raising effort, pursuing grants and collaborations. We need to first create a compelling and coherent vision to be able to persuasively articulate our fund raising goals beyond the current sustainability plan that aims to support the baseline operation. We’d like to use the approaching 25th anniversary of arXiv as an important milestone to engage us in a series of vision-setting exercises.
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- Identify a number of areas to be considered for a vision setting process and create a survey instrument - COMPLETED
- Conduct a SAB/MAB survey to poll their opinions on future directions and priorities (Vision Setting Survey) - COMPLETED
- Start the user survey planning process - COMPLETED
- Hire a part-time person (or assign this role to an existing staff) to work with us in coordinating the planning activities - COMPLETED
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- Analyze and report findings of the vision setting exercise and organize follow up discussions
- Start the 2016 annual fund raising campaign with the goal of increasing annual contributions (arXiv MAB subgroup will come up with recommendations to increase annual membership revenue)
- Plan, test, conduct a user survey based on the initial findings from the vision exercise, taking into consideration different segments: users as readers, users as submitter, users as moderators
- Hold the first planning meeting with a small group (10-12) of colleagues representing scientists, librarians, publishers/societies, foundations, federal agencies to discuss our preliminary findings and discuss the future of arXiv and the evolving nature of scientific communication
- Hold the first planning meeting with a small group (10-12) of colleagues representing scientists, librarians, funders, publishers/societies, federal agencies to discuss our preliminary findings
- Receive recommendations from the MAB IT subgroup about hosting a meeting with the goals and desired outcomes of a workshop with repository experts to consider arXiv's current infrastructure and workflows - hold an initial planning meeting& put in place a plan
- Host IT external consultants to advise us on future directions
- Consider submitting an NSF workshop proposal (based on finding thus far that need to be further explored)
- Continue to identify funding sources, make initial contacts
- Repeat the online fund raising campaign (Give button) based on the findings of the pilot conducted in September 2015
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