[OAI-general] Re: Kepler: Author-Based Archivelets

[Xiaoming Liu]

Dr.Harnad,

As both Dr.Maly and Dr.Zubair are out of town, hereby I want to explain
some technical details, and later the professors may give more feedback
when they are back.


On Thu, 31 May 2001, Stevan Harnad wrote:

> 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.
> 

The similarities between eprint-archive and kepler:
Both are OAI compliant and support self-archiving.

The differences:
Kepler is targeted to typical users, it's easy to use and self installing,
like most windows applications. From the user's point of view, they don't
necessarily know anything about webserver/oai/database, the only thing
left is to register it and share documents. To reach this purpose, we
implement a very simple http server, which is self-configured, supports
and only supports OAI request/document download, this server and a simple
editor are encapsulated into a installshield package.  



> 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?


For reliability and persistence, We are pursuing the solution of
caching document in service provider side, like the strategy of Internet
Archive. It could partially solve the problem.


regards,
liu



> 
> (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           
> 
> NOTE: A complete archive of the ongoing discussion of providing free
> access to the refereed journal literature online is available at the
> American Scientist September Forum (98 & 99 & 00 & 01):
> 
>     http://amsci-forum.amsci.org/archives/september98-forum.html
> 
> You may join the list at the site above.
> 
> Discussion can be posted to:
> 
>     september98-forum@amsci-forum.amsci.org 
> 
>