Re: predatory journals and conferences article in NY Times

The way science and research in general is financed has a great influence on academic and research publications.

For scientists and researchers with tenure, those at work in independent research institutes and students and other staff often times demands are placed on publications in terms of "where and what" to contribute both to personal and institutional prestige and reputation.

The European Union in its Horizon 2020 research funding program is espousing open science, which somehow changes the playing field for publishing.

There is a similarity albeit superficial with intellectual property issues with audiovisual content (movies, videos and audio CDs).

Maybe someone should start an iJournals store with articles costing a fixed amount and come up with a formula to pay each contributing journal for content.

A radical idea, but definitely worth investigating, and an idea which I suspect both open access and traditional peer-reviewed academic journals would embrace.


 
Milton Ponson
GSM: +297 747 8280
PO Box 1154, Oranjestad
Aruba, Dutch Caribbean
Project Paradigm: A structured approach to bringing the tools for sustainable development to all stakeholders worldwide by creating ICT tools for NGOs worldwide and: providing online access to web sites and repositories of data and information for sustainable development

This email and any files transmitted with it are confidential and intended solely for the use of the individual or entity to whom they are addressed. If you have received this email in error please notify the system manager. This message contains confidential information and is intended only for the individual named. If you are not the named addressee you should not disseminate, distribute or copy this e-mail.



________________________________
 From: David Booth <david@dbooth.org>
To: ProjectParadigm-ICT-Program <metadataportals@yahoo.com> 
Cc: Gannon Dick <gannon_dick@yahoo.com>; "leon@dcs.shef.ac.uk" <leon@dcs.shef.ac.uk>; Phillip Lord <phillip.lord@newcastle.ac.uk>; "public-lod@w3.org" <public-lod@w3.org>; semantic-web <semantic-web@w3.org> 
Sent: Tuesday, April 23, 2013 2:38 PM
Subject: Re: predatory journals and conferences article in NY Times
 

IMO the web makes the traditional publishing bottleneck obsolete -- 
including the need for peer review, which is mostly just a crude method 
of indicating endorsement.

Perhaps researchers should now publish their work on Facebook, Google+ 
or other votable media, and their institutions should grant tenure based 
on the number of "Like" votes they get.  ;)

