UCL LIBRARY SERVICES Repository Interface for Overlaid Journal Archives (RIOJA) : an overview of work in progress Panayiota Polydoratou Martin Moyle

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

UCL LIBRARY SERVICES  RIOJA - Repository Interface for Overlaid Journal Archives (  Funded by the JISC - Joint Information Systems Committee ( under the Repositories and Preservation Programme  A 16 months partnership – July 2008  Researchers from UCL, Cambridge, Glasgow and Imperial  UCL Library Services  Technical staff from Cornell University  Astrophysics and Cosmology our subject domain RIOJA – project info

UCL LIBRARY SERVICES 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

UCL LIBRARY SERVICES  "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)

UCL LIBRARY SERVICES 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

UCL LIBRARY SERVICES 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  OJS journal software

UCL LIBRARY SERVICES 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 (  Sustainability  Estimate the running costs for an arXiv-overlay journal  Identify and appraise cost-recovery options for an arXiv-overlay journal

UCL LIBRARY SERVICES 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?

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

UCL LIBRARY SERVICES 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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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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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

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Some observations  Important factors  In general both scientists and publishers contacted were disposed favourably towards the overlay journal model.  Scientific community acceptance  Quality assurance  Peer review process  Sustainability and long term archiving  Traditional copy-editing function remains important to researchers  Visibility of research in indexing services  Not so important factors  Print version of journal  Subscription cost  Journal endorsed by the professional society

UCL LIBRARY SERVICES Future work  Exploring sustainability issues and potential implementations  Writing results from interviews with members of editorial boards/publishers  Costs associated with publishing processes  Is there a business model?  RIOJA meeting – 7 July 2008 (

UCL LIBRARY SERVICES Further information  Project team:  Web site:  RIOJA meeting:

UCL LIBRARY SERVICES Thank you!

UCL LIBRARY SERVICES References  Ginsparg, P. (1996). Winners and Losers in the Global Research Village. Invited contribution, UNESCO Conference HQ, Paris, Feb Available at:  Smith, J W T. (1999). The deconstructed journal: a new model for academic publishing. Learned Publishing, Vol. 12 (2), pp