Dorothea Salo wrote: > We also need to look at the repository-software market. EPrints does > this already. I'm pretty sure ContentDM and BePress do as well. How > long does DSpace remain the solution of choice if it doesn't?
That's a good question. You could also ask how long it would be the solution of choice if we simply chase other implementations? And I mean that in the sense of could we be leapfrogging other solutions, rather than simply following what they've done? > Sure, a lot of counts are going to be low. That doesn't bother me. > Some won't be -- and just *one* case of "look! fifteen hundred > downloads in a month!" will make faculty heads pop up. (That's not an > unreasonable number; it's about what Roach Motel did.) Why would I > fight that? Dorothea, you can't simply go around uploading inflammatory material into your repositories to get the numbers up ;) > They can't -- but see all the ongoing arguments about journal impact > factors. Numbers are stupid, inaccurate, and deceptive. Granted. That > doesn't stop people wanting numbers, and not just any numbers, not > just whole-repository numbers, but THEIR numbers. Numbers that we know are wrong. That probably can't even be compared across DSpace implementations, let alone across different platforms. Which don't take into account that the same material may be available in multiple places. And what's worse, numbers that can't be verified. If they want these numbers in anything approaching a formal capacity, I think we both realise that we might as well just put a random number generator in there rather than bother trying to actually count anything!! At least if they could get those numbers from something like a Google Analytics report, there would be some kind of independent validity to them. That's not entirely unfeasible, and there is also an upcoming competitor - Woopra - that will have an API, potentially allowing for integration of those numbers into the repository itself. I'm not against statistics, but I'm interested to find out if we can / should be spending our time on delivering something with less flaws. > No, we can't recreate Google Docs, but we might be able to do > something closer to SVN-for-documents. I could sell that... and then > I'd have access to preprints and postprints that I don't now. Or you could just use SVN ;) Having all of this inside your 'preservation' repository is rather sub-optimal - both for the purposes of the workspace, and for the long term sustainability of the repository. Maybe a neater solution would be a workspace / collaboration type service that enables all of the gathering of data and people working together, with the end result a SWORD submission to the final repository. (One advantage of that route is that such a service can be applicable to EPrints, Fedora, etc. - not just DSpace. Which means you've got a potentially wider pool of interested parties to make it happen) Yes, it's a selling point of DSpace that it's a 'out-of-the-box' solution - but that doesn't mean it (or anyone's customised implementation of it) should incorporate every aspect of anything that touches on the content finding it's way into the repository. The repository has a job to do, and there is nothing wrong - in fact, there is quite a lot of right - in having a suite of distinct, but integrated, services. > We're getting there, I agree... but we're a long way from sensible > defaults and sufficient flexibility still. Mediated deposit is a pain > in the posterior (especially as regards licensing), and it needs badly > not to be, because it's the standard case (not the edge!) in most > repositories. Ahh... the sensible defaults argument. Oh, I quite agree that we could come up with something that is more suitable for the 80% case. Right now, we're kind of limited in actioning such a change - we have a general rule to keep the default configurations as much as possible the same, which is really meant to aid with upgrading. For example, although the submission code has changed dramatically to be more flexible in 1.5, the defaults provided mimic the 'out-of-the-box' experience of 1.4 as much as possible. Now, can any one of the developers / committers unilaterally decide - actually, let's have the submission process look like this? If there was a consensus as to what the sensible defaults should be, then there could be a commitment to delivering them in future release(s). G This e-mail is confidential and should not be used by anyone who is not the original intended recipient. BioMed Central Limited does not accept liability for any statements made which are clearly the sender's own and not expressly made on behalf of BioMed Central Limited. No contracts may be concluded on behalf of BioMed Central Limited by means of e-mail communication. BioMed Central Limited Registered in England and Wales with registered number 3680030 Registered Office Middlesex House, 34-42 Cleveland Street, London W1T 4LB _______________________________________________ Dspace-general mailing list [email protected] http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/dspace-general
