[Air-L] Open access and academia.edu

[Mathieu ONeil]

Hi Ivan

Thanks for explaining! ;-) Well yes, pretty much everything you do online can be tracked, measured and sold (if that's what you mean by "control"). Nothing mysterious about that. Facebook and academia.edu have the same model (they even look the same): you provide content, we network it. It's a trade-off. If anyone can set up a non-commercial alternative that offers the same functionalities, I'll jump in right away (@Rob: I'm looking at you!). 

Re. open-access, at the risk of repetition: if you just have volunteers (as most open access journals do) then you will have inconsistent proof-reading and hence mistakes and errors (not all researchers can copy-edit or proofread well, particularly when English is not their first language). Maybe a slip in text quality is the price to pay? So yes, pools of university-run journals could pay proofreaders... in the current climate not sure many will go down that path. 

cheers

Mathieu

________________________________________
From: Iván [ivan.chaar at gmail.com]
Sent: Tuesday, December 10, 2013 8:26
To: Mathieu ONeil
Cc: Jonathan Sterne, Dr.; <air-l at listserv.aoir.org>
Subject: Re: [Air-L] Open access and academia.edu

Dear colleagues,

I have been following this thread with interest and I would like to thank you all for the discussion.

Mathieu, I think the walled garden Jonathan is suggeting goes beyond notions of ease of access. After all, new media devices and social media are usually designed for easy use. However, this ease is tied to obfuscatory operations whereby control, data collection and other procedures are 'hidden' from 'plainview.' I think it is our task to interrogate these obfuscations.

Though I use academia.edu, this conversation has pushed me to reconsider how I present my research while contributing to free and open access.

Also, thank you for posting the titles of good open access journals.

Best,
Iván Chaar-López
PhD Student
Department of American Culture
University of Michigan
@multitudenred

> On Dec 9, 2013, at 3:46 PM, Mathieu ONeil <mathieu.oneil at anu.edu.au> wrote:
>
> Hi Jonathan
>
> You probably should stop changing the title of the messages: breaks the thread :-)
> The garden wall does not seem unscaleable, anyone can create an account on academia...
>
> cheers
> Mathieu
>
>
> ________________________________________
> From: air-l-bounces at listserv.aoir.org [air-l-bounces at listserv.aoir.org] on behalf of Jonathan Sterne, Dr. [jonathan.sterne at mcgill.ca]
> Sent: Tuesday, December 10, 2013 7:07
> To: <air-l at listserv.aoir.org>
> Subject: [Air-L] Open access and academia.edu
>
> Just to be clear for Matthieu, my point wasn't about services  and whether people like academia.edu or not.  Many of my colleagues love it.  My concern is profit models and ethical and social obligations, especially differences between theirs and mine.  The walled garden is reason enough for me not to opt in.  I have managed to continue discovering good new work without it.
>
> On the services front, just a big +1 to the points from Daren and Rex.
>
> Also: if you want open access journals to have higher impact factors, don't just submit to them, read the and cite them.
>
> And one more thing: those of us who write tenure reviews also need to take time in our letters to argue for the significance of new publishing models when junior scholars take advantage of them.
>
> Jonathan
>
> PS -- Still, I also believe there is a place for university and independent presses: they do a lot of useful work for authors and for readers.  Even the most committed digital humanists are still writing books, as are many social scientists who want to reach wider audiences.  And funding for good open access journals remains an issue.
> --
> http://sterneworks.org
> (apologies for iPad typos.)
>
>> On Dec 9, 2013, at 9:38, Matthieu "air-l-request at listserv.aoir.org" <air-l-request at listserv.aoir.org> wrote:
>>
>> iefly: not sure about comparing the enormous fees charged by Elsevier etc to a free service like Academia. Now, granted that Academia.edu may be profiting off users, but - apart from its social networking functions - it does provide services since it tells you (amongst other things) (1) when people search for your work, what search terms they use, where they come from; (2) how many times subscribers have downloaded specific items; (3) when people upload content that you are interested in. If it did not do those things people would not use it
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