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

[Charlie Balch]

A meta issue has not been addressed in this discussion. The primary purpose
of publication, other than "or perish," is to increase our understandings. 

Scholarly review adds value to what is published. Expensive requirements for
access reduces access.

Charles Balch

-----Original Message-----
From: air-l-bounces at listserv.aoir.org
[mailto:air-l-bounces at listserv.aoir.org] On Behalf Of Christian Fuchs
Sent: Sunday, February 10, 2008 8:44 AM
To: air-l at listserv.aoir.org
Subject: Possible Foreign Spam: Re: [Air-L] summary of the debate:
open-access is the future: boycott locked-down academic journals

I have been following the debate and try to summarize the positions 
(maybe I am wrong):

Concerning the future role of open-access publishing:

P1: Open access online journals are important and should be supported 
because they give a public character to academic knowledge. Locked down 
journals should be boycotted.

P2: Non-profit open access online journals should be supported  because 
the for-profit ones charge unacceptable author-rates.

P3: High-quality academic publishing is in need of a high amount of 
resources (money, time, persons, etc.), which can be best managed by the 
established corporate models of publishing.

PN: Any combination of other elements.

The debate then shifted towards the role of peer-reviewing and the 
question of there should be open rating instead of anonymous peer-review:

S1: Academic publishing is stratified by reputation that is accumulated 
and controlled through the peer-review system. The alternative is a 
public review system, all or most works submitted get published, 
everyone can comment and make ratings.

S2: The peer-review procedure works well as it is now, it is a high 
quality standard in science. Open access and public reviewing/commenting 
might undercut these quality standards.

SN: Some middle-ground.

Personal positions and experiences seem to be guiding in such debates,  
so it might be best, as suggested by Charles, to pause for a moment and 
resume the discourse in some days, with less emotions and in a less 
heated way.

Christian

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