NISO-NFAIS Supplemental Journal Article Materials Working Group
2011-11-14-CrossRef-Workshops_Schwarzman
1. NISO/NFAIS Supplemental Journal
Article Materials Working Group:
An Update on an Industry Initiative
Alexander (‘Sasha’) Schwarzman
American Geophysical Union
sschwarzman@agu.org
Co-chair, NISO/NFAIS Working Group on
Journal Article Supplemental Materials
2011 CROSSREF WORKSHOPS
Cambridge, MA
14 November 2011
2. Deluge: sup. mat. ratio
Chart courtesy of Ken Beauchamp, American Society for Clinical Investigation
3. What is in the Pandora’s box?
• Multimedia
• Chemical structures, crystallographic structures,
3-D images, gene sequences, protein structures
• Computer programs (algorithms, code, libraries,
and executables)
• Tables, Figures, Text (Experimental procedures,
Extended methodology, Survey results, Derivations,
Extended bibliographies, …)
• Datasets (datasets are not the focus of this group)
4. Supplemental materials: Yes, we can!
Enabling technology makes it possible for:
• authors to present supporting evidence, e.g.
- datasets
- multimedia
• researchers to present in-depth studies that
would not be available in print
• readers to replicate experiments and verify
results
5. Yes, we can… But should we?
• Do I (reader, reviewer) really need to look
at sup. mat.? [Degree of importance]
• How do I (librarian, indexer) know sup. mat.
exists? How do I find it? [Discoverability]
• How do I cite / link to sup. mat.?
[Identification and Linking]
• Will sup. mat. be available in 20 years?
… 200 years? [Preservation]
6. Yes, we can… But should we? (cont’d)
• Will sup. mat. be viewable / executable?
[Conversion / Forward migration]
• Then: Is this object original or converted?
• How do I transmit sup. mat. and know that
nothing was lost or corrupted? [Packaging]
• Who owns it? [Intellectual property rights]
• Who has custody? [Curatorial responsibility]
• Who pays for curating? [Business models]
7. Who cares? You should – if you are an …
• Author / Editor
• Reviewer
• Reader
• Publisher
• Hosting platform / Institutional Repository /
Data center / Individual
• A&I service
• Reference linking and Citation indexing service
• Librarian / Archivist / Historian of scholarship
10. Classification
• Supplemental materials
- Integral content (“pseudo-supplemental”)
For technical, business, or logistical reasons treated as if it
were supplemental – but it is NOT!
- Additional content (“truly supplemental”)
• Related content
- Generally resides in an official data center or institutional
repository. The publisher has no responsibility or authority over it
and does not host it.
- No recommended practices offered.
-
11. Recommended business practices
Integral content Additional content
Selecting /
Peer reviewing
At the same level as core
article
May not be reviewed at the
same level
Copyediting At the same level as core
article. Should be noted if not
May not be edited at the same
level. If so, should be noted
Referencing
within article
Cite/link at the same level as
table or fig. No ref. list entry,
for this content is part of article
Provide in-text citation and
link at the appropriate point in
text, rather than at the end
Citing from
other pubs
Not to be cited separately. Cite
article as a whole
Can be cited separately
References
within sup. mat.
Integrate references into the
ref. list of the core article
Keep references separate
from the core article ref. list
12. Recommended business practices
(cont’d)
Integral content Additional content
Preserving Preserve at the same level as
the core article
Provide the same metadata
markup
Include in migration plans
Take preservation into
consideration when accepting
If uncertain about preservation,
have author submit to a trusted
repository and link to it
Intellectual
property
rights
Treat rights in the same
manner as the rights for the
core article
Anyone who has access to
online article should also have
access to Integral content
Determination of rights for
Additional content may differ and
should be transparent to users
13. Recommended business practices
(cont’d)
• Identifying / linking and managing sup. mat.
