preprint archive question

[tmroeder]

Hi,

The International Association for Cryptologic Research (IACR)
currently runs a preprint server at http://eprint.iacr.org;
anyone can submit a paper via a simple web submission form. These
papers are then reviewed by an editor and published to the main
site if they meet some simple criteria (but they do not undergo
any peer review as in a journal or conference submission). This
is similar but not identical to the service provided by
arxiv.org.

I am interested in figuring out if OJS could be used to host a
future version of the IACR eprint service. From a cursory
examination of OJS, there seem to be two requirements that might
be difficult to meet:

1. it must be possible for users to revise existing papers, with
or without editor interaction (this is currently accomplished
with a password provided to the author at submission time).
- all revisions should be visible from the public interface to
the system
- the URL for the paper should not change when the paper is
revised

2. it must be possible to preserve the current URL scheme in
eprint (eprint.iacr.org/year/paper number: e.g.,
eprint.iacr.org/2012/063) in OJS.

Is it possible to use OJS in this manner? Has anyone implemented
a preprint service like this using OJS?

Thanks,

Tom Roeder

[JasonNugent]

Hi Tom,

I'm not sure if OJS would completely satisfy the requirement regarding the preservation of your URL scheme directly (although possibly with other tools like mod_rewrite for Apache). Have you thought about using EPrints in conjunction with an OJS installation, working in tandem? You could potentially make use of the workflow within OJS for peer-review and, depending on your version of EPrints, make use of the SWORD deposit plugin to place the paper into your EPrints repository. I am not sure if it has ever been tested with EPrints, though. It has been with DSpace.

Just some thoughts off the top of my head.

Jason

[tmroeder]

Thanks for the follow-up and for the ideas. I've looked at EPrints a little, but I didn't know that it could be used with OJS in this way.

How about the problem of allowing multiple revisions with password-controlled access by authors? (i.e., without explicit editor interaction) Is this also possible in OJS?

Tom

[JasonNugent]

hi Tom,

For access to multiple revisions, I guess it depends on 'where' you want access to them within OJS. The public side of OJS, the part that readers (i.e., non authors, or unregistered users with access to open access content) interact with generally displays a link to an HTML or PDF galley, and it is the best possible revision for that file. The older revisions are not available from that point. To get the other revisions, you'd need to have access to the workflow, and that usually means having an editor role within OJS. It is entirely possible for users to have more than one role, so you can have users who have both author and editor roles, and they would be able to get the complete revision history for a submission. And obviously, they would need to log in to access the workflow, so you get your password protection by default.

Regards,
Jason