Transcript Exploring overlay journals: the RIOJA project

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Repository Interface for Overlaid Journal
Archives (RIOJA): a feasibility study
reporting the views of scientists in
astrophysics and cosmology
Panayiota Polydoratou
Martin Moyle
e-mail: [email protected]
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Outline of the presentation
RIOJA – some project info
Overlay journal model – context & definition
attempt
RIOJA aims and methods
Questionnaire survey - some preliminary results
Observations and future work
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RIOJA – project info
 RIOJA - Repository Interface for Overlaid Journal
Archives (http://www.ucl.ac.uk/ls/rioja)
 Funded by the JISC - Joint Information Systems
Committee (http://www.jisc.ac.uk) under the
Repositories and Preservation Programme
 A 1-year partnership
 Researchers from UCL, Cambridge, Glasgow and Imperial
 UCL Library Services
 Technical staff from Cornell University
 Astrophysics and Cosmology our subject domain
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RIOJA – the context
Impetus came from academic researchers in
Astrophysics and Cosmology
Perceptions:
 arXiv subject repository is highly important
 journals are little-used
 and why do subscriptions cost so much?
 adding a quality stamp to arXiv deposits would cut out the
need for formal publication in journals
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 "Journals are already redundant as a way of distributing
research results [in this discipline]"
 "How can it cost this much to publish papers in journals?"
 "Ultimately a 'journal' should just be a quality mark that
appears with a particular online version of an article in an
online repository"
 Although...
 need for Editors (paid?)
 career concerns (funders, RAE, promotion boards)
 there must be some costs we haven't thought of...?
 "the hard part will be getting people involved – as authors, referees
and editors – not the technical issues"
(All quotations taken from the CosmoCoffee bulletin board,
2005)
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Overlay journal model – a definition
 Term “overlay journal” attributed to Ginsparg (1996),
contribution and discussion by Smith (1999)
For RIOJA, an overlay journal model refers to:
 journals built on content deposited to and stored in one or
more repositories
 Quality-assured
 Open access
 Sustainable
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RIOJA - aims...
Build the RIOJA toolkit
 A set of APIs
 some for implementation by a repository, some by a
journal
 some required (eg author validation, metadata
extraction); others optional (eg trackback support)
Construct a demonstrator overlay journal
 an implementation of the RIOJA toolkit
 arXiv repository
 PKP journal software
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RIOJA – aims…
 Recommend a Digital Preservation strategy for
content accepted by an arXiv-overlay journal
 Supported by life-cycle costing techniques developed
by the BL/UCL LIFE Project
(http://www.ucl.ac.uk/ls/life)
Sustainability
Estimate the running costs for an arXiv-overlay journal
Identify and appraise cost-recovery options for an
arXiv-overlay journal
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RIOJA - methods
 Questionnaire survey to 4,000+ researchers
 Selected from top 100 universities and other institutions (THES
World Rankings 2006), arXiv and other domain specific discussion
lists
 Interviews with editorial boards and publishers
 What does this community really want from a journal?
– Which "value-added" publisher services are really valued?
– Which desirable functions are missing?
 What factors are critical to the successful academic take-up of an
arXiv-overlay journal?
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Questionnaire survey – Some
administrative info
Survey run between June 8th - July 15th, 2007
Scientists in fields astrophysics and cosmology –
hazy boundaries
Top - 100 academic institutions in science
Top - 15 non academic institutions in science
Cosmocoffee subscribers
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Questionnaire survey – Some
demographic characteristics
 Contacted 4012 scientists in astrophysics and cosmology
 Response from 683 (17% response rate)
 A spread of response by role, 24% by professors, 20% by
research fellows, lecturers, readers, research
assistants/associates
 Experienced researchers (46% more than 10 years)
 90% denoted research as their primary responsibility
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Response by role of the respondents
24%
P ro f e s s o r/ F ull P ro f e s s o r
4%
R e a de r
9%
S e nio r Le c t ure r/ A s s o c ia t e P ro f e s s o r
Le c t ure r/ A s s is t a nt P ro f e s s o r
12%
S e nio r R e s e a rc h F e llo w
12%
20%
R e s e a rc h F e llo w
12%
R e s e a rc h A s s o c ia t e / R e s e a rc h A s s is t a nt
7%
O t he r
2%
N/R
0%
20%
40%
60%
80%
100%
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Responsibilities of the respondents
Editor/m em ber of editorial board
6%
Head of departm ent
4%
Head of research unit/group
21%
Publisher - com m ercial
0%
Publisher - not for profit
1%
Publisher - University press
0%
Research
90%
Teaching
38%
Other (please specify)
N/R
4%
1%
0%
20%
40%
60%
80%
100%
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Questionnaire survey – Research and
publication
 97% write their research in the form of papers for peer
reviewed journals
 However, funding processes and RAE influence
publication
 3 most preferred journals for publication in top -10 – ISI
impact factor
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Forms of resarch outputs
97%
100%
80%
60%
40%
29%
20%
1%
9%
3%
1%
1%
Other (please
specify)
N/R
0%
Book(s)
Chapter(s) in
Papers for
book(s)
submission to
peer reviewed
journals
Papers
included in
conference
proceedings
Workshop
papers
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Q8 In which of the following peer reviewed
journals have you published your papers?
