[Air-L] Open access and academia.edu

Tue Dec 10 01:29:45 PST 2013

Dear all

A timely contribution in todays Guardian:

Randy Schekman, who receives the Nobel prize on Tuesday, explains why he's eschewing the 'luxury' journals in favour of Open Access.

http://www.theguardian.com/science/2013/dec/09/nobel-winner-boycott-science-journals

Natalie

On 9 Dec 2013, at 22:59, "Scott MacLeod" <scott at scottmacleod.com<mailto:scott at scottmacleod.com>> wrote:

Hi Mathieu and AoIR,

As part of the free, open, Academic Journals' 'ecosystem,' here's startup, C.C. World University and School's Academic Journal's wiki, Subject page -
http://worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/Academic_Journals_at_WUaS#World_University_and_School_Links . World University and School (which is like Wikipedia with MIT OCW and planning online, C.C. MIT-centric, university
degrees in many languages) is also planning to develop academic journals in large languages to begin. For example, at present anyone can go to any subject on the main, WUAS, wiki, Subjects page -
http://worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/Subjects - in English only (at this time), and find Academia.edu<http://Academia.edu> near the top, and potentially add the article they've written to that subject.

Here's an example of a Subject page ... 'Open_Access_Resources' at WUaS - http://worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/Open_Access_Resources - and as a C.C. wiki, anyone can start a Subject page in an area they're interested
in, using this SUBJECT TEMPLATE - http://worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/SUBJECT_TEMPLATE - or similar, which currently includes Academia.edu<http://Academia.edu>, since it's free and open, and makes it possible for academics to self-
publish.

Have AoIR-ers seen Harvard computer science Professor Stuart Shieber's recent blog entry " Thoughts on founding open-access journals," which I've added to this WUaS Open Access Resources' subject using a version of
the AAA citation approach:

Shieber, Stuart. 2013. [http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/pamphlet/2013/11/21/thoughts-on-founding-open-access-journals/ Thoughts on founding open-access journals<http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/pamphlet/2013/11/21/thoughts-on-founding-open-access-journals/%20Thoughts%20on%20founding%20open-access%20journals>]. November 21. Brookline, MA:
blogs.law.harvard.edu/pamphlet/2013/11/21/thoughts-on-founding-open-access-journals/<http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/pamphlet/2013/11/21/thoughts-on-founding-open-access-journals/>.

Stuart Shieber is one of the leading, tenured academic voices for open access journals, and writing very sensibly.

As startup World University and School develops and begins to accredit for university degrees, WUaS's approaches to online journals will move beyond Academia.edu<http://Academia.edu>'s approach, particularly with respect to the editorial
Board per Stuart Shieber's article.

(A huge project, wiki WUaS seeks to begin the MIT / Harvard of the internet and in all 7,105 languages and 242 countries, and Wikipedia, by way of comparison, is in 287 languages and just developed and deployed a CC
database, Wikidata. And WUaS plans to become a significant employer eventually, first hiring graduate students from greatest universities, if possible, as journal editors, and instructors in G+ Hangouts for example, to MIT
faculty in MIT OCW in video).

I think Elsevier and Academia.edu<http://Academia.edu> will continue to pursue their publishing strategies, but make questions of Copyright and Creative Commons' licensing (
http://worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/Creative_Commons_Law#World_University_and_School_Links ) more significant.

Best,
Scott

- Scott MacLeod - Founder & President
- http://scottmacleod.com/worlduniversityandschool.html
- World University and School - like Wikipedia with MIT OpenCourseWare (not endorsed by MIT OCW) - incorporated as a nonprofit effective April 2010.

On Mon 09/12/13  1:49 PM , Mathieu ONeil mathieu.oneil at anu.edu.au<mailto:mathieu.oneil at anu.edu.au> sent:
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<http://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.cha
ar at gmail.com<mailto:ar at gmail.com>]Sent: Tuesday, December 10, 2013 8:26
To: Mathieu ONeil
Cc: Jonathan Sterne, Dr.; <air-l
@listserv.aoir.org<http://listserv.aoir.org>>Subject: Re: [Air-L] Open access and academia.edu<http://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<http://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 <math
ieu.oneil at anu.edu.au<mailto:ieu.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<mailto:air-l-bounces at listserv.aoir.org> [air-l-bounces at listserv.aoir.org<mailto:air-l-bounces at listserv.aoir.org>] on behalf of Jonathan Sterne, Dr.
[jon
athan.sterne at mcgill.ca<mailto:athan.sterne at mcgill.ca>]> Sent: Tuesday, December 10, 2013 7:07
To: <air-l
@listserv.aoir.org<http://listserv.aoir.org>>> Subject: [Air-L] Open access and
academia.edu<http://academia.edu>>
Just to be clear for Matthieu, my point wasn't
about services  and whether people like academia.edu<http://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<mailto:air-l-request at listserv.aoir.org>" <air-l-request at listserv.aoir.org<mailto: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<http://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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