arXiv Conference Call with Publisher/Society Representatives

August 9, 2013

The purposes of the conference call was to revisit the outcomes of our 9/2011 meeting and also to discuss the recent developments, including arXiv's current sustainability model and priorities, emerging open access mandates (especially OSTP OA directive), research data support, new initiatives such as FundRef, etc. Are the collaboration domains we have identified more than a year ago still valid?  What are current priorities from your organizations' and arXiv's perspectives? 

AGENDA

1. arXiv - brief overview of the current business plan, governance model, and priorities - 10 minutes
2. pilot with IOP for depositing author final versions to arXiv - 10 minutes
3. updates from publishers/societies related to open access, repositories, & arXiv - 40-minutes 
4. revisit our September'11 meeting outcomes - 10 minuteshttps://confluence.cornell.edu/download/attachments/127116484/arXivSept23MeetingSynopsis.pdf
5. summary and next steps - 10 minutes

PARTICIPANTS

Graham McCann, IOP
Günther Eichhorn, Springer
Alison Taylor, AIP
Mark Doyle, APS
Eleonora Presani, Elsevier
Chris Biemesderfer, American Astronomical Society
Matteo Cavalleri, Wiley
Robert M. Harington, American Mathematical Society

Representing the arXiv Scientific Advisory Board

Ralf Bundschuh (SAB Chair), Professor of Physics and Biochemistry, Ohio State University

Representing the arXiv Member Advisory Board

Carol Hoover, Digital Information Resources Manager, Los Alamos National Laboratory
Diane Geraci, Associate Director for Information Resources, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Tim Klassen, Head, Science and Technology Library, University of Alberta
Catriona Cannon, Associate Director, Collection Support, Bodleian Libraries, Representing Jisc, UK

Cornell University Library

Oya Y. Rieger, Associate University Librarian, Digital Scholarship & Preservation Services; arXiv Program Director (MAB Chair)
David Ruddy, Director, Scholarly Communication Services, arXiv User Support Manager
Simeon Warner, Director, Software Development & Repository Architecture, arXiv IT Manager
Jaron Porciello, Digital Scholarship Initiatives Coordinator, arXiv Membership Program Lead

1: UPDATES

From 2010-2013, arXiv was planning financial and governance changes in order to make the program a community-supported, sustainable initiative. 2013 is the first year of implementation and it is still a work in progress. See sustainability initiative and pledge list for more information. 

2: IOP-arXiv pilot to develop a process to deposit an author-final version of a journal article to arXiv

IOP is currently working on a pilot project with arXiv to deposit an author final version of journal articles to arXiv after a 12-mo. embargo period. The purpose of the pilot is to address funding and government mandates to provide OA to research. The functionality will be a link in arXiv back to the version of record at IOP website. IOP plans to provide alerts to authors at point of deposit. One of the goals in developing this process is to ensure it fairly generic and replicable in order for other publishers to adopt it. IOP will be relying on the SWORD standards and protocol.

Questions:

• How do you expect usage to change over time, if at all? (answer) Expect to cover a majority of papers via the deposit process.
• How do you find out if article is already in arXiv? (answer): Will ask for arXiv record # from author and have an editor do a manual check as required. IOP plans to ask author if they would like IOP to update arXiv record – will need author’s permission to do this.
• Expressed as a concern that APS provided information on bilateral linking to arXiv over a year ago and still no progress. Says other publishers are taking a different approach to make article available from publisher’s website – does not need author permission. APS not sure they would go IOP direction on this. (answer): IOP considers itself a “trusted partner” with arXiv. They are also considering to make the author’s final version available on IOP website – waiting on CHORUS outcome to decide.
• Does not see CHORUS and arXiv as oppositional. arXiv is different from, for example, PubMedCentral. Both can work in unison.
• Elsevier wants to stress the idea of recognizing papers already in arXiv and that it is hard to get this information from authors. Is there a solution in place? :Graham: IOP is willing to do the same if it had author permission. Completely automated system would be great.

