>Of course, many advocate going even further, and making the material
>freely available via the Internet. There are obvious problems in this. If
>you retain current models of peer review and the journal status hierarchy,
>there has to be a way to pay the costs of organisation, editorial,
>publishing etc. Perhaps up-front fees for publication with no user charges
>might work in the coming world, but getting there from here is not an easy
>road to map out.
[question cut]
>If there were easy answers to these we would have them by now. In
>practice, relatively few academics will forego the chance to publish in a
>prestige journal, whatever rights they have to sign away and whatever
>price is charged to the library (we now have the >$10,000 pa journal
>subscription, I believe). Until these attitudes change the current system
>remains entrenched.
Agree with all Chris says, but things may not be entrenched for long. The
key is releasing journal users from the circle Chris identifies, and that
will be achieved not by technology but by greater exposure to online
approaches and building new functionality to enhance existing practice.
Exposure? There will be 3000+ e-journals based on existing publications
alone (i.e. parallel print/e-journals) by the end of this year (until now
we have been talking about 100s).
New functionality? It is called citation linking (no, it's not a plug for
Open Journals; it's just part of what we are doing) and it's becoming VERY
big in biology (Electronic Press and Highwire Press), it's happening in
physics (linking journals to the e-print archives; IoPP is busy linking as
well) and in astronomy.
To answer Chris' question:
>If you like the idea of a virtually free pre-print
>system, how does the quality assurance of peer review etc fit into this?
I think you have it already.
Citation linking is redrawing journals publishing. The evidence is the
growth of commercial companies such as above-mentioned EP and Highwire not
just as publishers but as producers and gateways to other publishers'
journals. Major publishers and subscription agents all all vying to add
citation linking.
In other words, change in publishing is happening as much from within as
without, which is a refreshingly new. It is good news for journal users if
they seize the chance and for eLib practitioners with innovative ideas who
were hoping for some change in the climate. But not such good news for
those who would prefer nothing changes, be it to do with copyright,
permissions or anything else.
As Wm Wulf, the man who defined the term 'collaboratory', said, 'look at
the spaces': technology doen't change how we do things but what we do.
Steve Hitchcock
Open Journal Project
Multimedia Research Group, Department of Electronics and Computer Science
University of Southampton SO17 1BJ, UK
Email: [log in to unmask]
Tel: +44 (01)703 594479 Fax: +44 (01)703 592865
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Open Journal Project Web page http://journals.ecs.soton.ac.uk/
"Bringing journals alive on the World Wide Web"
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