Survey of arXiv Authors for the Open Citation Project

[ About The Survey - Why/Who/Complaints | Help | Introduction to Survey ]

Thank you for taking the time to help us with our research. Please answer the questions below with the given options/fill-out forms and then click Submit to send the information to us. All responses sent to us will be treated as "anonymous".

Usage of the Archive:

Q1. What subject areas of arXiv are you subscribed to for the email alerting service (One or More)?
(Using Windows: use Control Key to select multiple. Linux: Click multiple)
Q2. Apart from the email alerting service, how do you find papers in arXiv (One or More)?

Other:
Q3. What criteria do you use when looking for papers in arXiv (One or More)?

Other:
Q4.
Do you try to locate cited papers in arXiv that do not have an explicit arXiv ID in the reference (i.e. the reference only points to a journal publication or other non-arXiv source)?
e.g. Try this paper (in PDF) (look for Orange Links - Queries to Steve Hitchcock)

Depositing Articles:

Q5. In which subject areas of arXiv do you deposit articles (One or More)?
Do you cross-list your articles in other subject areas?
Q6 In what initial state do you most commonly deposit articles to arXiv?
Q7 When your article is refereed do you replace the pre-print in arXiv with the final text of the refereed post-print?
Q8
Have all your papers been deposited in arXiv?
What is the basis for your selection?
Approximately what proportion of your papers have been deposited in arXiv? %
Q9 Do you cite un-refereed pre-print articles?
Q10 Does depositing your articles in arXiv improve your impact as an author?
Do you have evidence or hunches about how archiving affects impact?

Comments

Comm.

About the Survey

Why are you doing this survey?

We are researching how arXiv is being used by authors and researchers. A lot of data can be extracted from the mirror that we run here in Southampton (xxx.soton.ac.uk), which we have used to produce lots of stats on the distribution of papers, citation distribution, authorship and so on. We can not, however, extract information such as the state of papers in the archive (without comparing word-for-word against published articles), the methods by which authors get into the archive from the outside world, how well the subject areas in arXiv are defined and whether authors think the archive makes a difference to their impact. We also hope to compare how authors respond with the statistical data we already have - our survey is not sufficiently large (around 100 unique authors) to justify publishing statistics about it in itself.

The raw data that you send us will be stored in a private database on this machine (fluffy.ecs.soton.ac.uk). This database is not accessible to the outside world, other than for inserting data through this web page.

Who are you?

I am Tim Brody, an undergraduate researcher working in the Intelligent Agents and Multimedia Research Group (IAM) in the Electronics and Computer Science Department, University of Southampton. As part of the Open Citation Project, of which ECS is a member, we are developing tools and conducting research for arXiv and other digital archives.

Who is being surveyed?

In collaboration with Paul Ginsparg we extracted a "random" set of around 100 authors from the archive, who we have contacted via email inviting them to respond to a short questionnaire. If we have a high response rate (and no complaints!), we may seek to expand this set of authors to a wider population from the archive.

I didn't ask to be surveyed, why am I receiving this email?

We hope that you do not mind us contacting you like this. If you object to us contacting you please contact me Tim Brody <tdb198@ecs.soton.ac.uk>, or the project manager Steve Hitchcock <sh94r@ecs.soton.ac.uk>.

Help

I have tried to make sure this form is as easy as possible for you to use. However, if you do experience problems and are still willing to help us please respond via email with your answers. Alternatively, if you are prepared to wait, please contact me at tdb198@ecs.soton.ac.uk with a description of the problem and I will fix it ASAP.

I try to select more than one option in in Question 7, but I can't?

Please select only the option that applies most to you (i.e. what is the most common state that you submit articles in?).

Your allowed responses seem a bit narrow, how do I elaborate on my answers?

Please use the red box at the bottom of the questionnaire to provide any other comments you have. Alternatively you can email them to me (tdb198@ecs.soton.ac.uk), or, you can leave comments on the main site at comments.

I made a mistake, can I submit again?

Yes, although I will store all submissions, before using the data I will check for duplicates and use the most recent submission.

Introduction

I am part of a research team at Southampton University, working in collaboration with Paul Ginsbarg, founder of the Los Alamos Physics Archive, analysing the way the Archive is used. We hope our findings will help enhance the archive's services to users.

Our results are revealing many interesting aspects of archive usage. For example, between 1991 and 2000 the ratio of citations to articles has increased from 1 in 20 to 9 in 20.

As an Archive author, you can help us by providing critical information that we cannot obtain from the archive data. For example, what proportion of your papers you have deposited in the Archive, what your updating policy is, and what you actually use downloads for.

I have attached a short questionnaire. We would be very grateful for your co-operation in replying either by email or by filling in a web form:

  • http://fluffy.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~tdb198/opcit/survey/form.php3?ref=1

    To find out more about what we're doing please visit:

    http://fluffy.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~tdb198/opcit/
    http://fluffy.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~ijh198/opcit/

    We are also anxious to hear any comments, questions, suggestions or criticisms you may have; please either email me or leave a comment on the site.

    Yours faithfully,

    Tim Brody Open Citation Project - http://opcit.eprints.org/