2014 arXiv Roadmap
Technical
Items are listed in approximate priority order but this may be adjusted based on ongoing discussions with the Scientific and Member Advisory Boards.
Improve moderator web interface, add personal checkbox - We want to encourage moderator use of the web interface to streamline their workflow. The moderator web interface was significantly extended and improved in 2014. Work will improve clarity based on the feedback we have received and provide each moderator with the ability to mark submissions as checked.
Allow moderators to recategorize articles via the web interface - We want to encourage moderator use of the web interface to streamline their workflow and to avoid unnecessary reliance on admins as intermediaries. Moderators should be able to make specific category change recommendations via the web interface that result in alerts to other appropriate moderators.
Develop and integrate internal automatic overlap detection for new submissions - Develop pipeline for checking of new submissions against existing corpus and staged submissions. Develop warnings for administrators and moderators based on overlap check results. Make these warnings available for administrators and moderators.
Add ORCID author identifier support - We would like to support ORCID identifiers for better interoperability with other repositories implementing authority control and also as a route toward providing institutional statistics for member organizations (ORCID has implemented storage of affiliation identifiers in the profile data). ORCID identifiers will be associated with arXiv user accounts via the ORCID OAuth process.
Category aliasing for cs/math/stat - There are three category merges (aliases) requested. Some of these require extra work because there are pre-0704 (old identifiers, see http://arxiv.org/help/arxiv_identifier) submissions where the primary category is becoming an alias and thus the historical primary archive to identifier prefix correspondence will be broken. Includes work to create tools for the bulk re-categorization of submissions affected by this and later merges.
Update, reorganize and better document the TeX system - TeX is currently a central component of our article processing, approximately 85% of submissions are TeX or PDFTeX source. We need to put effort into updating our TeX installation, improving our packaging so that it can more easily be deployed and updated, and better documenting our installation. We need to update the tex binaries to the current version of TeX Live (currently TeX Live 2011, should use 2014), update our set of style files (last update was 2011), and also update our ghostscript installation.
Migrate functions away from old PHP/Tapir codebase and into Perl/Catalyst - We have been gradually replacing old PHP/Tapir code with more maintainable and better integrated Perl/Catalyst code.
Replace and improve email alert system - Replace the email alert system to allow easy subscribe/unsubscribe via web interface tied to user accounts, ensure scalability and allow customization.
Assign DOIs to data - We accept data as ancillary files http://arxiv.org/help/ancillary_files but offer relatively little support. It would be more helpful to assign DataCite DOIs from EZID to ancillary files thus making them citeable. Also, we have discontinued the Data Conservancy pilot and plan to pull the DC data in as ancillary files (see http://arxiv.org/help/data_conservancy and http://blogs.cornell.edu/dsps/2013/06/14/arxiv-data-conservancy-pilot/).
Develop and integrate internal instance of classifier code - We should integrate the classifier code into the arXiv production system rather than using API to code running on Paul Ginsparg's research machine. This was agreed by the SAB on 2013-09.
Ingest arXiv content into CUL Archival Repository - While arXiv adopts good practices for data backup and management, it is far from being an archival collection. We should have regular ingest of all arXiv content into a separate archival system and propose using CULAR (Cornell University Library Archival Repository). Work is require to script creation of submission packages (SIPs) for initial ingest and regular incremental updates.
Add metadata fields for funding information, article status and migration of old content - There have been several requests for support for additional metadata. These include work to add funding information (requests from supporting members), for the ability to store version information (author manuscript, publisher version, etc.), and for publication information of migrated content (mainly for conference proceedings in computer science). These changes will require extensions of our internal metadata format and handling in appropriate submission interfaces, admin interfaces, moderator screens, search systems, and data export facilities. It may well be appropriate to generalize our models/code in some places.
User Support and Moderation
Define and implement new tools and interfaces for moderators – Continue working with moderators and arXiv IT to define and implement new tools and interfaces to support the work of moderators. See "Improve tools and interfaces to support moderators" in Technical section above.
Publish arXiv category definitions – Complete the development of public subject category descriptions for existing physics categories. Only a small number of physics categories currently have public descriptions. Defining the scope and boundaries of the categories will help users, moderators, and administrators.
Improve efficiency of arXiv administrative processes – Work with Scientific Director and others to evaluate arXiv administration processes, and to define and implement an optimal administrative staffing configuration, in light of evolving moderation tools.
Review arXiv endorsement policies – Review current arXiv endorsement procedures and policies across all subject categories, seeking greater uniformity and transparency. Work with IT to implement any polices that can be programmatically enabled.
Systematize the arXiv moderation appeal processes – Work toward a uniform arXiv moderation appeal process across all subject categories. Provide public documentation of the process.
Review arXiv user communication – Begin to review the many "stock" messages used by arXiv administrators when communicating with submitters and other arXiv users. Some of these messages are outdated, cryptic, or unnecessarily brusque. Work toward identifying these and improving their usefulness.
Develop arXiv moderator assessment metrics – Define, develop, and implement metrics for evaluating moderator performance, to share with subject committee chairs.
Business Model & Governance
Continue testing the arXiv Scientific Director position – In 2014, we created a new position to provide intellectual leadership for arXiv's operation and appointed Chris Myers as the interim Scientific Director. We’ll continue to test and refine this position and also consider the effectiveness of the current arXiv team model.
Setting development priorities - arXiv operates on limited resources therefore it is critical for us to identify priorities. In support of this goal, we’ll experiment with an online survey to get input from both SAB and MAB in ranking and commenting on this year’s technical agenda.
Continue the membership drive & identify new funding sources - We continue to be encouraged with the five-year pledges. Creating a broad and international network of supporters require ongoing efforts. We are entering the third year of our 5-year business plan. One of the goals this year is to start planning for the next 5-years. The idea of adding a Give button was provisionally approved by SAB & MAB, contingent on a pilot proposal that will lay out the details.
Continue assessing and refining the operation of the new 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.
New Partnerships & Communication
arXiv’s role in scholarly communication ecology - We continue to get questions and requests from libraries, publishers, societies, and funding agencies in regard to arXiv’s role in supporting emerging OA mandates and providing features in support of compliance requirements. We will continue following the emerging open access mandates from funders & compliance issues (e.g., plans for integration of standardized metadata by use of ID like ORCID, Grant-IDs, or Institutional IDs; SHARE & CHORUS) and linking to research data. We'll discuss the importance of several initiatives vis-à-vis arXiv to review arXiv's plans and get input from our advisory boards in setting priorities.
Interoperability of arXiv with other institutional and subject repositories. One of the important factors in our sustainability efforts is enabling interoperability and creating efficiencies among repositories with related and complementary content to reduce duplicate efforts. We will investigate interoperability requirements to 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). We formed a MAB subcommittee to identify needs and assess if and how arXiv can provide such functionality. Also, we’ll continue to exchange information with publishers/societies represented in arXiv, especially in exploring issues such as version of record, linking pre-print to formal published version, etc.