Editing User:Ckeene/Ideas for future versions of eprints (section)

== Enhance the concept of authors (and editors) ==

Eprints has a type of person  called a 'depositor'. they can log in, submit stuff, have a profile, list what they have submitted, etc. Nice.

But Authors as a concept does not really exist. they are just bits on text strings in the system. Sure, we can generate a view of all authors (often so large and with variant entries that it is of limited use).

Having an 'object' for authors would allow, for example, one REAL Author to have multiple display names, so that if one paper has them down as "C Keene" and another as "Prof C.J.Keene" eprints can still treat them as the same person, even if they show up differently on different papers. It allows for clever things, like allowing other systems to have a list of one person's research (not just research that so happens to have the same name attached to it, how many John Smiths work at your Uni?). And perhaps in the future it would allow 'Authors' (not just depositors) to login and see everything of theirs in the repository (everything they have co-authors, not just deposited) and 'do stuff with it'.

* ''But you can already do all these things. That's why we have ids attached to authors, not just their names. You can View by Author IDs, and produce complete lists of an individual's research. As you point out there are USER objects which you could provide a bigger role for, beyond identifying the depositor as they do now.'' [LES CARR]