Winners and Losers in the Global Research Village
TL;DR: The authors describe a set of automated archives for electronic communication of research information that have been operational in many fields of physics, and some related and unrelated disciplines, starting from 1991, and now serve over 35,000 users worldwide from over 70 countries, and process more than 70,000 electronic transactions per day.
Abstract: Summary I describe a set of automated archives for electronic communication of research information that have been operational in many fields of physics, and some related and unrelated disciplines, starting from 1991. These archives now serve over 35,000 users worldwide from over 70 countries, and process more than 70,000 electronic transactions per day. In some fields of physics, they have already supplanted traditional research journals as conveyers of both topical and archival research information. Many of the lessons learned from these systems should carry over to other fields of scholarly publication, i.e., those wherein authors are writing not for direct financial remuneration in the form of royalties, but rather primarily to communicate information (for the advancement of knowledge, with attendant benefits to their careers and professional reputations). These archives have in addition proven equally indispensable to researchers in less-developed countries.
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01 Jan 2001
TL;DR: The recent history of the OAI is described - its origins in promoting E-Prints, the broadening of its focus, the details of its technical standard for metadata harvesting, the applications of this standard, and future plans.
Abstract: The Open Archives Initiative (OAI) develops and promotes interoperabil ity solutions that aim to facilitate the efficient dissemination of content The roots of the OAI lie in the E-Print community Over the last year its focus has been extended to include all content providers This paper describes the recent history of the OAI - its origins in promoting E-Prints, the broadening of its focus, the details of its technical standard for metadata harvesting, the applications of this standard, and future plans
415 citations
Cites background from "Winners and Losers in the Global Re..."
...The well-known physics archive run by Paul Ginsparg at Los Alamos National Laboratory has already radically changed the publishing paradigm in its respective field....
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...Perhaps the best known of these is the Physics archive(1) run by Paul Ginsparg [2] at Los Alamos National Laboratory....
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...Appendix A OAI STEERING COMMITTEE Names are followed by affiliations: Caroline Arms (Library of Congress) Lorcan Dempsey (Joint Information Systems Committee, UK) Dale Flecker (Harvard University) Ed Fox (Virginia Tech) Paul Ginsparg (Los Alamos National Laboratory) Daniel Greenstein (DLF) Carl Lagoze (Cornell University) Clifford Lynch (CNI) John Ober (California Digital Library) Diann Rusch-Feja (Max Planck Institute for Human Development) Herbert Van de Sompel (Cornell University) Don Waters (The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation) 8....
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...Perhaps the best known of these is the Physics archive1 run by Paul Ginsparg [2] at Los Alamos National Laboratory....
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TL;DR: In this paper, a social shaping of technology (SST) perspective is used to identify important social forces that pull against convergence in scientific communication forums, such as disciplinary constructions of trust and of legitimate communication.
Abstract: The shift towards the use of electronic media in scholarly communication appears to be an inescapable imperative. However, these shifts are uneven, both with respect to field and with respect to the form of communication. Different scientific fields have developed and use distinctly different communicative forums, both in the paper and electronic arenas, and these forums play different communicative roles within the field. One common claim is that we are in the early stages of an electronic revolution, that it is only a matter of time before other fields catch up with the early adopters, and that all fields converge on a stable set of electronic forums. A social shaping of technology (SST) perspective helps us to identify important social forces -centered around disciplinary constructions of trust and of legitimate communication- that pull against convergence. This analysis concludes that communicative plurality and communicative heterogeneity are durable features of the scholarly landscape, and that we are likely to see field differences in the use of and meaning ascribed to communications forums persist, even as overall use of electronic communications technologies both in science and in society as a whole increases.
315 citations
Posted Content•
TL;DR: It is concluded that communicative plurality and communicative heterogeneity are durable features of the scholarly landscape, and that the authors are likely to see field differences in the use of and meaning ascribed to communications forums persist, even as overall use of electronic communications technologies both in science and in society as a whole increases.
Abstract: The shift towards the use of electronic media in scholarly communication appears to be an inescapable imperative. However, these shifts are uneven, both with respect to field and with respect to the form of communication. Different scientific fields have developed and use distinctly different communicative forums, both in the paper and electronic arenas, and these forums play different communicative roles within the field. One common claim is that we are in the early stages of an electronic revolution, that it is only a matter of time before other fields catch up with the early adopters, and that all fields converge on a stable set of electronic forums. A social shaping of technology (SST) perspective helps us to identify important social forces centered around disciplinary constructions of trust and of legitimate communication that pull against convergence. This analysis concludes that communicative plurality and communicative heterogeneity are durable features of the scholarly landscape, and that we are likely to see field differences in the use of and meaning ascribed to communications forums persist, even as overall use of electronic communications technologies both in science and in society as a whole increases.
237 citations
Cites background from "Winners and Losers in the Global Re..."
...A similar prediction, which partially inspired the title of this article is articulated by Ginsparg (1996): “The essential question at this point is not *whether* the scientific research literature will migrate to fully electronic dissemination, but rather *how quickly* this transition will take…...
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TL;DR: This paper analyzes two views of information production and use in computer-related research based on citation analysis of PDF and Postcript formatted publications on the Web using autonomous citation indexing (ACI), and a parallel citationAnalysis of the journal literature indexed by the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI) in SCISEARCH.
Abstract: The Web is revolutionizing the entire scholarly communication process and changing the way that researchers exchange information. In this paper, we analyze two views of information production and use in computer-related research based on citation analysis of PDF and Postcript formatted publications on the Web using autonomous citation indexing (ACI), and a parallel citation analysis of the journal literature indexed by the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI) in SCISEARCH. Our goal is to establish a baseline profile of computer science “literature” as it appears in the published journals and as it appears on the publicly available Web. From this starting point, we hope to identify additional research areas dealing with information dissemination and citation practices in computer science and the utility of autonomous citation indexing on the Web as an adjunct to commercial indexing
200 citations
Cites background from "Winners and Losers in the Global Re..."
...…of this communication will eventually make its way into the traditional published literature as journal articles, the time required for publication and citation indexing may be too slow for the progress of research and development in the sciences (Crawford, Hurd, & Weller, 1996; Ginsparg, 1997)....
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01 Jan 1999
TL;DR: It is concluded that communicative plurality and communicative heterogeneity are durable features of the scholarly landscape, and that the authors are likely to see field differences in the use of and meaning ascribed to communications forums persist, even as overall use of electronic communications technologies both in science and in society as a whole increases.
195 citations