Defined Measures
Explain what each metric includes, excludes, counts, and cannot establish.
Repository Transparency, Metrics & Public Reporting Policy
Measure the system honestly. Report enough to earn public trust.
The JR Institute intends to publish meaningful, privacy-respecting information about repository activity, moderation, availability, preservation, corrections, restrictions, governance, and outside influence.
Developing Framework
This page presents a planned public standard. Final reporting schedules, metric definitions, privacy thresholds, audit controls, dashboard design, and oversight responsibilities should be established before repository launch.
Policy Purpose
A repository should be accountable for how it operates, not only for what it publishes.
Submission counts alone do not reveal moderation delays, service interruptions, correction rates, preservation health, or the effect of sponsors and governance decisions.
The Institute should report measures that help the public evaluate fairness, reliability, openness, and long-term stewardship.
Core Principles
Defined metrics, consistent reporting, privacy protection, independent review, and visible correction.
Operational Transparency
Report submissions, moderation, processing time, service availability, and preservation status.
Decision Transparency
Publish aggregate information about rejections, withdrawals, restrictions, appeals, and restorations.
Privacy Protection
Use aggregation, suppression, and access controls to avoid exposing individuals or sensitive research.
Influence Disclosure
Identify sponsors, material conflicts, governance interventions, and funding dependencies.
Correctable Reports
Preserve prior reports, publish corrections, and explain material changes in methodology.
Scope
This policy is intended to apply to repository operations, submissions, moderation, publication, usage, preservation, outages, corrections, withdrawals, legal restrictions, appeals, governance, sponsorship, and public accountability reporting.
Submission Volume and Processing Metrics
The repository should report aggregate submission counts, subject areas, output types, processing stages, and typical time from submission to public release.
- New submissions and revised versions
- Submission types and primary subject categories
- Median and range of moderation time
- Incomplete, withdrawn, declined, and accepted submissions
- Backlog and aging of unresolved records
Moderation, Appeals, and Classification Outcomes
Aggregate reporting should explain the principal reasons for moderation decisions, classification changes, appeals, reversals, and unresolved disputes.
Reports should distinguish scope review, minimum-quality screening, research-security review, legal review, and formal peer review.
Publication or moderation statistics should not be used to claim scientific quality unless a valid quality measure has been established separately.
Service Availability, Performance, and Incident Reporting
The Institute should report service availability, material outages, degraded performance, recovery time, and incidents affecting public access, submissions, identifiers, or repository integrity.
Significant incidents should include a plain-language explanation, impact, duration, remediation, and follow-up action when disclosure is safe.
Preservation Health and Continuity Reporting
Public reporting should summarize fixity checks, preservation-copy status, restore testing, format-risk review, migrations, unresolved preservation failures, and material changes in custody or platform.
Security-sensitive infrastructure details may remain confidential while preserving meaningful accountability about preservation outcomes.
Corrections, Withdrawals, Retractions, Restrictions, and Takedowns
The repository should report aggregate counts and principal categories of corrections, withdrawals, retractions, temporary restrictions, permanent removals, appeals, and restorations.
Reporting should distinguish author-requested action, integrity findings, rights complaints, privacy concerns, legal process, security risks, and administrative correction.
Usage, Discovery, and Access Metrics
Usage reporting may include views, downloads, citations, referrals, API use, geographic reach, preservation harvesting, and accessibility requests.
Metrics should be protected against obvious bots, manipulation, duplicate counting, and false precision.
Funding, Sponsorship, Governance, and External Influence
Reports should identify material repository funders, sponsors, service providers, governance changes, conflicts of interest, and any exceptional intervention in editorial, moderation, legal, or access decisions.
Ordinary confidentiality should not be used to conceal improper influence over the scholarly record.
Privacy-Preserving Analytics and Small-Number Suppression
Public reporting should avoid exposing authors, participants, complainants, respondents, reviewers, staff, or sensitive research through small groups or easily inferred combinations.
Aggregation, thresholds, delayed reporting, category merging, and suppression may be used when disclosure risk outweighs public value.
Annual Public Accountability Report
The Institute should publish a recurring public report summarizing repository activity, performance, integrity, preservation, restrictions, appeals, funding, governance, major incidents, and planned improvements.
The report should disclose material changes in definitions, data collection, methodology, reporting scope, or unavailable measures.
Corrections should remain linked to the original report so the history of public accountability is preserved.
Framework date: July 2026
Reporting Lifecycle
Define, collect, validate, protect, publish, and correct.
- Define. State the meaning, scope, limitations, and source of every reported measure.
- Collect and validate. Test completeness, consistency, duplication, manipulation, and system errors.
- Protect privacy. Aggregate, suppress, or delay information that could expose individuals or sensitive research.
- Publish with context. Explain trends, incidents, limitations, methodology changes, and planned improvements.
- Correct visibly. Preserve prior reports and link material corrections or restatements.
Transparency or Metrics Questions
Ask about repository statistics, public reports, methodology, privacy, or operational accountability.
Inquiries may concern submissions, moderation outcomes, uptime, preservation status, corrections, restrictions, usage metrics, sponsor influence, or annual reporting.
Submit a Transparency Inquiry
Identify the report, metric, reporting period, concern, requested clarification, and available supporting information.
Contact the Institute