David

On 04/23/2013 02:02 PM, ProjectParadigm-ICT-Program wrote:
> Maybe I should rephrase "rating and grading" and the term mental narrow
> focus reflects the fact that scientists and researchers when
> concentrating on their academic work focus on a small area of all
> scientific endeavors. There is a subtle difference between mental narrow
> focus and narrow mindedness.
>
> There needs to be a way to gauge the operations of journal publishers
> whether they be open access or traditional peer-reviewed academic to
> know if they are bona fide in the first place. Librarians in general are
> the best people to keep track of what is out there available in journals.
>
> But it is the scientists and researchers that can spot the good and weed
> out the bad journals.
>
> Because these are dire times in terms of financial resources available
> for librarians and scientists alike and mala fide companies and
> individuals will seize the opportunities to hawk their "new and less
> expensive open access or hybrid business model" journals and scientific
> conferences and events.
>
> It is just the newest category of scams to hit the Internet and markets
> and it will not go away.
>
> Caveat emptor, mundus vult decipi.
> Milton Ponson
> GSM: +297 747 8280
> PO Box 1154, Oranjestad
> Aruba, Dutch Caribbean
> Project Paradigm: A structured approach to bringing the tools for
> sustainable development to all stakeholders worldwide by creating ICT
> tools for NGOs worldwide and: providing online access to web sites and
> repositories of data and information for sustainable development
>
> This email and any files transmitted with it are confidential and
> intended solely for the use of the individual or entity to whom they are
> addressed. If you have received this email in error please notify the
> system manager. This message contains confidential information and is
> intended only for the individual named. If you are not the named
> addressee you should not disseminate, distribute or copy this e-mail.
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> *From:* Gannon Dick <gannon_dick@yahoo.com>
> *To:* "leon@dcs.shef.ac.uk" <leon@dcs.shef.ac.uk>; Phillip Lord
> <phillip.lord@newcastle.ac.uk>
> *Cc:* ProjectParadigm-ICT-Program <metadataportals@yahoo.com>;
> "public-lod@w3.org" <public-lod@w3.org>; semantic-web <semantic-web@w3.org>
> *Sent:* Tuesday, April 23, 2013 9:35 AM
> *Subject:* Re: predatory journals and conferences article in NY Times
>
> +1
> The Nominations in the Semantic Asset Utilization Category:
> Best catch: Milton
> Best Intelligent Life in Journalism Discovery: NOAA "New York Times"
> Best Village Idiot Impersonation, don't believe it for a minute: Phil
> "I'm just a ..."
> Best Monte Carlo Simulation Marksmanship: Leon "... Mission Creep"
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> *From:* Leon Derczynski <leon@dcs.shef.ac.uk>
> *To:* Phillip Lord <phillip.lord@newcastle.ac.uk>
> *Cc:* ProjectParadigm-ICT-Program <metadataportals@yahoo.com>;
> "public-lod@w3.org" <public-lod@w3.org>; semantic-web <semantic-web@w3.org>
> *Sent:* Tuesday, April 23, 2013 6:05 AM
> *Subject:* Re: predatory journals and conferences article in NY Times
>
> IIRC, impact factor was only ever intended as an heuristic for
> librarians when making marginal decisions over which journals to
> subscribe to on behalf of their institution. Everything else is but
> mission creep.
>
> All the best,
>
>
> Leon
>
>
> On 23 April 2013 12:38, Phillip Lord <phillip.lord@newcastle.ac.uk
> <mailto:phillip.lord@newcastle.ac.uk>> wrote:
>
>
>     It's high time universities stopped judging academics by *where* they
>     have published rather than *what*.
>
>     We already have a form of rating for journals. It's called impact
>     factor. It doesn't work, because judging papers by their place of
>     publication is nonsensical.
>
>     Linked data and semantic web technologies provide opportunities, I
>     think, to handle the metadata associated with scientific publication, to
>     represent the knowledge in academic publications, and to do so without
>     the necessity for a centralised authority.
>
>     But, then I am a researcher with a metanl narrow focus, so what do I
>     know?
>
>     Phil
>
>     ProjectParadigm-ICT-Program <metadataportals@yahoo.com
>     <mailto:metadataportals@yahoo.com>> writes:
>      > This is a problem which manifests itself in every discipline and
>     it preys on
>      > basic human needs for recognition. The current publishing world
>     of academia
>      > itself is to blame partially.
>      >
>      > Because in each field of science scientists and researchers
>     usually have a
>      > short list of peer-reviewed journals and conferences in their
>     mental narrow
>      > focus, only librarians typically have a (often not much) better
>     overview of
>      > available reputable journals and conferences in respective fields.
>      >
>      > It is high time for a global registry of scientific publishers
>     and their
>      > respective journals and a form of rating and grading them.
>      >
>      > Linked data and semantic web technologies provide opportunities
>     to create such
>      > rating and grading systems, and maybe an item for a separate W3C
>     Community
>      > Group?
>      >
>      >
>      > Milton Ponson
>      > GSM: +297 747 8280
>      > PO Box 1154, Oranjestad
>      > Aruba, Dutch Caribbean
>      > Project Paradigm: A structured approach to bringing the tools for
>     sustainable
>      > development to all stakeholders worldwide by creating ICT tools
>     for NGOs
>      > worldwide and: providing online access to web sites and
>     repositories of data
>      > and information for sustainable development
>      >
>      > This email and any files transmitted with it are confidential and
>     intended
>      > solely for the use of the individual or entity to whom they are
>     addressed. If
>      > you have received this email in error please notify the system
>     manager. This
>      > message contains confidential information and is intended only
>     for the
>      > individual named. If you are not the named addressee you should not
>      > disseminate, distribute or copy this e-mail.
>
>     --
>     Phillip Lord,                           Phone: +44 (0) 191 222 7827
>     Lecturer in Bioinformatics,             Email:
>    phillip.lord@newcastle.ac.uk <mailto:phillip.lord@newcastle.ac.uk>
>     School of Computing Science, http://homepages.cs.ncl.ac.uk/phillip.lord
>     Room 914 Claremont Tower,               skype: russet_apples
>     Newcastle University,                   twitter: phillord
>     NE1 7RU
>
>
>
>
> --
> Leon R A Derczynski
> Research Associate, NLP Group
>
> Department of Computer Science
> University of Sheffield
> Regent Court, 211 Portobello
> Sheffield S1 4DP, UK
>
> +45 5157 4948
> http://www.dcs.shef.ac.uk/~leon/ <http://www.dcs.shef.ac.uk/%7Eleon/>
>
>
>
>