UCL LIBRARY SERVICES Repository Interface for Overlaid Journal

UCL LIBRARY SERVICES 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: lib-rioja@ucl. ac. uk

UCL LIBRARY SERVICES Outline of the presentation q RIOJA – some project info q Overlay journal model – context & definition attempt q RIOJA aims and methods q Questionnaire survey - some preliminary results q Observations and future work

UCL LIBRARY SERVICES RIOJA – project info q RIOJA - Repository Interface for Overlaid Journal Archives (http: //www. ucl. ac. uk/ls/rioja) q Funded by the JISC - Joint Information Systems Committee (http: //www. jisc. ac. uk) under the Repositories and Preservation Programme q A 1 -year partnership q Researchers from UCL, Cambridge, Glasgow and Imperial q UCL Library Services q Technical staff from Cornell University q Astrophysics and Cosmology our subject domain

UCL LIBRARY SERVICES RIOJA – the context q Impetus came from academic researchers in Astrophysics and Cosmology q Perceptions: q ar. Xiv subject repository is highly important q journals are little-used q and why do subscriptions cost so much? q adding a quality stamp to ar. Xiv deposits would cut out the need formal publication in journals

UCL LIBRARY SERVICES q "Journals are already redundant as a way of distributing research results [in this discipline]" q "How can it cost this much to publish papers in journals? " q "Ultimately a 'journal' should just be a quality mark that appears with a particular online version of an article in an online repository" q Although. . . q need for Editors (paid? ) q career concerns (funders, RAE, promotion boards) q there must be some costs we haven't thought of. . . ? q "the hard part will be getting people involved – as authors, referees and editors – not the technical issues" (All quotations taken from the Cosmo. Coffee bulletin board, 2005)

UCL LIBRARY SERVICES Overlay journal model – a definition q Term “overlay journal” attributed to Ginsparg (1996), contribution and discussion by Smith (1999) q For RIOJA, an overlay journal model refers to: q journals built on content deposited to and stored in one or more repositories q Quality-assured q Open access q Sustainable

UCL LIBRARY SERVICES RIOJA - aims. . . q Build the RIOJA toolkit q A set of APIs q some for implementation by a repository, some by a journal q some required (eg author validation, metadata extraction); others optional (eg trackback support) q Construct a demonstrator overlay journal q an implementation of the RIOJA toolkit q ar. Xiv repository q PKP journal software

UCL LIBRARY SERVICES RIOJA – aims… q Recommend a Digital Preservation strategy for content accepted by an ar. Xiv-overlay journal q Supported by life-cycle costing techniques developed by the BL/UCL LIFE Project (http: //www. ucl. ac. uk/ls/life) q Sustainability q. Estimate the running costs for an ar. Xiv-overlay journal q. Identify and appraise cost-recovery options for an ar. Xiv -overlay journal

UCL LIBRARY SERVICES RIOJA - methods q Questionnaire survey to 4, 000+ researchers q Selected from top 100 universities and other institutions (THES World Rankings 2006), ar. Xiv and other domain specific discussion lists q Interviews with editorial boards and publishers q What does this community really want from a journal? – Which "value-added" publisher services are really valued? – Which desirable functions are missing? q What factors are critical to the successful academic take-up of an ar. Xiv-overlay journal?

UCL LIBRARY SERVICES Questionnaire survey – Some administrative info q Survey run between June 8 th - July 15 th, 2007 q Scientists in fields astrophysics and cosmology – hazy boundaries q Top - 100 academic institutions in science q Top - 15 non academic institutions in science q Cosmocoffee subscribers

UCL LIBRARY SERVICES Questionnaire survey – Some demographic characteristics q Contacted 4012 scientists in astrophysics and cosmology q Response from 683 (17% response rate) q A spread of response by role, 24% by professors, 20% by research fellows, lecturers, readers, research assistants/associates q Experienced researchers (46% more than 10 years) q 90% denoted research as their primary responsibility

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UCL LIBRARY SERVICES Questionnaire survey – Research and publication q 97% write their research in the form of papers for peer reviewed journals q However, funding processes and RAE influence publication q 3 most preferred journals for publication in top -10 – ISI impact factor

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UCL LIBRARY SERVICES Questionnaire survey – ar. Xiv use and expectations of overlay journal model q 80% use the ar. Xiv as first point when looking for new research papers & 53% visit the ar. Xiv on a daily basis q 53% said yes to a new publishing journal model q However: quality, peer review, long term archiving q Money matters q YES: Journal website & archive of back issues, paying scientific editors q NO: print version of journal, paying referees, publisher profits

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UCL LIBRARY SERVICES Some observations q Important factors q Scientific community acceptance q. Quality assurance q. Peer review process q Sustainability and long term archiving q Not so important factors q Print version of journal q Subscription cost q Journal endorsed by the professional society

UCL LIBRARY SERVICES Future work q Entering the second phase of community surveys q Interviews with members of editorial boards/publishers q Costs associated with publishing processes q Is there a business model? q More work and testing on the technical side as APIs are now implemented on the ar. Xiv q Start planning the RIOJA conference

UCL LIBRARY SERVICES Further information q Project team: lib-rioja@ucl. ac. uk q Web site: http: //www. ucl. ac. uk/ls/rioja

UCL LIBRARY SERVICES Thank you!

UCL LIBRARY SERVICES References q 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/pg 96 unesco. html q Smith, J W T. (1999). The deconstructed journal: a new model for academic publishing. Learned Publishing, Vol. 12 (2), pp. 79 -91