3: Updates from publishers/societies related to open access repositories and arXiv

• Gunther, Springer: Is interested in identification of pre-existence of article in arXiv and author identification issues. How do you plan to use ORCID IDs and can we work together?
• Alison, AIP: Is interested in updates about CHORUS and ORCID.
• Mark, APS: APS is involved in a pilot project with CHORUS that aims to have a public pilot by end of September. CHORUS is in the process of choosing a small steering group that some funding agencies have been invited to join. CHORUS is working within CrossRef structure, along with FundRef, LicenseRef and Prospect (text mining license). Will enable full auditing for funders and university compliance officers as well.
• Eleanora, Elsevier: Requested that arXiv make it clear (with icon or otherwise) that the arXiv article is OA on the publisher’s website as well. Chris (AAS): AAS works closely with IOP and ADS. AAS has 12 month delay OA policy now (and has had this policy in place for years). Engaged in CHORUS and ORCID as well. OA mandates are evolving and present challenging problems. AAS is being careful regarding its moves in this arena.
  • Q: Expressed interest in releasing articles with CC-BY-NC-ND license, and allow authors to choose between 3 licenses – CC-BY, CC-BY-NC and CC-BY-NC-ND. Will arXiv consider acceptance of CC-BY-NC-ND?
  • A: this issue is on the arXiv agenda for discussion about broader CC options.
• Oya – SHARED library model addresses both journals and data as an integrated research model.Eleanora will check on whether Elsevier is developing a Research Data Center.
  • Q: Are publishers/CHORUS addressing the research data mandate as well?
  • A: Not likely, but open data will change the way research is done due to deep sociological changes. Elsevier, APS, AAS are exploring how to present data and article together, but currently all prefer linking to existing databases as a likely better solution.
• Matteo (Wiley): Interested to know how advanced are developments or plans regarding the September 2011 collaboration agenda.
• Robert: Have started discussions with arXiv to deposit OA articles for AMS and possibly MathSciNet as well. Have created new gold OA journals based on existing Transactions and Proceedings titles – author submits to common editorial board and upon acceptance can decide to publish gold OA with APC in “B” open access version of these journals.
• Graham: Emphasized things are in flux – looking at issues surrounding sustainability of business. IOP recently published Introduction to Copyright and Licensing to address the many questions and confusion surrounding these issues.
• Mark: Is working with Simeon on ORCID Multiple Assertions Working Group to disambiguate multiple IDs for the same person.

4: September 2011 collaboration agenda

1) Cross- linking and persistent identifiers – no comments from group. arXiv API was created about a year ago.
2) Lifecycle of research materials and version control – to be discussed at SAB.
3) Supplementary material support
Oya - exploring position on data. For last 3 years arXiv has accepted dataset files – about 200 data submissions to date (these have not been large datasets). Interesting experiment – received 40 different file extensions. Raised questions about how to provide maintenance and support. Highlighted importance of provenance. arXiv decided to continue to accept submission of small datasets using EZID DOIs. Data Conservancy pilot data will be pulled back to arXiv – no action yet.
Eleanora – does anyone have a definition of raw data? No problem to release the data, but the definition and issue is not so clear.
Chris – this is a big can of worms. Astronomy data is analyzed over and over. Suggest that final data used in the article is the data for submission, but difficult question.
Robert – do not care about definition.
4) Statistics
Oya – plan to engage with SAB on this issue. arXiv as a source of compliance reporting makes arXiv a bit nervous and represents a change in mission.
Mark – Altmetrics (the company) interested in identifying articles as eprint and as final version to integrate into a single coherent view of the work.
Robert – AMS is launching with Altmetrics for their journals – want to associate comments made via media with their articles.

5. Summary

Bidirectional linking is important to all. Would like to create a generalized automated workflow for this process.
CHORUS and arXiv are complementary, and we will continue to listen for news about this initiative. 
CC license issues exist and arXiv: the team will continue to explore.