Eprints Handbook
-- Forwarded message -- List-Post: goal@eprints.org List-Post: goal@eprints.org Date: Wed, 28 Jan 2004 12:25:18 -0500 From: Peter Suber To: SPARC Open Access Forum Subject: Eprints Handbook [Forwarding from the Eprints team. --Peter.] This is to announce the Eprints User's Handbook http://software.eprints.org/handbook The Handbook was commissioned by the Open Society Institute http://www.soros.org/ and written by Dr. Les Carr, Southampton University http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~lac/ The Handbook is designed for all Eprints Users: --the system administrators who set up and maintain the archives --the departments or libraries that manage them --the authors who self-archive their papers in them and --the readers who use their contents. Especially important are the strategic suggestions for implementing a systematic institutional self-archiving policy. Feedback is invited. The Handbook will be continuously expanded in response to queries and suggestions from users.
Re: EPrints Handbook
Roy Tennant writes > Here it is at the EconPapers archive in Sweden: > http://econpapers.hhs.se/paper/cdloplwec/38.htm > > Here it is in the WoPEc archive in the UK: > http://netec.mcc.ac.uk/WoPEc/data/Papers//cdloplwec38.html There URLs come through RePEc project, see http://repec.org. RePEc provides a few more services of this style. They all deliver to a common pool of logs that has abstract view and downloading statistics, see http://logec.repec.org This can show authors with figures at hand how well they are doing. Most RePEc services contribute to this common pool. A set of current awareness lists that are filtered by subject editors, see http://nep.repec.org, does not do this at the moment. > Formerly, we talked about the possibilities of OAI in the abstract to > our faculty. Now we can demonstrate it in reality. That, as you might > imagine, is a powerful thing. Yes, but David Cahill is right that you can not build many good services with the oai_dc metadata. For your data, we rely on massaging cdl data into RePEc's internal format to deliver the services that we do. We really need better data and better metadata. Cheers, Thomas Krichel mailto:kric...@openlib.org http://openlib.org/home/krichel CORRECT private phone: 1-718-507-1117 RePEc:per:1965-06-05:thomas_krichel
Re: EPrints Handbook
On Tuesday, June 18, 2002, at 07:39 AM, David Cahill wrote: * Getting people to use the damn thing:) As you say, this is the main obstacle to setting up an archive. One thing that has struck me is the lack of concrete backup for all the vague assurances I've been handing out about increased exposure, readership, etc. The OAI is a great idea, but in practical terms, what good is it currently doing? I know that might seem a bit cynical, but other than the experimental ARC service, I haven't really seen any examples of the 'value-added' aspect of the OAI. From the beginning, as we have introduced our repository to our faculty and staff, we have emphasized the point that because they would be depositing their material in an OAI-compliant archive, it would automatically and painlessly be discoverable from various other points around the globe. Luckily, we were right. Within weeks (days?) of opening our doors, we had papers appear in several locations. Here is a specific example. Here is the authoritative location for a paper by Robert Cooter called "Expressive Law and Economics": http://repositories.cdlib.org/blewp/38/ Here it is at the ARC cross archive search at Old Dominion: http://arc.cs.odu.edu:8080/oai/servlet/search?formname=detail&id=oai%3Acdlib1%3Ablewp-1051 Here it is at the EconPapers archive in Sweden: http://econpapers.hhs.se/paper/cdloplwec/38.htm Here it is in the WoPEc archive in the UK: http://netec.mcc.ac.uk/WoPEc/data/Papers//cdloplwec38.html Formerly, we talked about the possibilities of OAI in the abstract to our faculty. Now we can demonstrate it in reality. That, as you might imagine, is a powerful thing. Roy Tennant eScholarship, California Digital Library
Re: EPrints Handbook
On Tue, 18 Jun 2002, [iso-8859-1] David Cahill wrote: > Chris, > sounds like an excellent idea. Some things you might want to deal with, > based on my own experience establishing an archive here at NUI > Maynooth: > > * A summary of the techncial issues in "manager-speak". One thing I've > noticed is that management don't realy seem aware of what's invloved > (technically) in setting up an archive, how it works, or how long it > takes. It might be worth giving some kind of summary of these issues, > at least so managers will have some idea of who to hire, how to > schedule the project, etc. Good idea. > * Copyright. This is one of the most common issues I've been asked > about. I know Prof Harnad has written some comebacks for this one, but > some more information/reassurance might be useful:) This definetely > strikes me as one of the trickier issues involved. We will put some relevant, reassuring information about copyright in there, and point to other sources. > * Getting people to use the damn thing:) As you say, this is the main > obstacle to setting up an archive. One thing that has struck me is the > lack of concrete backup for all the vague assurances I've been handing > out about increased exposure, readership, etc. The OAI is a great idea, > but in practical terms, what good is it currently doing? I know that > might seem a bit cynical, but other than the experimental ARC service, > I haven't really seen any examples of the 'value-added' aspect of the > OAI. I'm well aware the system is in an embryonic stage, but that's not > going to be much use when persuading hard-pressed academics to submit > their papers. Fortunately no one has actually raised this question yet, > but when they do, I'm not sure what I'll be able to say. > It might be worth devoting some space in the handbook to this topic, as > the OAI would appear to be one of the main selling points of the > archive system as a whole. There are several articles published on how open access enhance visibility and impact: Lawrence, S. (2001a) Online or Invisible? Nature 411 (6837): 521. http://www.neci.nec.com/~lawrence/papers/online-nature01/ Lawrence, S. (2001b) Free online availability substantially increases a paper's impact. Nature Web Debates. http://www.nature.com/nature/debates/e-access/Articles/lawrence.html Odlyzko, A.M. (2002) The rapid evolution of scholarly communication." Learned Publishing 15: 7-19 http://rosina.catchword.com/vl=11319436/cl=24/fm=docpdf/nw=1/rpsv/catchword/alpsp/09531513/v15n1/s2/p7 http://www.si.umich.edu/PEAK-2000/odlyzko.pdf The handbook will describe and cite these and others, but don't imagine that mere descriptions of quantitative benefits will be enough to fill the university archives. An active university policy will need to be implemented: "How can an institution facilitate the filling of its Eprint Archives?" http://www.eprints.org/self-faq/#institution-facilitate-filling > * Maintenance + support. I know this is verging on a technical issue, > but another question that pops up pretty often is the issue of support > - how much work is it going to take to keep the thing going? - > including both technical and editorial work, etc. Some kind of general > discussion of the issues involved could be useful. This will be provided. CogPrints is an example, as it has been up for several years now. Chris can say how much sysad-time it needs to keep up, and I can say how much input vetting it needs (very little). Stevan Harnad > That's all I can think of offhand. > Cheers, > > David Cahill > NUI Maynooth Library. > > > > --- ePrints Support wrote: > > Hi, We've been given some funding for a colleague of mine to write > > some more (better?!) documentation for eprints. > > > > The provisional plan is to aim this at the project manager and leave > > me doing the technical documentation still. > > > > I think there is a real need for a guide to setting up an > > institutional > > archive as there are so many recurring (non technical) issues and > > problems > > which we've encountered - policy, metadata decisions, getting people > > to fill > > the damn data etc. > > > > I think it would be most useful if it has an eprints bias, but deals > > with > > the general process of setting up an archive (eprints or otherwise). > > > > So what I'm asking is for suggestions and comments really. This would > > in effect be the "eprints-underground" manual, rather than the > > current > > one which could be considered the "eprints-tech" documentation. > > > > -chris > > > > -- > > > > Christopher Gutteridge > > eprints-supp...@ecs.soton.ac.uk > > ePrints2 Coder, Support and Stuff+44 23 8059 4833 > >
Re: EPrints Handbook
On Tue, 18 Jun 2002, Andy Powell wrote: > On Tue, 18 Jun 2002, David Cahill wrote: > > I can also echo these points. At Bath the concerns of academics seem to > fall into three main areas: > > 1) Copyright - i.e. does my publisher allow self-archiving after >publication? > 2) Impact of pre-print on future publication - i.e. will my publisher >be willing to publish if I've self-archived a pre-print? > 3) Quality control - i.e. do I want my peer-reviewed material to appear >in an e-print archive alongside non-peer-reviewed material? May I suggest using some of the pertinent passages on copyright, Embargo/Ingelfinger-Rule, and Preprint/Postprint/Peer-Review in the BOAI FAQs: http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/boaifaq.htm http://www.eprints.org/self-faq/ > To try and help with concerns 1) and 2) we plan to maintain a table > listing key publishers (i.e. the most used publishers for publishing by > University of Bath staff) with a summary of, and links to, their attitutes > to self-archiving. If nothing