News release, 10 December 2008
Pre-announcement of upcoming calls for tender
PEER is a pioneering collaboration between publishers, repositories and the research community, by which at least 16,000 peer reviewed manuscripts destined to become journal articles in ISI ranked journals will be made available for archiving every year for three years. The aim is to investigate the effects of the large-scale deposit (so called Green Open Access) on user access, author visibility, and journal viability.
At the heart of the project an Observatory will be built to gather evidence about the impact of systematic archiving of stage-two research outputs. Three strands of research will be tendered:
Behavioural Research: Authors and Users vis-ā-vis Journals and Repositories (Call mid-December 2008, Deadline mid-February 2009). The objectives will be to:
~U Track trends and explain patterns of author and user behaviour in the context of so called Green Open Access.
~U Understand the role repositories play for authors in the context of journal publishing.
~U Understand the role repositories play for users in context of accessing journal articles.
Usage Research: Journals and Repositories (Call mid-December 2008, Deadline mid-February 2009). The objectives will be to:
~U Determine usage trends at publishers and repositories;
~U Understand source and nature of use of deposited manuscripts in repositories;
~U Track trends, develop indicators and explain patterns of usage for repositories and journals.
Economic research: The deposit of journal manuscripts in repositories (Summer 2009). The objectives will be to:
~U Compare the efficiency and cost effectiveness of methods of deposit, e.g. publisher-assisted vs. author self-archiving;
~U Compare the efficiency and cost effectiveness of access, e.g. repositories vs. publisher systems.
The International Association of Scientific, Technical and Medical Publishers (STM), the European Science Foundation, Göttingen State and University Library, the Max Planck Society and INRIA will collaborate on PEER, supported by the SURF Foundation and University of Bielefeld, which will contribute the expertise of the EU-funded DRIVER project. Significant about the PEER project is the cooperation of the various stakeholders in the scholarly publishing cycle without prejudice. The PEER project has nominated a Research Oversight Group:
~U Justus Haucap, Professor of Competition Policy, University of Erlangen. Prof. Haucap chairs the German Monopolies Commission;
~U Henk Moed, Senior researcher at the Centre for Science and Technology Studies, Leiden University. Dr. Moed has been the recipient of the Derek de Solla Price Award;
~U Carol Tenopir, Professor of Information Sciences, University of Tennessee. Prof. Tenopir has received the International Information Industry Lifetime Achievement Award.
The set-up of the PEER project offers a number of distinctions that bidders could utilise in the design of the study:
~U PEER is based on the selection of 200 to 300 ISI ranked journals, from which manuscripts are selected for deposit. Publishers hold a control group of equivalent journals from which no manuscripts will be deposited.
~U From journals selected for deposit, only the manuscripts with European based (lead) authors are selected for archiving, leaving all other articles/manuscripts as an alternate group.
~U Half of the manuscripts will be deposited directly by the publisher, but the other half will require action by the author before archiving.
~U Authors will be invited to deposit in repositories participating in the PEER project.
The PEER press release from 14 October 2008 is available at:
http://www.stm-assoc.org/home/stm-partners-in-the-just-launched-pioneering-collaboration-b.html
For enquiries regarding the PEER Observatory, please contact Chris Armbruster, Max Planck Digital Library, Max Planck Society. Email: armbruster at mpdl.mpg.de
PEER Partners:
International Association of Scientific, Technical and Medical Publishers (STM), the European Science Foundation, Göttingen State and University Library, the Max Planck Society, INRIA, SURF Foundation and University of Bielefeld
Received on Wed Dec 10 2008 - 12:19:39 GMT