Versions of academic papers and open access
: attitudes and current practice among
economics researchers
Frances Shipsey, VERSIONS Project,
Library, London School of Economics and Political Science
Open Scholarship Conference, University of Glasgow, 20 October 2006
Outline
• The versions problem and an illustration
• Recent projects and initiatives addressing versions
• Some results from the VERSIONS Project user
requirements study
• Examples of good practice
20 October 2006 / 2
What questions are there relating to versions?
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Identity
Provenance
Trust
Discovery
User needs – best version(s)
IPR
and more …
20 October 2006 / 3
‘The processes of authorship, which often involve a
series of drafts that are circulated to various people,
produce different versions which in an electronic
environment can easily go into broad circulation; if each
draft is not carefully labeled and dated it is difficult to tell
which draft one is looking at or whether one has the
“final” version of a work.’
Clifford Lynch, “Accessibility and Integrity of Networked Information
Collections”, Office of Technology Assessment, Congress of the United
States, August 1993, p68. http://purl.access.gpo.gov/GPO/LPS30119
20 October 2006 / 4
Reproduced by permission of the National Library of Ireland
and X Communications
20 October 2006 / 5
FRBR – a hierarchical model
• Work – expression – manifestation - item
• ‘On a practical level, the degree to which bibliographic
distinctions are made between variant expressions of a
work will depend to some extent on the nature of the
work itself, and on the anticipated needs of users.’
Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records: Final Report.
IFLA Study Group on the Functional Requirements for Bibliographic
Records. Approved by the Standing Committee of the IFLA Section
on Cataloguing. K.G.Saur, München 1998
UBCIM Publications – New Series Vol 19.
http://www.ifla.org/VII/s13/frbr/frbr.pdf
20 October 2006 / 6
RIVER – Scoping Study on Repository
Version Identification (RIVER)
•
Rightscom Ltd and partners London School of Economics and
Political Science Library, University of Oxford Computing Services,
March 2006.
http://www.jisc.ac.uk/uploaded_documents/RIVER%20Final%20Report.pdf
•
Defined two broad classes of requirement for version identification:
•
•
Collocation
Disambiguation
– ‘Identifying that two digital objects which happen to share certain
attributes […] have no contextually meaningful relationship’
– ‘Understanding the meaning of the relationship between two digital
objects where one exists [without inspecting and comparing the objects
themselves]’
20 October 2006 / 7
JISC Eprints Application Profile Working
Group
• Carried out within JISC Digital Repositories Programme
• Approach based on FRBR and the DCMI Abstract
Model
• Provides more detail and structure than simple Dublin
Core
• Deals with versions very well
• Work carried out June-August 2006
http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/repositories/digirep/index/Eprints_Applicatio
n_Profile
20 October 2006 / 8
NISO/ALPSP Working Group on Versions
of Journal Articles
• Publisher-led group, with larger review group made up
of publishers, librarians and other stakeholders
• Draft documents including Terms and Definitions for
versions (March 2006)
–
–
–
–
–
Author’s Original
Accepted Manuscript
Proof
Version of Record
Updated Version of Record
http://www.niso.org/committees/Journal_versioning/JournalVer_co
mm.html
20 October 2006 / 9
The VERSIONS Project
• VERSIONS : Versions of Eprints – user Requirements
Study and Investigation of the Need for Standards
• Funded by the Joint Information Systems Committee
(JISC) under the Digital Repositories Programme
• London School of Economics and Political Science
(LSE) - lead partner
• Nereus – consortium of European research libraries
specialising in economics – associate partner
• Runs from July 2005 to February 2007
• www.lse.ac.uk/versions
20 October 2006 / 10
The Library of the London School of
Economics - www.lse.ac.uk/library
20 October 2006 / 11
Nereus – a network of European economics
research libraries
www.nereus4economics.info
20 October 2006 / 12
Economists Online – a pilot search
service - http://nereus.uvt.nl/eo
20 October 2006 / 13
Focus on economics
• Known preprint culture – working papers and use of
RePEc archive
• Sue Sparks report on disciplinary differences:
• ‘What is the single most essential resource you use, the
one that you would be lost without?’ Economists
responded:
•
•
•
•
18.2% preprints
9.1% postprints
54.5% journal articles
18.2% datasets
Sue Sparks. JISC Disciplinary Differences Report. Rightscom Ltd, August 2005. Appendix C,
Table 43.
http://www.jisc.ac.uk/uploaded_documents/Disciplinary%20Differences%20and%20Needs.doc
20 October 2006 / 14
Versions Project – user requirements study
2006
• Online survey ‘Versions of academic papers online - the
experience of authors and readers’, conducted MayJuly 2006
• 464 responses from academic researchers
• 76% of researcher respondents from economics and
econometrics
• 24% professors, 33% lecturer/associate professors,
15% post-doc researchers, 23% research students
• Good geographic spread of responses
• 133 responses from stakeholders – separate survey
20 October 2006 / 15
Respondents by subject discipline
Q3. Which subject discipline are you
engaged in?
