Dec 31, 2022 - A year of transition

Comments

This past year has been a year of change for Engineering Archive. Early in the year, we announced the move to a new hosting provider and a new preprint server software. We are incredibly happy to be partnered with the Public Knowledge Project and to be using Open Preprint Systems as the server’s backend. A major component of this transition has been helping engineering authors who submitted preprints on our previous hosting platform get migrated to the new platform so that they can continue to manage those preprints.

Migration this year has reduced the number of preprints posted by about 25% compared to the previous two years. We anticipated that we would see some reductions this year as folks adapt to the new platform and adjust their workflows. We expect that submission numbers will recover as engineering authors become more comfortable with the new platform. If you are having any difficulty with using the new platform, please reach out over email (director[at]engrxiv.org) or on our Matrix support channel.

Finally, we want to make sure that we acknowledge and show our appreciate for the support of the Engineering Archive Membership Circle. The Membership Circle creates the opportunity for institutions, libraries, and other organizations to support the sustainability of the server through a $500 annual contribution. We are especially grateful to the Universith of Minnesota Libraries who have newly joined in 2022! We cannot forget our sustaining members, some of whom are in their fifth year of provided this vital support for the server!

We hope you’ll keep in touch via social media. Find us on the fediverse at our Mastodon account @engrxiv@scicomm.xyz.

Sep 30, 2022 - RSS is back!

Comments

When Google killed Google Reader back in 2013, many saw it as the beginning of the end for RSS feeds on the web. In many cases, those predictions have come true as most people consume their web content primarily through various private channels such as Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. But we at engrXiv are not ready to give up on RSS just yet! If you visit the engrXiv homepage today, you’ll see new links in the right column for our RSS feeds. Subscribe to one of these feeds and you can receive and you can receive updates of new preprints posted to engrXiv delivered right to your favorite feed reader. Now that’s convenient!

Of course, if you are no longer regularly using an RSS feed these days, our RSS feeds also provide the backend to all of the other venues you may visit to obtain your regular dose of new engineering research. These options include: Twitter, Facebook, Mastodon, and Matrix.

Jan 25, 2022 - Legacy author migration

Comments

For authors who started with Engineering Archive on the Open Science Framework, we wanted to address a few possible questions you may have about the transition to the new platform. We know that this transition may cause frustration for some users, but we hope you are as excited as we are about possibilities for development the new platform will give us. Any of you who have worked with a journal published on the Open Journal Systems platform in the past will find engrXiv’s new interface familiar. If at any time you are unsure about something or need help, email us at info@engrxiv.org for assistance.

Preprints and postprints

Your preprints and postprints have been migrated to the new server. We have attempted to preserve as much metadata as possible during the import, such as license, keywords, download counts, etc. However, some of this information is not currently being displayed on the new preprint pages until we can add that functionality to Open Preprint Systems. Shortly, your preprints will be “withdrawn” from the Open Science Framework to remove them from that platform.

Links/URLs/DOIs

Your preprints/postprints will have new URLs of the format engrxiv.org/preprint/view/####. We have preserved the legacy URLs which had the format engrxiv.org/123ab and redirected those to the new URL scheme. Your DOIs will remain unchanged and will continue to resolve to your preprints/postprints now located at the new URLs. The engrXiv social media accounts used links of the form osf.io/123ab. These links will continue to work for a short time, but will eventually point to a “tombstone” page on the Open Science Framework, which will provide a link to the new server. If you used the osf.io link anywhere, we recommend that you update it.

User accounts | REQUIRES ATTENTION

The primary aspect requiring attention for our legacy users is your user account. Due to data privacy issues and the Open Science Framework Terms of Service, we were not able to migrate your account to the new server. However, if you verify the ownership of your OSF account with us, we can connect your new engrXiv account with your existing preprints. The process if unfortunately manual, but you can start here.