[Air-L] open-access is the future: boycott locked-down academic journals

[Christian Nelson]

Lisa,
Thanks for the information about IJOC. From what you write, it  
appears that public reviews of the articles in IJOC are not  
anonymous. There is no reason for this, and it would obviously have a  
dampening effect on the comments of untenured folk. You ask why  
articles should be ranked, but they already are, at least in terms of  
the rankings of the journals they're in. Those rankings are not only  
made but also used to great consequence; for instance, not a few  
schools make tenure decisions based on the ranking of the journals in  
which a scholars articles are published. Now, as for my suggestion  
that all submissions be made available for public review, regardless  
of the editorial boards decision about it. I did not mean to suggest  
that authors should be forced to have their papers published even if  
rejected by the official reviewers. I've done enough reviewing to  
know that there's a lot of dreck out there that their authors should  
be saved from being associated with. As more my "scrap heap" comment,  
to whom is it insulting? In any case, I can assure you its far more  
insulting to be relegated to the scrap heap for no good reason.

> Although the current, traditional model may eventually collapse  
> under pressure, the consumerist, populist model isn't the answer

Again, this is a false dichotomy.

--Christian Nelson