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Complete development issues from 2012-09-21 Scientific Advisory Board meeting - The SAB agreed to a number of changes in the way arXiv should send emails to moderators and control user selection of categories. Changes also add the ability for moderators to comment on and put submissions on "hold" without the need for arXiv admin interaction, a first step toward empowering moderators though more direct facilities. Work was started in 2012 and will be completed in early 2013.
Status as of 12/13: Completed
Complete move of servers to virtual machine (VM) infrastructure - In 2012 we migrated two out of three of arXiv's server machines to new VMs. We will complete the move by migration our main web server to pair of load-balanced VMs managed by IT@Cornell. This arrangement will support scaling to additional web front-ends as necessary. As part of this transition we will formalize the update and maintenance process for these machines, and remove access by non-CUL or IT@Cornell staff.
Status as of 12/13: Completed
Change email handling to support arXiv admin and moderation ticketing system - The "Request Tracker" software has been selected and we will rework email filtering software to use this instead of the current email-based arXiv admin workflows.
Status as of 12/13: Completed
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Implement new category aliases for cs/math/stat and add a new category for q-fin - In the past the creation of category aliases (e.g. math.IT/cs.IT) and associated recategorization re-categorization of articles has required a mix of manual DB edits and one-off scripting. We will develop tools to safely do bulk edits of this sort. Testing is also required to ensure that having articles where the primary classification does not match the old-style id as a result of these new aliases is handled correctly everywhere. Status as of 12/13: Not done
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Improve dataset support - Review use of and experience with the Data Conservancy pilot and then either discontinue or improve interaction. Decide on a medium-term strategy for data and consider assigning DataCite DOIs for ancillary files. Status as of 12/13: The Data Conservancy pilot was discontinued (http://arxiv.org/help/data_conservancy) experience reviewed. A brief report on our experience can be found at the DSPS Blog. We will continue to support modest sized datasets and other materials using the existing ancillary files mechanism (http://arxiv.org/help/ancillary_files), and will ingest data from the pilot as ancillary files to support it long-term. We have subscribed to the EZID service and will assign DataCite DOIs to ancillary files.
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Explore the advantages and practicability of having an arXiv Scientific Director - Work with arXiv Scientific Advisory Board to define the role of a Scientific Director, and explore with stakeholders the desirability and feasibility of such a position. Status as of 12/13: Search underway to fill interim Scientific Director position.
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