About Open Access

October 26, 2012

This week is Open Access Week, created to raise awareness about the possibility that research can be accessible for free and this can be viable economic model. In some way, RePEc has always been part of the Open Access movement. It tries to improve the dissemination of research in Economics, not by publishing said research, but by democratizing its discoverability both for the author and the reader. There are various ways in which RePEc helps Open Access, and also in which Open Access helps RePEc.

RePEc was initiated to disseminate working papers, which are pre-prints that emerged due to the horrendous publication lags economics enjoys. While working papers were initially distributed in the print format, it is now standard to find them online, and with only very few exceptions, they are not behind a pay-wall. As RePEc tries to match working papers with their published article versions, a reader frustrated by a pay-wall for an article can often find an alternative Open Access version.

Note that even when authors are not in an institution with a participating RePEc archive, they can still get their works indexed in RePEc by uploading them to MPRA, as long as they satisfy their publisher’s copyright. For a handy list of what individual publishers allow, see SHERPA/RoMEO. This list also shows that it is very rare for a publisher to require that one has to withdraw a working paper upon journal publication. In such cases, we strongly recommend not to remove it from RePEc, but rather to remove the link to the pdf only (and certainly not to remove the paper from the author profile).

RePEc also helps promote Open Access journals. Those are usually young and do not (yet) enjoy the reputation of their older, gated peers. At RePEc, every article is on the same footing and we let the market decide what people find interesting or citable. In fact, we find that material that is available in Open Access is downloaded 73% more frequently than gated material, and in the latter case there may also be quite a few failed downloads as we can only count clicks, not their success.

Open Access also helps RePEc, foremost by allowing us to download the research material for citation analysis. Indeed, if publishers do not provide us access to their reference lists in one way or another, we cannot count citations. Users may now help us in this regard, but all these efforts would not be necessary if the pdfs were freely available.

And if you are interested in bringing a journal to Open Access, do not hesitate to contact the author of this post. We can help in giving this journal visibility and find the right partners to make the move or the birth easy.

Leave a Comment » | Dissemination of research in Economics | Permalink
Posted by Christian Zimmermann

RePEc in September 2012

October 4, 2012

This was an unusually busy month for RePEc. First, we unveiled various improvements to CitEc, our citation analysis initiative. Then, we launched the RePEc Genealogy, which traces through crowd-sourcing the academics family tree in economics. Almost 400 authors joined the RePEc Author Service, a pace that amazingly does not seem to slow down despite covering over 33000 published authors. And the following institutions joined RePEc with an archive: Alliance of Central-Eastern European Universities, University of Ghent, Fondazione Giacomo Brodolini, Università di Salerno, Vita e Pensiero, University of Bucharest, Australian Treasury.

And now the thresholds that have been reached during last month:
1250000 items indexed in RePEc
750000 articles indexed in RePEc
125000 articles with references
5000 RePEc items mentioned in blog posts on EconAcademics.org
5000 blog posts indexed on EconAcademics.org
600 blogs with links captured on EconAcademics.org

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Posted by Christian Zimmermann

Introducing the RePEc Genealogy

September 28, 2012

A new RePEc service is born, the RePEc Genealogy, which collects and displays the academic family tree for economics. This is a crowd-sourced initiative, which means that any person registered with the RePEc Author Service can contribute information about oneself and others: institution and year where the terminal degree was obtained, advisor, and possibly students.

The collected data will be used in various ways. Currently, author profiles on IDEAS link back to relevant genealogy pages. The directory of institutions, EDIRC, has lists of alumni and their publications. In the future, when we have critical mass, we can use this data to properly rank young economists. Currently, we infer there start in the profession by dating their first publication. A graduation year would be more appropriate. Also, the genealogy data would also allow us to evaluate graduate departments.

Help make this service useful. You can add information by logging in using your RePEc Author Service credentials here. Thank you!

3 Comments | Economics Profession, RePEc features | Permalink
Posted by Christian Zimmermann

RePEc in August 2012

September 3, 2012

RePEc went into a slumber for the last month. Quite little to report this time, except for heavy work in the background. The credentials for the accounts in the RePEc Author Service can now be used for authentication into various services, and NEP moved from SUNY Oswego to Penn State. See earlier blog posts about both events. Note also that NEP has now disseminated 200,000 working papers since its inception in 1998.