Annual Review of Astronomy and
Astrophysics
Annual Review of Earth and Planetary
Sciences
Astronomical Journal
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astronomy and Astrophysics Review
Astrophysical Journal
Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series
Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle
Physics
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Nature
New Journal of Physics
Physical Review D
Physical Review Letters
Science
Other (please specify)
N/R
Base: 683
%
34
5
0
0
171
331
4
476
108
66
25
48.5
0.6
69.7
15.8
9.7
382
137
7
195
128
48
126
15
55.9
20.1
1
28.6
18.7
7
18.4
2.2
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Questionnaire survey – arXiv use and
expectations of overlay journal model
 80% use the arXiv as first point when looking for new
research papers & 53% visit the arXiv on a daily basis
 53% said yes to a new publishing journal model
 However: quality, peer review, long term archiving
 Money matters
 YES: Journal website & archive of back issues, paying scientific
editors
 NO: print version of journal, paying referees, publisher profits
o
o
to
to
th
e
ro
ws
e
co
p
ar
Xi
v
pr
in
t
ie
s
of
100%
40%
20%
15%
17%
24%
22%
13%
7%
6%
N/
R
...
n
ew
di
sc
/r e
us
ce
Ig
si
nt
on
o
to
lis
jo
ts
ur
/f.
na
..
Ig
lw
o
eb
to
pa
th
Ir
ge
e
ec
A
s
ei
DS
ve
w
"t
eb
ab
si
Ir
le
te
ec
of
ei
co
ve
nt
al
e.
Ir
e
..
r ts
ec
ei
fr o
ve
m
al
AD
e
Iu
r ts
S
se
f
r
in
om
de
ar
xi
Xi
ng
v
/
ab
O
th
st
er
ra
ct
(p
i..
le
as
e
sp
ec
ify
)
Ig
Ig
Ib
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Keeping up to date
80%
80%
58%
60%
28%
1%
0%
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Statement
Rating
% agree
Perceived quality of the
journal by the scientific
community
97.3
High journal impact factor
88.9
Being kept up-to-date during
the refereeing process
81.6
±
Other factors (please specify)
Inclusion in
indexing/abstracting services
(e.g. ISI Science Citation
Index)
75.3
66.2
64.5
±
2.4
3
9.4
3.6
±
±
3.6
3.6
±
52.8
Low or no subscription costs
33.9
Journals which publish a print
version
29.8
Journals published by my
professional society
26.9
Journals which have a high
rate of rejection of papers
21.1
Fairly
unimportant
±
67.9
Journals that do not charge
authors for publication
Open Access Journals
(journals whose content is
openly and freely available)
Very
unimportant
±
±
Reputation of the
editor/editorial board
Key:
1.2
Neither
Fairly
important
3.8
±
±
±
±
Very
important
3.6
3.5
3.4
3.1
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Table 1. Distribution of money over several journal functions
None
Paying scientific editors
Paying copy editors
Maintenance of journal
software
Journal website
Online archive of
journal's own back issues
Production of paper
version
Extra features such as
storage of associated data
Publisher profits
Paying referees
Other
23
8
4
23
28
20
60
73
73
240
256
238
141
134
147
15
6
9
Not
sure
21
15
30
5
9
28
27
79
52
225
202
149
189
20
18
15
19
4
14
6
26
0
8
2
19
18
3
138
30
142
249
3
1
2
101
63
122
70
1
3
4
125
107
105
182
138
70
1
91
85
1
5
29
100
9
22
3
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Funding sources for journals' functions
Research
funders
(Councils,
government, etc.)
, 388
Author pays on
acceptance (e.g.
using research
funds), 172
Author pays on
submission (e.g.
using research
funds), 34
Sponsorship (e.g.
Learned Society),
282
Other , 11
N/R, 15
Library
subscriptions,
337
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Some observations
 Important factors
 Scientific community acceptance
Quality assurance
Peer review process
 Sustainability and long term archiving
 Not so important factors
 Print version of journal
 Subscription cost
 Journal endorsed by the professional society
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Future work
 Entering the second phase of community surveys
 Interviews with members of editorial boards/publishers
 Costs associated with publishing processes
 Is there a business model?
 More work and testing on the technical side as APIs are now
implemented on the arXiv
 Start planning the RIOJA conference
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Further information
 Project team: [email protected]
 Web site: http://www.ucl.ac.uk/ls/rioja
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Thank you!
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References
 Ginsparg, P. (1996). Winners and Losers in the Global
Research Village. Invited contribution, UNESCO
Conference HQ, Paris, 19-23 Feb 1996.
Available at: http://xxx.lanl.gov/blurb/pg96unesco.html
 Smith, J W T. (1999). The deconstructed journal: a new
model for academic publishing. Learned Publishing, Vol.
12 (2), pp. 79-91