Items are listed in approximate priority order and may be adjusted based on ongoing discussions with the Scientific and Member Advisory Boar`ds.
Define and implement new tools and interfaces for moderators – Continue ongoing work with moderators and arXiv IT to define and implement new tools and interfaces to support the work of moderators.
Implement new administrative staffing configuration - Hire, train, and integrate Operations Manager into arXiv administration unit.
Complete and publish physics category descriptions - Work with physics subject committee and its chair to get final approval for physics subject category descriptions.
Publish current policy statements where needed - Work with Scientific Director to compose and publish appropriate policy statements regarding endorsements and appeals.
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archives within arXiv have grown organically over time and are inconsistent with each other and in some cases outdated.
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 the job description and also consider the effectiveness of the current arXiv team model. Myers' appointment extended to the end of 2016. Position needs to be assessed, revised (if necessary), and posted in 2016.
Continue the membership drive & identify new funding sources - We continue to be encouraged with the five-year pledges and increasing number of arXiv member institutions. Creating a broad and international network of supporters require ongoing efforts. We are entering the fourth year of our 5-year business plan. One of the goals this year is to start planning for the next 5-years. Based on last year's online fund raising pilot (Give button), we aim to assess and repeat the strategy to create an additional revenue stream. There are two SAB subgroups working with the Cornell team to .....
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. This is an ongoinng process as we review our goals, strategies, and performance annually,especially during the MAB and SAB meetings.
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 new developments in regard to open access mandates from funders 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. We will continue to explore issues related to depositing and linking research data associated with papers. Also, we are partnering with Hypothes.is on Alfred P. Sloan foundation grant to explore open annotations for scholarly communication. Work to be continued in 2016 - see Special Projects section below.
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 and bring efficiencies. 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. Draft interoperability needs assessment and requirement document completed. 2015_arXiv_IR_interop_plan_draft.pdf - project added in the Special Projects category as we need additional funds to accomplish our goals in this domain. Work to be continued in 2016 - see Special Projects section below.
The current 5-year business plan represents a baseline maintenance scenario. It was developed based on an analysis of the 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.
Interoperability & Public Access Mandate Support
Support arXiv-IR interoperability -Test and implement the interoperability requirements identified to enable communication/exchange between arXiv and institutional repositories (e.g., pushing copies of papers published by a scientist to his/her home institution's repository). This work may also involve working with publishers/societies represented in arXiv to exploring issues such as version of record, linking pre-print to formal published version, etc.
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.
Modernize the User Interface & Alerting System
Modernize the search interface, add facets, include author identifiers - The arXiv search interface could be improved to follow current best practices using facets and better result ordering.
Software Restructuring & Improvement
Restructure the submission system - We need to expand arXiv's workflow capabilities to better accommodate new and more complicated workflows associated with document analysis, overlap detection, and improved moderator interactions.
Accelerate legacy codebase improvements - While the arXiv software operates well, there are areas where the codebase is old and should be migrated or rewritten to make is more efficient to maintain and further develop. So we need to invest in arXiv beyond what is feasible through the operational budget in order to make is 'sustainable' - easier to keep up and advance. We seek to accelerate the modest progress possible within the baseline maintenance scenario.