[Air-l] Trouble with journals

[Ted M Coopman]

All,

The "purpose" of journal publication is seeming more closely tied to job acquisition, retention, and promotion than sharing knowledge. Changing the system (in IMO we need to radically revise it) is quite a challenge when there are still significant numbers of scholars who think that an online journal is not as prestigious as a paper one simply because it is online (this is regardless of peer review, rejection rates, readership, or who is on the editorial board). In fact, I remember during our discussion of an potential AoIR publication at the 2003 Brighton conference several people expressed the opinion that anything we did would have to be physically published to be taken "seriously."

If I may toss my own bomb out there, I believe that several things need to happen to keep our work relevant and more accessible in an information rich world.

1. Take the money out of it. Get rid of the publishers and associations that make bank off our writing and editorial work. Go online and make it free and accessible to everyone. Then maybe someone will read it!

2. Adopt a (mostly) open review system, although I think it should be restricted to editorial board members and ad hoc reviewers with expertise in that area and be blind. Lay out the process as it develops. I like the idea of a signed review, and often you can tell who the writer is, but personalities and politics are a reality.

3. Allows readers who register to add comments along side an article to stimulate interactivity and allow authors to add new insights or data as it becomes available. You might also allow a rating system on usefulness, innovation, or other criteria.

Thoughts?

-TED

Ted M. Coopman
Department of Communication
University of Washington

On Wed, 25 Apr 2007, Alex Halavais wrote:

> On 4/25/07, James Whyte <whyte.james at yahoo.com> wrote:
>>   What you suggest is a possibility. Consider this, articles would perculate up based on a combined rating. Less scholarly articles would move downward.
>
> This was largely the model that Plastic and Kuro5hin were built on.
> There are certainly possibilities there. Clearly, two years to
> publication and distribution limited to campuses that can afford the
> licenses is a problem.
>
> However, sometimes friction is good. An established editor who can
> locate experts provides a much more informed and limited set of
> feedback than self-appointed arbiters. Having written for Wikipedia
> and in other peer-editing contexts, I know that it does not always
> improve clarity. I would far prefer to have the feedback of three
> experts than of thirty non-experts.
>
> That said, I would most prefer to have both. I think there are some
> interesting examples of pre-acceptance review, and post-acceptance
> revisions. Blogging allows for the publication of early drafts, as do
> other formalized venues for manuscript review. I think Douglas
> Rushkoff's novel, which allowed for footnoting by interested readers
> before publication, was a good stab in this direction. On the post-pub
> side, Lessig's Code 2.0 provides a neat example, as does (for those of
> you who have not already seen it) Kathleen Fitzpatrick's paper on
> Scholarly Publishing in the Age of the Internet, which aside from
> being a good read also provides the opportunity for post-publication
> comment:
>
> http://mediacommons.futureofthebook.org/scholarlypublishing/
>
> (Similar approaches have shown up in lots of other web publications of
> scholarly work.)
>
> So, the current publication structures need to be improved, and open
> access publishing and pre- and post- archiving solutions should be
> sought out. There is nothing magical about the peer review system, and
> it's certainly worth finding out how other approaches work.
> Encouraging folks to engage in such experiments may, however, be
> almost as difficult as getting them to participate in medical
> trials--unless you are dying, there is a strong encouragement to stay
> with what works (if only imperfectly).
>
> - Alex
>
>
>
> --
> //
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> // Alexander C. Halavais
> // Social Architect
> // http://alex.halavais.net
> //
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