Economics and Econometrics
(UOA 34)
3%
6%
12%
Accounting and Finance (UOA
35)
3%
Business and Management
Studies (UOA 36)
Physics (UOA 19)
76%
Other
20 October 2006 / 16
VERSIONS Survey researcher respondents
• Research active – 50% wrote 4 or more papers in past
2 years
• Very active in disseminating through different research
outputs, eg working papers, conference
papers/presentations, book chapters, journal articles) –
59% typically produce 4 or more different types of
research output from a research project, 33% produce 5
or more types of output
• Wide range of dissemination channels used – personal
or institutional website, RePEc, SSRN, etc
• Create and keep many personal copies of revisions
20 October 2006 / 17
Do authors have the ‘final author
version’?
Q7.d. Final author version produced by yourself/coauthors - agreed with the journal, following referee
comments
Keep permanently
6%
1%
2%1%
Keep until updated version
produced (if applicable)
Do not produce/have this
version
Don't know
Don't produce papers
90%
20 October 2006 / 18
Depositing final author version if invited
Q16. Would you provide a final author
version if invited by your university?
13%
1%
5%
81%
Key Perspectives survey
of researchers in 2005
Yes
asked about author
intentionsNoregarding
mandatory deposit: 81%
know
said they Don't
would
comply
willingly.
Don't produce
Alma Swan and
Sheridan Brown.
papers
Open Access Self-Archiving: An
Author Study (Sponsored by JISC).
Key Perspectives, 2005.
20 October 2006 / 19
Q16. Attitudes
towardsproviding
providing final
author
versions
Attitudes
towards
final
author
versions
0
100
200
300
400
500
OK - helps me to disseminate quickly
OK - provided readers aware not published
version
OK - provided link to published version
Would take too much time
Consider this version inferior
Place published PDF on personal website as
priority
Strongly agree/Agree
Slightly/Strongly disagree
Don't know/don't produce
Provide to peer on email request
Concerned about loss of citations
Unsure whether copyright permits
Intend to provide in future
20 October 2006 / 20
Q19. Which of the following versions of your academic
papers are you interested in making openly accessible to
the general public, if permitted
Draft version circulated to colleagues or peers before submission
Submitted version
116
191
274
Final author version
100
Publisher proof
385
Published version - PDF
Don't know 3
Don't know 3
0
50
100
150
200
250
300
350
20 October 2006 / 21
400
Multiple versions – experience of readers
Q22. When searching, how frequently do you find more
than one full text version / copy available online?
5%
2%
17%
Very frequently
Frequently
Sometimes
Never
Don't know
39%
37%
20 October 2006 / 22
Q23. If you find multiple versions and / or copies of the
same work, is it generally quick and easy to establish
which one(s) you wish to read?
5%
Yes
No
41%
54%
Do not find multiple
versions / copies
20 October 2006 / 23
Citing versions
Q24. If you read an earlier version of a paper that has been
published in a journal, how do you prefer to cite it?
339
350
300
250
200
150
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20 October 2006 / 24
Identifying versions – researchers’
priorities
Q no
Question
Essential or very
important
Essential, very
important, or
interesting
Essential
Q34
A method of indicating which is the published version
88.13%
98.23%
43.69%
Q35
A method of indicating which is the author's latest version of a paper
80.41%
95.62%
30.41%
Q28
A standardised way of recording and displaying the date of
manuscript completion
67.59%
92.71%
22.36%
Q30
A standardised note in the description of the paper stating that it is
the latest revision available
57.00%
82.19%
16.28%
Q26
A standardised terminology to describe each stage in the process of
developing a research output
50.60%
91.33%
9.16%
Q29
A standardised way of referring to different revisions by version
number
45.90%
85.13%
11.54%
Q32
A method of linking records together so all versions of a given paper
are retrieved by searches and presented as a group (collocation):
41.69%
81.84%
6.91%
Q27
A standardised terminology to describe how one version relates to
another (for example B is a digital copy of A, C is a digital revision of
A):
41.69%
88.83%
6.70%
Q33
A method of comparing the text of different versions and displaying
the differences between them
38.50%
79.07%
5.68%
Q31
Notes provided by the author, describing how one version relates to
another
37.72%
84.81%
4.56%
20 October 2006 / 25
How are versions handled in OA
repositories?
Stakeholder Qus 4-6. How well do you feel that versions
of academic papers are currently identified ...
140
120
100
80
60
40
20
0
Don't know
Very badly
Quite badly
Quite well
Very well
Within single
repositories
Across multiple
Through
open access internet search
repositories
engines
20 October 2006 / 26
ArXiv – collocation and disambiguation
20 October 2006 / 27
CCLRC - ePubs repository – collocation
and disambiguation
20 October 2006 / 28
EPrints repositories – latest version
http://cogprints.org/615/
20 October 2006 / 29
Google Scholar - collocation
20 October 2006 / 30
What is needed?
• Improved metadata allowing for relationships and links
to be established – Eprints Application Profile, FRBR
• Comparing content of versions – open formats, eg XML
• Clear identification of publisher version and
differentiation between other versions
• Repository software should implement version control
mechanisms (Fedora already includes this)
• Author awareness about version management –
institutional support for management of authoring
process, through version control systems, eg
Subversion, CVS
• More versioning information in the digital object itself
20 October 2006 / 31
www.lse.ac.uk/versions
Frances Shipsey: f.m.shipsey@lse.ac.uk