From: Sandy Thatcher <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Wed, 29 Mar 2017 10:30:00 -0500

Has this not already been accomplished by the NISO  standards?

http://www.niso.org/publications/rp/RP-8-2008.pdf

See, e.g., its definitions of "corrected version of record" and
"enhanced version of record."

Sandy Thatcher



> From: "Jean-Claude Guédon" <[log in to unmask]>
> Date: Tue, 28 Mar 2017 10:30:06 -0400
>
> Ann Okerson's question is important and actually reaches well beyond
> its ostensible target. The development of digital publishing leads to
> a deep transformation in the nature of documents.
>
> Software writing was the first area where this issue arose.
> Interestingly, and probably because the field of software writing was
> unencumbered by previous, legacy habits, programmers developed
> techniques that could track versions in a flexible and agile manner.
> We are now all used to grappling with version 7.3 (or whatever) of
> software X, and think nothing of it. "Requests for comments" (RFC), as
> developed and used by the IETF in the context of the technical
> developments of the Internet, followed a similar philosophy, while
> applying it to straight texts, not software.
>
> Print forced us, a long time ago, to fix and harden what was being
> published. It also foregrounded a vision of documents that depended on
> techniques now embedded in critical editions: each critical edition
> stands for eternity until a new critical edition challenges it, and
> the result is a staccato mode of evolution that worked well with
> print, but appears increasingly out of step with the potentials of
> digital documents (especially with the inclusion of data sets and
> software). Scientific and scholarly articles as they evolved through
> print (and survive as PDF files, which is about as close to print as a
> digital file can be - true digital incunabula, to use G. Crane's
> clever image) also force the staccato mode of conversation and debate
> that still dominates in scientific and scholarly circles. This leads
> to a very inefficient way to feed the "Great Conversation" of science.
>
> With digital documents, what we need is an orderly system of versions
> similar to what is used in software. In so doing, we no longer have to
> grapple with any version "of record"; instead, we have to deal with a
> time-driven succession of documents that can be easily identified if
> the version system is well designed. Normally, the penultimate version
> should be the most reliable, and the latest should be the cutting edge
> solution that is on the chopping block for the next round of
> Popperian-style refutations. Sometimes, the latest version adds little
> to the previous one, but corrects minor problems; sometimes, it is a
> real advance; sometimes it is a huge step forward. The numbering
> system can reflect all of this, while keeping the history of a certain
> thread of thought. Contributions to any document, however small or
> large, so long as it is accepted, can be attributed to various
> individuals. Free software shows how such an approach can be extended
> to a broadly distributed system of contributors (which science and
> scholarship, in general terms, are).
>
> If academic libraries, with their repositories, begin collaboratively
> (and in a distributed  manner) to develop a peer-review system -
> somewhat like the F1000 approach to reviewing - then, the issue of
> filtering unwanted materials and noise also begins to find a solution.
>
> Metadata can incorporate versions. Therefore, retrievability ,
> discoverability, as well as visibility issues can be addressed as
> well. In fact, unpaywall, which is a wonderful tool by the way, could
> be tweaked to take charge of the version issue, if a good version
> system can be developed. OpenAIRE could be a good place to develop
> such a system.
>
> Put all of this within the context of platforms, and not of journals,
> and the digital communication system of science begins to take a
> meaningful shape.
>
> Jean-Claude Guidon