The arXiv roadmap is a living document and communication tool to accommodate continuous prioritization throughout the year. Items are listed in approximate priority order, subject to change based upon consideration of input from arXiv stakeholders, consideration of new opportunities and initiatives as they arise, and progress on next generation arXiv development.
Technical
Moderator Web UI: Implement enhancements to the existing moderation Web UI to improve the proposal system based on moderator feedback. Also, enable moderators to take multiple actions and commit them together as a set of actions. Develop a new alternate moderator user experience to offer an efficient way for moderators to work on multiple submissions on a single responsive web page. The alternate moderator user experience will provide new paradigm for category management, improved proposal features, and an improved notification scheme to decrease email volume for moderators.
...
Auto-endorsement: Shift the auto-endorsement rules to work of a single white-list of recognized email domains. Expand the list of email domains that qualify for auto-endorsement. Develop an admin interface to update the auto-endorsement list.
User Support & Moderation
Author curated links: Based on the findings of the arXiv user study , improving support for linking research data, code, slides and other materials associated with papers emerged as an important service to expand.
...
Systematize arXiv's individual archive pages: The "home" pages for individual archives within arXiv have grown organically over time and are inconsistent with each other and in some cases outdated.
Process Improvement
Stakeholder communication improvements: Improve the support ticketing process for Admin and SAB for making requests that need development. Provide a means for stakeholders to submit requests in a consistent way. Define best practices for prioritizing and ensure that requests do not not get lost in the action or become stale. Improve process of communicating with stakeholders to ensure that the loop is closed on each request and that the submitter receives updates on status and closure.
...
arXiv Workflow and Moderation analysis: Embark on a fresh analysis of workflows for moderators, appellate moderators, and Chairs. Identify and implement process improvements. This will inform both classic arXiv and arXiv-NG. Improve communication to moderators regarding system updates, process improvement, guidelines for moderation, and recruitment. Expand documentation on roles, relationships, and workflows between moderators, appellate moderators, committees, and Chairs.
Business Model, Governance, and Partnership
Recruit a Scientific Director: In 2014, we created the Scientific Director position to provide intellectual leadership for arXiv and appointed Dr. Chris Myers as the interim Scientific Director to test and refine the role. After Chris Myers's departure in April 2016, we have started to revise the job description with the goal of filling the position in 2017. The Scientific Director (.5 FTE) will collaborate with the arXiv staff and the arXiv's Scientific Advisory Board in providing intellectual leadership for arXiv's operations.
...
Raise funds to support arXiv-NG project: In addition to raising funds to support the current arXiv operation, during 2016, 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. Therefore it is essential that we continue writing grants to raise the necessary funds for successful and timely completion of the project. Click for more information on arXiv-NG initiative.
arXiv Next Generation (arXiv-NG)
Based on the conclusions of ten months of planning activities during 2016, the arXiv team successfully secured a $450,000 grant from the Sloan Foundation to initiate the next-generation arXiv (arXiv-NG) initiative. The 18-month project will enable us to plan and begin to improve the architecture of this critical scientific infrastructure. We anticipate that a multi-phase design and development of a next-generation arXiv (arXiv-NG) will require approximately 3 years with an additional $2+ million budget, including requirements specification, evaluation of alternate strategies and partnerships, design of a new system architecture, assessment, and deployment. As we are developing arXiv-NG, during the next three years we will continue to rely on the existing system (Classic arXiv) and are committed to continue its robust services. Additional information: Next Generation arXiv
Another source of funding in support of arXiv-NG came from the Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence (AI2). An initial gift of $200,000 for 2017 will support a collaboration between the Cornell University Library and the Cornell Computing and Information Science (CIS). This donation will allow us to hire a Research & Innovation Fellow to collaborate with the arXiv team in designing and integrating a series of updated, research-oriented features for arXiv. The ultimate goal is to integrate tools that emerge from research into the production system to improve user and moderator experience.
Special Projects (under consideration)
A number of special projects from previous roadmaps are being incorporated into next generation arXiv planning and development.
...