Re: Survey on publishers for ISWC [responses welcome]

Hi Peter, Sarven,

On 2024-01-16 13:49, Sarven Capadisli wrote:
> On 2024-01-16 17:13, Peter F. Patel-Schneider wrote:
>> It would have been useful to make the survey better for those of us 
>> who do not have research funds.

@Peter, apologies indeed, yes! I assume that for those without research 
funds, keeping costs as low as possible is an essential feature (even if 
this means no OA, perhaps)?

> Perhaps. I'd think of it as an inherit issue with how the whole this 
> particular Semantic Web/Web Science research space has been operating. 
> The survey just reflects that.
> 
> Conferences like ISWC/ESWC, .. journals like SWJ .. all essentially 
> operate with the understanding and need that's highlighted in the 
> survey, i.e., the certification and rating system:
> 
>  >The choice of publisher should not directly affect ISWC's CORE rating.
> 
> Let's see what happens when we remove that variable. Decoupling 
> certification from registration.

Just to mention that the claim is based on CORE's stated criteria (which 
do not include publisher), and previous conferences that switched 
publishers without an effect on their CORE rating.

> The existing system lacks fairness and inclusivity, especially when 
> scholarly communication has been relying on third-party (for-profit) 
> services, all meanwhile the read-write Web has been available for 
> decades at the fraction of costs.
> 
> With respect to this survey, transitioning to the use of Dagstuhl for 
> publishing represents a good / significant step. Or actually *investing* 
> in ceur-ws.org (you still can!)... or alike.
> 
> Any numbers on how much (taxpayer) money and rights that got stolen by 
> using the for-profit publishers to date?

You can get some related statistics here:

https://aidanhogan.com/blog/index.php/2022/10/27/publishing-research-semantic-web/

In the section on "The Web, pay-walls, and the serials crisis".

It's hard to get a thorough picture as subscription deals are typically 
kept confidential by publishers.

> It is the age old issue of for unknown wild excuses Web researchers not 
> having the incentive or motivation to ... publish and communicate their 
> findings on some sort of a global information superhighway for all to 
> access.

I guess we all publish and access papers through the Web by now, but I 
understand you refer to us not using Web formats (... yet).

> Recycling an obligatory quote by *the* Web developer:
> 
>> From: timbl@info .cern.ch (Tim Berners-Lee)
>> Newsgroups: alt.hypertext
>> Subject: WorldWideWeb: Summary
>> Date: 6 Aug 91 16:00:12 GMT
>>
>> The WWW project merges the techniques of information retrieval and 
>> hypertext to
>> make an easy but powerful global information system.
>>
>> The project started with the philosophy that much academic information 
>> should
>> be freely available to anyone. It aims to allow information sharing 
>> within
>> internationally dispersed teams, and the dissemination of information by
>> support groups.
> 
> 
> https://www.w3.org/People/Berners-Lee/1991/08/art-6487.txt
> 
> 
> Aidan, thanks for sharing the survey and the underlying considerations.

No worries! Hopefully it will help to inform the discussion of where to 
go from here.

Best,
Aidan

Received on Wednesday, 17 January 2024 03:47:43 UTC