CrossRef’s text and data mining service

In the new issue of CrossRef Quarterly, CrossRef’s Executive Director, Ed Pentz writes:
“CrossRef’s text and data mining service was just approved by the board at its November meeting. The service is scheduled to roll out in early 2014 and information about the Pilot, which was named Prospect, is now available. There are two main aspects of the service: 1) a common text and data mining (TDM) API that enables researchers to request full text content from publisher sites in a standard way and 2) a terms and conditions library for those publishers who want to ask for researchers to agree to additional TDM terms. The terms and conditions library isn’t required for OA content or where publishers allow TDM by researchers at subscribing institutions.”

About The Pilot

The CrossRef Text and Data Mining Pilot will allow publishers and researchers to examine and test the specifications for the proposed Common API and License Registry. Pilot participants will be made up of those members of the TDM Working Group who can commit to providing feedback on the proposed system by the end of October 2013. This feedback will, in turn, be used by the CrossRef board at their November meeting to make a decision on if/how to launch CrossRef TDM as a production service.

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Overview

The Issue

Researchers are increasingly interested in text and data mining (TDM) published scholarly content. This poses technical and logistical problems for scholarly researchers and publishers alike.

– All parties would benefit from support of standard APIs and data representations in order to enable TDM across both open access and subscription-based publishers.
– Researchers find it impractical to negotiate multiple bilateral agreements with subscription-based publishers in order to get authorisation to TDM subscribed content.
– Subscription-based publishers find it impractical to negotiate multiple bilateral agreements with researchers and institutions in order to authorise TDM of subscribed content.

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