- Identify sup. mat. using DOIs to ensure links to
and from core article
- Links should be bidirectional
- Separate DOIs for Integral and Additional content
- If journal content is hosted by a host / aggregator
it should also deliver supplemental materials
- An author’s website is not an appropriate place
for the sole posting of supplemental materials
14. Recommended business practices
(cont’d)
• Discovering supplemental materials
- Consistent placement, naming, and navigation
- Indicate presence in the table of contents
- Link to Integral content from within the article
- Link to Additional content “above the fold” on the
first PDF or HTML page of the article
- Aid A&I services by including metadata that
indicate the purpose and format of the
supplemental materials
15. Recommended business practices
(cont’d)
• Providing context for sup. materials
Include on a landing page or within the content:
- Core article citation and DOI
- Title and/or succinct statement about the content
- For multimedia: player, file extension, and size
- List multiple files
- Browser information, if supplemental content
rendition is browser-dependent
- Sup. mat. DOI or another identifier, if assigned
17. Technical Recommendations (cont’d)
• Metadata schema (cont’d)
- Object or Object group
- Core article item being supplemented
- Descriptive metadata
- Physical metadata
- Object or Object group
18. Object groups
• Logically different objects that share some common
metadata, e.g., a series of graphs or images
• Various representation of the same logical object, e.g.,
A chemical structure represented by:
- a connection table,
- an image of a molecule in a static orientation, and
- an interactive application allowing manipulation by the viewer.
Protein-related information represented by:
- analytical measurements,
- chemical structure, and
- derived structures.
21. Packaging
• Journal title / ISSN
• Core article metadata
• Persistent link to core article
• Persistent link to supplemental materials
• Manifest (machine-readable)
- Number of top-level object groups / objects
- Number of objects in each object group
- File names and total size of each object group with its objects
- Copyright status of each object group / object
- Description
- Executable information and instructions
22. Conceptual challenges
• Heterogeneity: an archive (ZIP, TAR, RAR) or
a document (PDF, MS Word) may contain
both Integral and Additional content. The two
may need to be separated for different
identification and linking
• Hierarchy and Recurrence: an archive may
contain a tree with many branches and sub-
branches with nested objects and groups
23. Conceptual challenges (cont’d)
• Granularity down: what to identify — entire
sup. mat., groups, objects, …? At what level
do you stop?
• Granularity up: link to a specific item within
the core article or to the core article as a
whole?
• Relationships: related but logically different
objects; alternate representations of logically
the same object
24. Practical challenges
• Is sup. mat. importance “in the eye of the
beholder?” (what’s Additional to you is
Integral to me) — some beholders are
more equal than others: a decision made
upfront determines downstream processing
• Real costs, hypothetical benefits
• Business models: is sup. mat. a money
maker or a money waster?
25. What does the future hold?
“… over time the concept of
supplemental material will gradually give way
to a more modern concept of a hierarchical or
layered presentation in which a reader can
define which level of detail best fits their
interests and needs.”
Marcus, E. (2009), Taming supplemental material,
Cell 139(1), p.11, doi:10.1016/j.cell.2009.09.021
26. Sources
Beebe, L. (2010), Supplemental materials for Journal articles: NISO/NFAIS Joint Working
Group, Information Standards Quarterly 22(3), p.33, doi:10.3789/isqv22n3.2010.07
Carpenter, T. (2009), Journal article supplementary materials: A Pandora’s box of issues
needing best practices, Against the Grain 21(6), p.84
Marcus, E. (2009), Taming supplemental material, Cell 139(1), p.11,
doi:10.1016/j.cell.2009.09.021
Maunsell, J. (2010), Announcement regarding supplemental material, The Journal of
Neuroscience 30(32): p.10599
NFAIS (2009), Best practices for publishing journal articles, 30 pp.,
http://www.nfais.org/files/file/Best_Practices_Final_Public.pdf
Schwarzman, S. (2010), Supplemental materials survey, Information Standards Quarterly
22(3), p.23, doi:10.3789/isqv22n3.2010.05
http://www.agu.org/dtd/Presentations/sup-mat/10.3789_isqv22n3.2010.05.pdf
NISO/NFAIS Supplemental journal article materials project
http://www.niso.org/workrooms/supplemental
sschwarzman@agu.org
