Scholarly Communications Infrastructure Checklist
This document is intended to serve as a starting point for discussions with potential vendors and service providers of scholarly communications infrastructure. It is not targeted at any specific type of vendor or product, but instead should be appropriate for a wide array of options. It also tries to make no assumptions about the organization doing the investigation. For these reasons, there are likely questions, or whole sections, that will not be appropriate for your specific case. Do not feel obligated to answer everything. Further, there will be some questions and sections that are critical to your processes. When this is the case, take the time to dig deeper into the discussions, both internally and with the vendors or service providers.
The checklist is divided into two parts:
Questions for you to ask internally to help guide the discussion. If possible, these should be asked before interacting with the vendors or service providers. This may not be practical; however, it is critical not to skip this section, because knowing your organizational values and expectations is key in this process.
Questions for you to ask vendors or service providers. These questions should be guided by the values and expectations exposed in the first section, and are intended to help in both selecting appropriate vendors and assuring the correct services and contracts are discussed.