After adjustments for robots, reloads and other non-conformable traffic, we counted 441,838 file downloads and 1,714,916 abstract views from RePEc Services. Only four new archives joined RePEc: Socionet, Post Keynesian Economics Study Group, Academia Europea de Dirección y Economíe de la Empresa, and Birkbeck College (II). Finally, RePEc passed the following thresholds in the past month:

600,000 paper announcements though NEP (a paper may appear in several reports)
200,000 papers announced through NEP
3,500 working paper series

Leave a Comment » | Workings of RePEc | Permalink
Posted by Christian Zimmermann

NEP now sponsored by Penn State

August 26, 2012

Since 2005 one of the main RePEc computers, the one handling New Economic Papers (NEP) has been housed at the State University of New York at Oswego. NEP handles the weekly email notifications of new working papers in about 90 field-specific reports. As part of its academic mission, SUNY Oswego kindly let the RePEc project place the machine on its network in one of its server rooms. While Bill Goffe was the local sponsor, the vast majority of the effort of running it fell to Thomas Krichel.

Bill has now taken a job with Penn State and this server hast just moved with him. Bill and the entire RePEc team would like to thank SUNY Oswego for its support over the last seven years and it looks forward to working the Information Technology in Liberal Arts group at Penn State for hosting this machine for the foreseeable future.

Leave a Comment » | Dissemination of research in Economics, RePEc volunteers, Workings of RePEc | Permalink
Posted by Christian Zimmermann

OpenID authentication through RePEc

August 21, 2012

It is now possible to use RePEc Author Service credentials to log into some other websites using the OpenID schema. This means that users do not need to use separate user names and passwords for those websites.

OpenID uses a user’s web page to establish credentials, as long as the website participates in OpenID. The RePEc Author Service now does so, with the drawback that few users know their profile URL (for example: http://authors.repec.org/pro/pzi1/). For this reason, services using OpenID credentials through RePEc will typically request the user’s RePEc short-ID (for example: pzi1). The latter can be found on an author’s profile on EconPapers or IDEAS, or by using a RePEc short-ID lookup tool.

A typical authentication procedure goes as follows:

  1. The user is asked for a personal RePEc short-ID at a referring service.
  2. The service forwards this information to the RePEc Author Service, which shows the habitual log-in page.
  3. The user enters the usual RePEc Author Service credentials (email address and password).
  4. Upon success, the RePEc Author Service asks for confirmation that log-in should proceed at the referring service.
  5. Upon confirmation, the referring service obtains confirmation from the RePEc Author Service that this is the person with this short-ID.

Steps 2 and 5 are bypassed if the user has a live RePEc Author Service session. It should be noted that the RePEc Author Service does not communicate the email address or the password, only that the owner of the short-ID (and its corresponding web page) is indeed this person. The referring service is then free to use the short-ID in its own authentication.

Note that some people will not be able to use this authentication service right away. Indeed, their RePEc Author Service profile needs to be enabled for this. This is not the case for anybody who has not logged in the RePEc Author Service since late June 2012.

OpenID authentication through RePEc is currently in use for the maintenance of reading lists and publication compilations on IDEAS, as well as for the RePEc plagiarism committee. Other services that require authentication, tied to RePEc or not, will soon follow.

Leave a Comment » | RePEc features | Permalink
Posted by Christian Zimmermann

RePEc in July 2012

August 3, 2012

One project that makes particular strides lately is CitEc, our citation analysis initiative. Thanks to the collaboration of several publishers, references from articles are now being added at a substantial pace, and the citation coverage is now becoming more respectable. There is a lot of material in the pipeline, and we hope that other commercial publishers will join in this effort. Also, NEP is moving to a new location and will be off-line a few days. This blog will report on both over the coming weeks.

We counted 504,492 file downloads and 1,823,518 abstract views in July 2012, as always contingent to the pruning performed by the LogEc project. Our new participating archives for the month of July: Ottawa United Learning Academy, Nottingham Trent University (II), University of Central Florida, Europa Grande, Universidade de Santiago de Compostela (II), Vistula University, Universidad de Montevideo, University of Antwerp (II), Mathematica Policy Research, Singapore Management University, Lahore School of Economics, Universidad de Oviedo.

And finally a few thresholds we recently passed:
100000000 article abstract views
12000000 cumulative downloads through EconPapers
1100000 items available online
800000 items with abstracts
750000 links to research in registered author profiles
400000 articles with abstracts
333333 JEL coded items

Leave a Comment » | Workings of RePEc | Permalink
Posted by Christian Zimmermann

When an email address goes bad

July 25, 2012

Authors register with the RePEc Author Service using their email address, which serves as a user name. That email address is also used by the service to alert them about new potential works to add to their profile and to send them monthly statistics. Occasionally, some of these emails bounce back to the service: the mailbox is full, or the address has become obsolete. What happens now?

First, EconPapers and IDEAS add a mention to the author profile page encouraging users to supply a new email address to the RePEc Author Service. IDEAS also publishes the complete list of lost authors.