else, it will be interesting to see how > this table changes over the next few years... Let's hope it won't all wait for the next few years! > To help (a little) with 3), we have modified the default 'abstract' view > to explicitly indicate whether the publication has been peer-reviewed or > not. Good idea. (That is the purpose of the "refereed" tag in Eprints, but the more explicit the better.) > On top of this, there is some general confusion about whether an > institutional e-print archive is intended as an alternative to current > publishing practice. (E.g. what happens to peer-review if everything is > only published in an institutional archive?). We are now very careful > *not* to use the word 'publish' when we talk about depositing materials > with the archive. Good idea. Not only should you not use "publish" but you should not use "submit" either: See: "1.4. Distinguish self-publishing (vanity press) from self-archiving (of published, refereed research" http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Tp/resolution.htm#1.4 University Eprint Archives are for the self-archiving of university research output, both pre- and post- peer-reviewed-publication. Papers are SUBMITTED to journals, but merely DEPOSITED in archives. The more explicitly the peer-reviewed and non-peer-reviewed sectors are sign-posted, the better, both to answer questions in the minds of prospective self-archiving authors and to maximize the transparency and usefulness of the archive to prospective users. > The library at Bath have recently undertaken a small-scale survey (about > 100 people) of academic attitudes to e-print archives (both subject-based > and institutional) and hope to summarise it in a forthcoming Ariadne > article. Trouble with surveys in transitional eras is that they tend to reinforce misperceptions by reiterating them! I hope the survey of current opinion and informedness will be counterbalanced by correct information too! > Also, as mentioned below, general confusion about impact of OAI-PMH. The > general assumption is that if material is deposited in a University of > Bath e-print archive, then it will only be found by people directly > searching the archive using the University of Bath Web site. (And > therefore that it is not worth depositing anything because no wider > exposure is gained). This is what I mean. No matter how widely this opinion is held, it is 100% incorrect! Far more helpful than a survey of the current state of ignorance about this would be a concerted effort to remedy it with the correct information... > In a UK context, one would hope that some of the initiatives funded under > the JISC FAIR call, e.g. ePrints-UK > > http://www.rdn.ac.uk/projects/eprints-uk/proposal/ > > will help to raise awareness of some of the possibilities for > cross-archive discovery services. > > Finally, I have also heard concerns about the legal status of e-prints, if > ideas are stolen from pre-prints in institutional archives and then > 'formally' published by a third-party more quickly than by the original > author. Although publicly archived preprints do not count as peer-reviewed publications, they certainly count as public evidence of (and a good way to establish) priority. Moreover, they are the author's intellectual property, subject to copyright, and evidence for prosecuting plagiarizers. See the Self-Archiving FAQs on priority and plagiarism: http://www.eprints.org/self-faq/#12.Priority http://www.eprints.org/self-faq/#11.Plagiarism See also: "Authenticating Publicly Archived Material: Hashing/Time-Stamping" http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/0807.html > Related to this, I guess, are concerns over the impact of > self-archiving on future patent applications. Simple solution: Whatever you would not PUBLISH anyway, don't self-archive either! Eprint Archives are for research findings the author wishes to make public, by publishing them. Neither public
EPrints Handbook
Hi, We've been given some funding for a colleague of mine to write some more (better?!) documentation for eprints. The provisional plan is to aim this at the project manager and leave me doing the technical documentation still. I think there is a real need for a guide to setting up an institutional archive as there are so many recurring (non technical) issues and problems which we've encountered - policy, metadata decisions, getting people to fill the damn data etc. I think it would be most useful if it has an eprints bias, but deals with the general process of setting up an archive (eprints or otherwise). So what I'm asking is for suggestions and comments really. This would in effect be the "eprints-underground" manual, rather than the current one which could be considered the "eprints-tech" documentation. -chris -- Christopher Gutteridge eprints-supp...@ecs.soton.ac.uk ePrints2 Coder, Support and Stuff+44 23 8059 4833
