Research Repository System authoring support

This is the fourth of a series of posts aiming to expand on the idea of the negative click, positive value repository, which I'm now calling a Research Repository System. I've suggested it should contain these elements:

• web orientation
• researcher identity management
• authoring support
• object disclosure control
• data management support
• persistent storage
• full preservation archive, and
• spinoffs
  

Authoring support should include version control, collaboration, possibly publisher liaison, and be integrated with the repository deposit process. It does need object disclosure control, see below. Version control would support ideas, working drafts, pre-prints, working papers, submitted drafts undergoing editorial changes, and refereed and published versions. Collaboration support would need to include support for multiple authors contributing document parts, and assembly of these into larger parts and eventually “complete” drafts. It should also include some kind of multiple author checkout system for updates, something like CVS or SVN, maybe a bit WIKI-like. It must support a wide choice of document editor, eg Word, OpenOffice.org, LaTeX etc (I don’t know how to combine this with the previous requirement!).

Publisher liaison is maybe controversial. But why shouldn’t the RRS staff (or your library) support you in dealing with publishers. The RRS wants your articles and your data, and should help you negotiate and reserve the rights so that they can get them. So publisher liaison would include rights negotiation, submission to the publisher on your behalf of a specific version, support through the editorial revision process, and recovery of metadata from the published version for the RRS records and your own bibliography, web page and CV. Naturally, deposit in the repository would be integrated in this workflow; you only have to authorise opening to the public, or perhaps a more restricted audience.