[OAI-general] Draft Response -- Kepler: Author-Based Archivelets
zubair@notesmail.cs.odu.edu
zubair@notesmail.cs.odu.edu
Thu, 7 Jun 2001 08:15:09 -0400
Deat Stevan,
Thanks for you assessment about the Kepler. One aspect, which we may not
have made it very clear in our paper directly relates to the concerns you
have raised. We envision Kepler framework to be deployed to support
different communities, where a community would provide the required
functionality via its service provider. For example, it is possible to have
a technical report community that uses the Kepler framework to provide
various high level services including long term preservation function.
This typically would be provided by the community service provider, which
will keep a copy of the technical reports published by individual
publishers. In fact, on one end of the spectrum you can treat Kepler
archivelet as nothing but a publishing tool for a given community or an
institution. I hope this clarifies some of your concerns.
Regards,
Zubair
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Prof. M. Zubair
Department of Computer Science
Old Dominion University, Norfolk
VA 23529
Phone: 757-683-3917 Fax: 757-683-4900
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Stevan Harnad
<harnad@cogprints.so To:
september98-forum@amsci-forum.amsci.org,
ton.ac.uk> Subbiah Arunachalam
<arun@mssrf.res.in>,
oai-general@oaisrv.nsdl.cornell.edu
05/31/2001 09:34 AM cc: maly@cs.odu.edu,
zubair@cs.odu.edu,
Liu_x@cs.odu.edu
Subject: Kepler:
Author-Based Archivelets
On Thu, 31 May 2001, Subbiah Arunachalam wrote:
> What is Kepler and how does it help the OAI community? Please enlighten
me.
>
> Arun
>
> Maly, Kurt and Mohammad Zubair and Xiaoming Liu. [39]"Kepler - An OAI
> Data/Service Provider for the Individual" D-Lib Magazine 7(4)
> (April 2001) (http://www.dlib.org/dlib/april01/maly/04maly.html). -
>
> This article describes a simple Open Archives Initiative
> repository tool called Kepler. By using this application
> individual researchers can participate in the OAI with a minimum of
> effort. Kepler is a bit different from other OAI repository tools.
> First, it uses a file system to store its data, not a database.
> Second, and more importantly, Kepler works in conjunction with a
> "registration" server. This registration server is modeled on the idea
> of peer-to-peer networking schemes such as Napster. If used in the way
> it was designed, Kepler can facilitate wide-scale dissemination of
> scholarly papers and information. No fuss. No muss. - ELM
As far as I can tell (and I hope my more technical colleagues will be
able to confirm or correct this), Kepler is a kind of smaller-scale
eprints.org archive-maker. It too creates an (OAI-compliant?)
archive, but at the individual rather than the institutional level.
As such, if it works and is robust, it is more than welcome! It can
contribute to the freeing of the refereed literature.
Only three things worry me about Kepler.
(1) It looks like it is appealing to authors to SELF-PUBLISH (rather
than merely to self-archive their research, pre- and post-publication).
This "vanity press" motivation is, in my opinion, at odds with the
self-archiving intiative, whose primary goal is to free the refereed
journal literature on-line.
(2) One advantage of institutional rather than individual archives is
that it puts the long-term preservation function into stronger and more
durable hands. Can individuals promise this same reliability?
(3) The association with Napster is not a confidence-enhancing
one...
september98-forum@amsci-forum.amsci.org
But the proof of the pudding is in the eating. If the Kepler software
works, and is robust, reliable and lasting, then I certainly hope
authors will use it, and register and maintain their archives at OAI.
"Peer Review" and "Preservation" are high on the list of prima facie
worries that are retarding self-archiving. It is very important that
our efforts refute rather reinforce such worries...
http://www.cogsci.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Tp/resolution.htm#1.Preservation
http://www.cogsci.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Tp/resolution.htm#7.Peer
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Stevan Harnad harnad@cogsci.soton.ac.uk
Professor of Cognitive Science harnad@princeton.edu
Department of Electronics and phone: +44 23-80 592-582
Computer Science fax: +44 23-80 592-865
University of Southampton http://www.cogsci.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/
Highfield, Southampton http://www.princeton.edu/~harnad/
SO17 1BJ UNITED KINGDOM
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