Second, lost authors are considered without affiliation for ranking purposes. Indeed, a major reason why an email address goes bad is that the author has moved, in which case the affiliation is likely obsolete. Another reason may be that the author has died, in which case having an affiliation make no sense.

Third, once the email address has remained bad for a second month, the administrator of the RePEc Author Service goes fishing for a better one. This involves Internet searches, asking co-authors and former colleagues. This is repeated later if necessary.

These efforts have allowed to keep the number of lost authors remarkably low: currently 273, or 0.8% of all registered authors. To this, add 152 authors who are known to be deceased. The records of the latter continue to be maintained by volunteers, as research may still be added posthumously, or new archives may still join with works written by these scholars.

We appreciate any help in tracing lost authors, notifications about deceased authors and support in maintaining their profiles. Simply email the administrator of the RePEc Author Service.

Leave a Comment » | Workings of RePEc | Permalink
Posted by Christian Zimmermann

Rules for email addresses in RePEc

July 12, 2012

Many people trust RePEc with their email address. RePEc earned this trust, we believe, by not abusing the use of these email addresses. This has been so far an implicit commitment, as no policy was established. This post now puts in words the practice since the inception of RePEc in 1997, and establishes a few additional rules.

Covered email addresses

These rules cover all email addresses that are collected and used by RePEc and its services. These addresses include those contained in metadata from RePEc archives, from author profiles in the RePEc Author Service, and subscriptions to the various NEP mailing lists.

Display of email addresses

RePEc services, if they choose to display email addresses, commit to always encrypt any public email address to prevent harvesting by robots.

Authors registered with the RePEc Author Service have the option to have their email address not displayed. The option is available as a checkbox on the “contact information” page at the RePEc Author Service. In such a case, the RePEc Author Service does not include the address in the metadata disseminated to other RePEc services.

NEP does not display any email address. Only the list maintainer (the NEP editor) has access to subscription details.

Use of email addresses

RePEc archive and series maintainers receive one monthly email from RePEc with statistics, reminders and links pertaining to their material. They may receive additional messages if a problem arises with their archive or metadata.

RePEc authors also receive a monthly email with statistics, latest citations, and news. It is possible to opt out of the monthly messages by replying to the sender. The RePEc Author Service may also send messages if it suspects an author may have some new works waiting to be claimed.

Email addresses are used as user names in the RePEc Author Service. If a RePEc service requires authentication through the RePEc Author Service, it cannot store this email address unless it is explicitly stated. The authentication form must have a link to a list of authorized services. This list is on the RePEc Author Service site.

NEP subscribers are to receive only messages pertaining to their NEP report, plus rare housekeeping messages. This policy may be amended to also include professional messages, like calls for papers, if relevant to the specific field.

None of the gathered email addresses is to be given, for a fee or not, to any third party. A yearly survey, though, may be conducted on questions relevant to the profession and/or RePEc (one call plus one reminder).

Accuracy of email contacts

It is the responsibility of archive and series maintainers to keep contact information current. This is done by maintaining appropriate coordinates in the archive and series templates of their RePEc archive (files ___arch.rdf and ___seri.rdf). Email addresses are required.

Authors and NEP subscribers are asked to maintain current coordinates so as to reduce the workload of RePEc volunteers. The latter may change an person’s email address in the RePEc Author Service or a NEP mailing lists if it appears to be obsolete.

Leave a Comment » | RePEc policy discussion | Permalink
Posted by Christian Zimmermann

RePEc in June 2012

July 3, 2012

First off: RePEc is now 15 years old. It was launched at a meeting in Guildford (UK) where Thomas Krichel exposed his idea to a group of people who were already doing some indexing of working papers. Soon thereafter, they started providing the relevant bibliographic metadata in the relevant format and RePEc services could use them. Thomas Krichel had previously been running various initiatives to improve the dissemination of working papers, all the way back to 1991.

Speaking of volunteer personnel, Kyle Fluegge stepped down as NEP editor. His successor is Laura Stefanescu, who is now in charge of creating the weekly list of new working papers submitted to NEP editors, who can then select those relevant to their field.

During June 2012, we counted 520,118 file downloads and 2,010,606 abstract views. We also welcomed the following new participating archives: : HERMIN, Società editrice il Mulino, Catalactica NGO, Bangor University, Missouri Valley Economic Association, Université Bordeaux 4, University of New South Wales (III), Japan Ministry of Finance, Rockwool Foundation, University of South Bohemia, Babes-Bolyai University.

Finally, the following thresholds were reached during the past month:
400000 working papers available online
100000 articles with references
15000 book chapters available online
1500 indexed journals
500 blogs linked on EconAcademics.org with discussions about RePEc material

Leave a Comment » | Uncategorized, Workings of RePEc | Permalink
Posted by Christian Zimmermann

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