Re: OA IRs are not peer-reviewed publications: they are access-providers

From: JJ Jacobson <jacqueline.jacobson_at_LIBRARY.GATECH.EDU>
Date: Tue, 21 Feb 2006 14:01:23 -0500

Dear list

> (1) The right way to make the distinction between published, peer-reviewed
> material and unpublished material is the classical way: by *tagging* it as such.

We're having a conversation about just such "tagging" for the Georgia
Tech IR. We have a whole category of phenomena (articles in
peer-reviewed journals, invited participation in various kinds of
symposia & so on, submissions to juried events) and are trying to decide
how to identify it. Would someone be so kind as to send me a link to an
example of this kind of tagging in another respository, preferably one
that uses qualified DC? Extra points if the repository uses dspace.

gratefully

JJ Jacobson

-- 
JJ Jacobson
Catalog & Metadata Librarian
Georgia Institute of Technology
Library and Information Center
Atlanta, GA 30332-0900
404-894-4537
jacqueline.jacobson_at_library.gatech.edu
>------------------------------
>
>Date:    Wed, 15 Feb 2006 21:49:18 +0000
>From:    Stevan Harnad <harnad_at_ECS.SOTON.AC.UK>
>Subject: OA IRs are not peer-reviewed publications: they are access-providers
>
>On Wed, 13 Feb 2006, Sarah Kaufman wrote:
>
>  
>
>>having spoken to academics within this institution, it has become
>>apparent that potential depositors may be wary of depositing into a
>>digital repository as they fear that a repository that includes pre-prints
>>may not appear 'credible'.
>>
>>Has anyone else dealt with this sort of concern, and how you responded
>>to those that have voiced this concern? Do any repositories exclude
>>items that have not gone through the peer-review process? If you accept
>>items that have not gone through the peer-review process, do you apply
>>any forms of quality control on the item?
>>    
>>
>
>This can save people a lot of time that will otherwise be wasted re-inventing
>this superfluous wheel:
>
>(1) The right way to make the distinction between published, peer-reviewed
>material and unpublished material is the classical way: by *tagging* it as such.
>
>(2) The IR softwares have tags for peer-reviewed articles as well as for
>unrefereed preprints.
>
>(3) The scholarly/scientific community is quite aware of this distinction;
>it has already been dealing with it for years in the paper medium,
>in the form of published articles versus unpublished drafts.
>
>(4) An IR is not a publication venue -- it is a means for providing
>*access* to published -- and, if the author wishes, unpublished -- work.
>
>(5) Any user who wishes to reserve their time and reading to
>peer-reviewed, published work can do so; they need only note the tags (is
>it "peer-reviewed"?  is it "published"? what *journal* is it published in?)
>
>(6) Disciplines differ in the degree to which they use pre-referring preprints:
>physics relies heavily on them, biology less. This is a choice for researchers
>to make, both as authors (deciding what to deposit) and as users (deciding what
>to read).
>
>(7) This decision cannot and should not be made a priori by IR managers.
>An IR deposit is not a publication, any more than a mailed first draft 
>on paper is. It is a decision by an author to provide, and by a user to
>use, a document.
>
>(8) The most absurd thing of all would be to institute IR-level system
>of "quality" control: Leave that to the peer specialists and the journals. 
>IRs are just access-providers.
>
>(9) It can and should, however, be decided whether an IR is for research
>output only (documents and data, whether pre- or post-peer-review)
>or it is also for non-research output (e.g., teaching materials). Some
>IRs that are sectored by subject matter will also want to decide what
>disciplines they are catering for.
>
>(10) The right thing to tell naive researchers who have never self-archived or
>never use and OA IR, is that an OA IR is neither a publication nor a library
>catalogue of publications: It is a means for researchers to maximize access to
>their research output, both before and after peer-reviewed publication.
>
>See the well-worn self-archiving FAQs on these questions:
>
>    http://www.eprints.org/openaccess/self-faq/#What-is-Eprint
>    http://www.eprints.org/openaccess/self-faq/#7.Peer
>    http://www.eprints.org/openaccess/self-faq/#5.Certification
>    http://www.eprints.org/openaccess/self-faq/#6.Evaluation
>    http://www.eprints.org/openaccess/self-faq/#2.Authentication
>    http://www.eprints.org/openaccess/self-faq/#3.Corruption
>    http://www.eprints.org/openaccess/self-faq/#23.Version
>
>Stevan Harnad
>
>-----------------------------
>

Received on Tue Feb 21 2006 - 21:04:05 GMT