[Air-l] discussion on free papers

[Panayiotis Zaphiris]

hi all,

I am a silent member of this list .. but extremely happy with the topics 
being discussed (I read almost every single post :)

My two cents on this: I think a community that is so interested on 
internet research and the dissemination of knowledge and info online 
should make it a policy to provide all its proceedings online for free 
(open source/documents).

I got the impression  from the e-mails circulated on the list about the 
conferences (a never attended any due to other responsibilities) that 
there is much more to gain by attending than getting a copy of the 
proceedings.  So logically making the proceeding available online will 
hopefully not dicrease the interest in the conference (and thus the 
membership of the org) but instead it will (i think and hope) create a 
better awareness of our existence and encourage others to join (that is 
how i did join - by finding a paper online making reference to this org).

I understand that it might not be possible to put this years' 
proceedings online for free (for whatever copyright etc complications).. 
but i think it is an issue to consider and make mandotary in the future ?

Panayiotis

Philipp Budka wrote:

>hi all,
>
>concerning the discussion why papers of the maastricht- conference are not
>freely available 
>online, i just want to make some statements:
>first, i am not a member (because its too expensive, for a student);
>second, i dont think its a technical problem - of course it costs some time,
>but creating 
>pdf-documents and putting them online ist not very difficult - it should be
>the same like it is 
>currently done but without signing-in.
>third i guess the whole problem is an academic one: instead of working
>together, some are 
>*sitting* on their work and results. but that leads nobody nowhere.
>ok, i am just an european student without real experience in the academic
>field, i can only guess 
>how hard it is to get funds, etc. but that`s what the debate looks like to
>me.
>i hope nobody feels personally attacked.
>greetings,
>
>  
>