1. 1 Digital repositories and versions of academic papers Frances Shipsey and Louise Allsop, VERSIONS Project Library, London School of Economics and Political Science ALISS Christmas Special: Libraries and Open Access Scholarship British Library Conference Centre, 11 December 2006

2. The VERSIONS Project (www.lse.ac.uk/versions)www.lse.ac.uk/versions 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 partners Eprints – Economics – European July 2005 to February 2007

3. Nereus – a network of European economics research libraries www.nereus4economics.info www.nereus4economics.info

4. Economists Online – a pilot search service - http://nereus.uvt.nl/eohttp://nereus.uvt.nl/eo

5. Economists Online – institutional pages

6. Economists Online – an author page

7. Economists Online – content is stored in Nereus partners’ institional repositories

8. LSE institutional repository cover sheet Notes indicate that differences between this version and published version remain

9. Focus on economics Established preprint culture – working papers and use of RePEc archive – discipline is already open access? 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 http://www.jisc.ac.uk/uploaded_documents/Disciplinary%20Differences%20and%20Needs.doc

10. Issues regarding versions Do authors have the ‘usable’ version to deposit in IRs? Can they produce it (easily) on request? Level of awareness about publisher permissions What are their attitudes towards making these versions publicly available? Any differences between UK and other European countries regarding population of repositories Experience of researchers – is it a problem sorting through multiple versions? Citing other authors’ work - issues

11. VERSIONS Project – User requirements study 2006 Online survey ‘Versions of academic papers online – the experience of authors and readers’, conducted May- July 2006 464 responses from academic researchers 76% of researcher respondents from economics and econometrics A variety of roles, from PhD student through to professor Good geographic spread In addition, 133 responses from stakeholders - separate survey, not covered in as much detail here

12. VERSIONS Survey of academic researchers Creation, storage and dissemination of versions Research active (50% wrote 4 or more papers in the past 2 years) Interviews with researchers showed very large numbers of revisions being produced and kept (as many as 60 or 70 in some cases) More difficult for researchers to retrieve older papers May be left in a previous institution Different servers, PCs and other storage media – dispersal Problems with older software packages Some much older material not available in digital form Drafts and revisions not clearly labelled, so researcher cannot now identify wanted version

13. How many versions do researchers produce? Researchers regularly produce numerous outputs from a single research project 59% typically produce 4 or more different types of research output per project, 33% produce 5 or more (Question 4)

14. Which types of output do researchers produce? Journal articles are the most common output, with a wide range of others preceding, accompanying or following them (Question 4)

15. Which versions do researchers keep? The majority of respondents personally keep / plan to keep major, but not all, revisions of their research papers stored in electronic form (e.g. computer or network drive) at the end of the process:

16. Permanent storage by authors of multiple versions of their journal articles VERSIONS survey of researchers Q7: ‘Which of the following versions of a paper, that you have written for publication in a refereed journal, would you personally keep (eg on your own computer or network drive)?’ Revision stagePercentage of respondents who keep this stage permanently Number of respondents who keep this stage permanently Early draft version(s) before circulating to anyone, other than co- authors 39.9%185 Draft version circulated to colleagues or peers for feedback before submission 53.9%250 Version submitted to a journal for peer review78.9%366 Final author version produced by yourself/co-authors – agreed with the journal following referee comments 90.7%421 Proof copy (publisher-produced version)62.5%290 Final published version (publisher-produced PDF)91.8%426

17. Satisfaction with management of personal versions Survey respondents were split between satisfaction and dissatisfaction with the organisation of their own revisions and versions, on their own computers or storage mediums (Question 9):

18. Personal version management - examples Systems detailed include dating in file name, version control by number, by software system, and retaining the latest version only. ‘Every filename includes a date e.g. hello111206. That way it is easy to find the latest version among co-authors and for myself’. ‘I use version numbers e.g. “paper 2.1.doc”, changing the second number with each edit of any significance and the first number if there is a milestone in the process – team review / change of direction etc. I keep the milestone versions in a backup folder within the main folder that the document is developed in.’ ‘Version control system – CVS or Subversion.’ ‘I usually throw away everything as soon as I have a new version. Unless, for example, the new version is in another language or has some substantial changes in it, so that I may need the first version for some other purpose.’

