Goals
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 SAB and MAB annual meetings was that the arXiv team needs to embark on a significant fund raising effort, pursuing grants and collaborations. After the meeting, Chris and Simeon met with a group of NSF program officers and Oya visited the Sloan Foundation to discuss the current state of arXiv, pressure points, possible development, and funding sources. Based on the ideas and recommendations gathered, 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, and would deeply appreciate the insights of both the SAB and MAB in helping us to articulate a vision for arXiv moving forward.
The focus of the arXiv sustainability initiative (2010-2013) was on baseline maintenance expenses, some underestimated or unforeseen, and it did not factor in any new requirements (such as the need to update the submission system). Recent trends in scholarly communication, such as emerging public access mandates and a growing interest in sharing research data, require that we consider new features and policies. The arXiv membership model is working well as envisioned but the funds from the Simons Foundation, member libraries, and the Cornell University Library are barely enough to maintain the status quo. arXiv is facing a funding shortfall, and current resources are not adequate to keep up with the growing list of projects that aim to make the moderation and submission process more efficient and effective. Although a development reserve was established to fund such expenses, it is not sufficient to subsidize significant development efforts.
The arXiv management team (Chris, David, Oya, Simeon) strongly recognize that we need to engage in a new and intense phase of fundraising activities, similar to the efforts undertaken while the current 5-year plan was being established (then enabled by a $60K planning grant from the Simons Foundation). However, our current job descriptions and time allocations do not factor in devoting time to significant project planning and fundraising activities. Following your advice, we are planning to add a part-time staff to the arXiv team to coordinate the vision setting and grant writing efforts.
arXiv as a sociotechnical system consists of technical components, policies, standards, workflows, social arrangements, and partnerships that provide it with a service framework. The challenges are not simply technological ones. As we contemplate both the reorganization of arXiv's core as well as the addition of new features and services, it is essential that we consider post-development maintenance requirements and understand the resource needs associated with running the system, as well as the sustainability issues that need to be addressed in any post R&D work. We must ensure that arXiv strives to meet a set of operational, editorial, financial and governance principles and can continue to set an example of a transparent and reliable community-supported service. We look forward to engaging the MAB and SAB in helping us set a compelling vision for arXiv. In a couple of weeks, we'll get back to you with a plan of action outlining our strategies, including a vision setting exercise for SAB/MAB, a user study, and a series of discussions/workshops to be implemented during the next several months.
Strategy and Timeline for Vision Setting and Fund Raising
November-December 2015:
- Relay to SAB/MAB our plans: We want to engage in fund raising after we set a vision and create a compelling set of goals - DONE
- Identify a number of areas to be considered for a vision setting process and create a survey instrument - IN PROCESS
- Conduct a SAB/MAB survey to poll their opinions on future directions and priorities
- Analyze and report findings, organize follow up discussions
- Start the user survey planning process based on the initial findings from the vision exercise, taking into consideration different segments: users as readers, users as submitter, users as moderators
- Hire a part-time person (or assign this role to an existing staff) to work with us in coordinating the planning activities
- Receive recommendations from the MAB IT subgroup about hosting a meeting with experts to consider arXiv's current infrastructure and workflows
January-March 2016:
- Start the 2016 annual fund raising campaign with the goal of increasing annual contributions (MAB subgroup will come up with recommendations)
- Plan, test, conduct a user survey
- Host IT external consultants to advise us on future directions
- 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
- 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
April 2016-June 2016
- Analyze findings - prepare proposals and white papers for consideration
- Develop scenarios, work plans, etc.
- Plan an August workshop (in conjunction with MAB/SAB annual meeting)
August 2016
- 25th anniversary workshop to discuss the future of arXiv based on proposals that will be shared in advance
- Goals: engaging different stakeholders in a conversation about arXiv's future
September-November 2016
- Vision - grant writing and work plans (our hope is that by then through the planning activities during the last several months, we'll already have ideas for funding sources and even might have done some initial work)