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We repeated the online fund raising campaign and raised an additional $32,000. We also secured additional members, bringing the total to 200 institutions. This year, the Simons Foundation increased its annual contribution to arXiv from $350,000 to $400,000. In addition to raising funds to support the current arXiv operation, we successfully secured two grants in the amount of $650,000 to initiate the next-generation arXiv initiative, which is envisioned to be a 3-year project with a total budget of $3+ million.
Continue assessing and refining the operation of the new organizational and governance model -The arXiv principles aim to clarify the authority, responsibilities, and constraints of CUL, MAB, and SAB. Ironing out problems and developing a working system will require some time to test and observe the inner operation of the governance model. We will continue our engagements with the advisory boards and experiment with different communication strategies to share our vision, priorities, and challenges and to seek their input.
This is an ongoing process as we review our goals, strategies, and performance annually, especially during the MAB and SAB meetings. One of the key outcomes of this process is modifications to the arXiv team structure based on the input gathered. In order to strengthen the daily oversight of arXiv, during 2016 we transitioned to a team model that has two full-time managers, one for IT and the other one for user support, and appointed a new CTO. Here is a slide that shows the current and new team model: arXiv Org ChartSustainability Initiative
New Partnerships & Communication
arXiv’s role in scholarly communication ecology - We will continue following the new developments in regard to public access mandates and related compliance issues. Also of interest to the arXiv team are plans for integration of standardized metadata by use of IDs like ORCID, Grant-IDs, or Institutional IDs; SHARE & CHORUS; and depositing and linking research data associated with papers. Interoperability of arXiv with other institutional and subject repositories. Based Based on last year's investigation of interoperability issues, we will continue exploring how arXiv should enable communication/exchange between arXiv and institutional repositories, (for instance, pushing copies of papers published by a scientist to his/her home institution's repository). This work is added to the Special Projects category below as we need additional funds to accomplish our goals in this domain. this domain.
We completed a preliminary assessment of how we can enable one-stop deposit and compliance reporting in support of new public access requirements such as the one from the UK (HEFCE/REF). One of the goals of the arXiv-NG initiative is to create an open architecture to allow other service providers to develop APIs as overlay services, for instance to simplify scientists' publishing process by enabling submission of an article to a journal at he same time as it is uploaded to arXiv.
Special Projects
The current 5-year business plan represents a baseline maintenance scenario. It was developed based on an analysis of arXiv's baseline expenses during 2010-2012. It does not factor in any new functionality requirements or other unforeseen resource needs. Although a development reserve was established to fund such expenses, it is not sufficient to subsidize significant development efforts through surplus funds. Stewardship of resources such as arXiv involves not only covering the operational costs but also continuing to enhance their value based on the needs of the user community and the evolving patterns and modes of scholarly communication. 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 2015 SAB and MAB annual meetings was that the arXiv team needs to embark on a significant fund raising effort, pursuing grants and collaborations. Based on the ideas and recommendations gathered last year, we've concluded that we need to first create a compelling and coherent vision to be able to persuasively articulate our fund raising goals. 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. Please see our nascent arXiv Review Strategy for more details.
We successfully completed the arXiv Review Process and secured funds from the Simons Foundation and the Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence to launch the arXiv-NG initiative. As we develop functional requirements and create use cases, the arXiv team will be informed by the special projects identified below.
Interoperability & Public Access Mandate Support
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