19. Examples - continued Problems cited include changing between computers, hoarding too many versions, management of co-authored papers, maintaining an awareness of differences between versions, insufficient naming systems and accidental editing of the wrong versions ‘I am using two different computers for my work. As a result, sometimes I have my work at different stages on the two computers. I would like to find an easy way to get both systems up to date at any point in time.’ ‘I think that I keep too many old versions. I like to keep several while working on the paper in case files get corrupted etc. but I seldom go back afterwards and delete all unimportant versions.’ ‘The problem is that co-authors sometimes do revisions on the wrong version. We don’t agree which is the latest version.’ ‘What I am not so efficient at is distinguishing between versions with limited differences, and those where substantial changes have been made.’ ‘I do not have a consistent renaming system. This causes major problems in finding the correct version after a long period.’

20. Responsibility for secure storage of different versions (Questions 10-13)

21. Dissemination of different versions In addition to refereed academic journals and university/institutional collections, respondents disseminate their full text research findings through a range of other channels (Question 17): - Personal website / homepage [301 respondents] - University website for working paper / discussion paper series [256 respondents] - REPEC (IDEAS, EconPapers) [209 respondents] - SSRN [181 respondents] - Other [60 respondents]

22. Which versions? Respondents were asked which versions of their academic papers they were interested in making openly accessible, if permitted (Question 19):

23. Copyright awareness The survey revealed significant uncertainty relating to copyright issues among its respondents: 53.7% of respondents reported limited or no understanding of which version(s) of academic papers, intended for publication in refereed academic journals, they are allowed to disseminate in full text, in which locations, and at which times

24. Copyright awareness in relation to repositories 68.3% of researchers stated that they were unsure whether publisher copyright agreements permit them to place final author versions into institutional repositories: Question 16a, ix) To what extent do you agree with the following: ‘I am unsure whether the publisher copyright agreement permits me to provide this version [final author version for use in an institutional repository]’?

25. Citing versions in the face of change Respondents were asked how they prefer to cite earlier versions of papers that have subsequently been published in journals (Question 24): Responses indicate that many researchers spend time reading both versions to ensure no major differences

26. Multiple versions – experience of readers 93% of respondents reported finding more than one full text version / copy of a paper online (Question 22) When asked whether it is generally quick and easy to establish which version(s) they wish to read, respondents answered as follows (Question 23):

27. Recent projects and initiatives on versions Ongoing standards development work: 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_comm.html Two JISC activities during 2006: RIVER – Scoping Study on Repository Version Identification - Led by Rightscom Ltd, with partners London School of Economics and Political Science Library, University of Oxford Computing Services - Defined two broad classes of requirement for version identification (Collocation and Disambiguation), and defined a tentative typology of ‘versions’ (March 2006) http://www.jisc.ac.uk/uploaded_documents/RIVER%20Final%20Report.pdf JISC Eprints Application Profile Working Group - Approach based on Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records (FRBR) and DCMI Abstract Model, more detail and structure than Dublin Core (June – August 2006) – work going forward through DCMI Task Group - Deals with versions very well http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/repositories/digirep/index/Eprints_Application_Profile

28. How can social science librarians advise academic authors? Provide information to researchers about permitted use of different versions of journal articles through the SHERPA/RoMEO database: www.sherpa.ac.uk/romeo.php www.sherpa.ac.uk/romeo.php Explain the term ‘postprint’ in researchers’ own language: eg ‘accepted version’ or accepted manuscript’ Strongly encourage researchers’ to keep these ‘accepted manuscript’ versions (in Word as well as in PDF) and to obtain them from co-authors if they don’t have the latest Encourage use of date in authors’ manuscript versions (date manuscript completed) Provide general information about depositing papers BOAI Self-Archiving FAQ - http://www.eprints.org/openaccess/self-faq/http://www.eprints.org/openaccess/self-faq/ Peter Suber’s Open Access Overview - http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/overview.htm http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/overview.htm If appropriate, provide advice about ongoing management of versions – consider whether this can be incorporated into training for research students

29. How can librarians improve version identification in their IRs? Store metadata in richer format than simple Dublin Core, for example Eprints Application Profile Add version identification metadata Consider use of cover sheets (some search engines take users directly to the full text document, bypassing metadata) When evaluating repository software, include version identification in criteria Look at RIVER report recommendations to universities (IR managers) Monitor JISC work on version identification and future guidelines Encourage your library to develop a policy on version identification in the IR

30. Reproduced by permission of the National Library of Ireland and X Communications

31. Thank you! Frances Shipsey f.m.shipsey@lse.ac.ukf.m.shipsey@lse.ac.uk Louise Allsop l.allsop@lse.ac.ukl.allsop@lse.ac.uk