On the tube map, I wonder whether there should be such a strict separation between the award management “line” and the perform research/data management “line”. Here at Northumbria we like to think of post-award/grants and contracts teams supporting PIs to manage grants, so yes they do a lot of the financial administration, but they also meet regularly with PIs to ensure the PI has a handle on what is being spent and what is left to spend. Also, data management is increasingly now becoming part of the remit of research office staff (and Library) with RCUK data management requirements meaning we will undoubtedly need to be more involved here in future.

I suppose what I’m saying is I wonder whether there could either be some dotted lines between these strands or alternatively represented in such a way as to emphasise the collaborative working/links between researchers and research managers during this part of the lifecycle.

I take your point about having something rather than nothing and will look at what we might be able to do without misrepresenting anything.

Chris

In the mean time, for those of us who want to consume your metadata, it would be very helpful if you were able at least to make a lower-bound guess on how close to the VoR your versions are, instead of just throwing in the towel and saying “unknown”. For example, even if you’re unable to distinguish between VoR, CVoR and EVoR, it’s surely better to code “VoR” than nothing?

P.S. I wish your blog’s commenting system had a “notify be about followup comments” checkbox.

Thanks for the feedback. I agree that the definitions of the different versions as laid out by NISO are clear and precise. The dilemma is in how these are put into practice. Until publishers adopt these definitions (i.e., define which of their versions fall into each category) and are clear in their own communications about which are which it is difficult for repositories to record without an element of guesswork coming into play. There is too much uncertainty amongst repository staff and publishers at the moment how versions of documents from publishers fit into policy requirements, given different publisher workflows. The dilemma in the context of HEFCE and RIOXX is that repositories cannot at the moment guarantee to be able to know which version is being held according to the defined list. If the NISO list is adopted widely then there is a solution: what the timeline is for this remains to be seen.

Chris