Re: Elsevier's ChemWeb Preprint Archive

From: Jim Till <till_at_UHNRES.UTORONTO.CA>
Date: Thu, 6 Sep 2001 11:34:35 -0400

My thanks to James Weeks for taking the time required to reply to my
previous request for comments. On Thu, 6 Sep 2001, James wrote:

[jw]> The CPS should indeed satisfy the "inter-operability" criterion when
[jw]> we achieve compliance with the Open Archives Initiative. It is our
[jw]> intention that the CPS will be compliant at the start of October.

You had mentioned this plan in a previous message. Good news that this
goal might be accomplished within about a month.

[jw]> I also agree that the "views" and "ranking" statistics could provide
[jw]> indicators for the impact of a particular preprint. By a "citation
[jw]> data" indicator, I understand that the impact would be ascertained
[jw]> by examining the number of other papers (both inside and outside the
[jw]> server) which cite that preprint. This is an interesting idea and I
[jw]> would certainly like to like to learn more about how this could be
[jw]> achieved.

I hope that other participants in this forum (who are much better-informed
than I am about how best to pursue this approach to an assessment of
impact) will provide some comments.

[jw]> For the "sign-posting" criterion, I agree that it is important to
[jw]> provide authors with the ability to link to the published version.

[snip]

[jw]> After the first version of the preprint has been submitted, the
[jw]> author (and only the author) is presented with three hyperlinks when
[jw]> they access their article page: 1) Add more supplementary files;
[jw]> 2) Revise the full text of the preprint; 3) Redirect to the
[jw]> published article. This redirection is achieved using the LitLink
[jw]> technology of MDL Information Systems.

If I understand correctly, these options are not mutually-exclusive?
You then commented (re the 3rd option):

[jw]> When users then view the article page, they are presented with a
[jw]> "Published full text" link. When this link is accessed, LitLink
[jw]> resolves the citation and finds from where the article may be
[jw]> downloaded. Clearly, if this is from a publisher's website, users
[jw]> would typically have to pay for access. However, all of the other
[jw]> information - including the preprint meta-data and any other files
[jw]> uploaded to the server - do of course remain completely free to
[jw]> access on the CPS.

So, if authors choose the 3rd option, a link to the published version is
added to the preprint that's posted at the CPS. Am I correct to conclude
that, when the 3rd option is chosen by an author, the original full text
of the preprint (plus any supplementary files) can still be accessed on
the CPS?

Can you easily measure what proportion of authors have (so far) chosen the
3rd option? Of those authors whose preprints that have subsequently been
published in the peer-reviewed literature, I wonder what proportion have
chosen the 3rd option, what proportion have added the relevant hyperlink
into the discussion thread for their own preprint, and what proportion
have done nothing about providing a link to the published version?

[jw]> In terms of this "sign-posting", I do think that it is equally
[jw]> important that other authors link back to references which appear on
[jw]> preprint servers.

[snip]

[jw]> ...the article is also given a "friendly URL" -
[jw]> http://preprint.chemweb.com/category/YYMMNNN. If a user accesses
[jw]> this URL they are taken directly to the article, without having to
[jw]> first browse through the server. In this way, it is easy for
[jw]> authors to reference the CPS preprints.

I like the shortness of such a URL; it is, indeed, "friendly"!

James, thanks again for your very interesting comments. As you can see,
about all that I've contributed in this response is some more questions!

Jim Till
University of Toronto
Received on Wed Jan 03 2001 - 19:17:43 GMT

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