Delivery, Management and Access Model for E-prints and Open Access Journals within Further and Higher Education

Abstract

The brief for this study was to forecast a delivery, access and management model for\ne-prints and open access journal content within Higher Education (HE) and Further\nEducation (FE). This report presents the results of our work. In the first part we\nprovide some background information on the current situation with respect to e-print\narchives and open access journals. This section provides the context within which\nany new initiatives by JISC will begin to operate.\nThe report then moves on to lay out the issues that have a bearing upon the\nforecasting work. These issues, in our view, centred around three main themes –\ntechnical matters, the preservation of digital research information, and the political\nand cultural influences that will affect the manner and success of implementation of\nan e-prints service in the UK. Under technical matters we discuss the main models\nthat could be considered for the delivery, management and access of a UK e-prints\nservice, and we argue for the type of model that we term the ‘harvesting’ model.\nArguments for and against each of the three main types of model are presented.\nAlso in this section, technical issues to do with delivery of e-prints are examined in\ndetail.\nPreservation of digital information is a complex area with many implications for an\ne-prints service. It is discussed in section 5, and is followed by a section that covers\nthe cultural and political issues involved in creating and running an e-prints service.\nOur detailed recommendations for the ‘harvesting’ delivery, management and access\nmodel follow in Section 7, and this is accompanied by a brief look into the future – at\nwhat direction the technology might take and what the outcome would be for the\nproposed service. Having decided upon the best model to recommend, we present in\nSection 8 a series of further recommendations for action by JISC and other\nstakeholders. We argue that if all these can be agreed and implemented, a viable and\nsustainable service can be achieved in a relatively short period of time. The last\nsections of the report comprise a cost-benefit analysis for the proposed service and a\nrisk assessment.