OAQ is a web-based tool that helps publishers create author questionnaires and creates structured data from author responses. You can read more about the project on the Harvard Library portal.
SECTIONSAn author questionnaire is a form that a publisher sends to its authors to collect details such as name, publications, biography, contacts, professional interests, PR opportunities, etc. As a library, your organization can use this data for cataloging purposes.
A questionnaire response becomes visible to a library after the publisher has made a deliberate choice to share it. This happens at a point in the publisher’s workflow when the questionnaire is locked to further changes by authors or staff.
When you log into OAQ as a library user, your initial view is the complete set of responses your organization has received across all partner publishers. The Questionnaire column will show the hyperlinked name of each questionnaire associated with the response. If you click one of these hyperlinked names, you will see a list of responses for just that questionnaire.
The Responses for questionnaire name page provides you with the option to Export all responses. If you click this button, a CSV file containing all responses in the list will begin downloading.
You can also download individual responses by clicking the Download dropdown next to any response and choosing to download either a CSV or PDF file.
OAQ workflows depend on updated response statuses for the communication of data between publishers and libraries. It’s important for libraries to keep response statuses current.
Here’s an explanation of the Status dropdown menu options on the Responses page:
| Status | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Not processed | The library has received the response from the publisher but has not begun processing it. |
| Library In Progress | The library has received the response from the publisher and has begun processing it. Note that this status locks the response for publishers so that answers can’t be edited. |
| Library Complete | The library has received the response from the publisher and finished processing it. |
As a library user, OAQ allows you to perform a number of actions on questionnaire responses. When you first log in—or when you click Responses in the top bar—you will see a list of received responses from across all publishers. The column titled Actions lists the actions you can perform on each response:
| Action | Result |
|---|---|
| View | Shows a view of the response in HTML format. |
| Status History | Pops up a window that shows a response’s history of status-changing events. |
| View ISBN | Shows any ISBN-10 or ISBN-13 that the publisher has associated with the response. |
| Download | Begins downloading a CSV or PDF file, depending on the dropdown selection. |
You can see the history of library-workflow events that have been performed on each response by clicking Status History under Actions. Clicking this link will pop up a window that shows:
If a response’s status has never been changed, the popup window will be blank.