Re: A proposal for a decentralized, peer-reviewed academic journal system for the Web

Manu Sporny,

Here is my take. I believe that creating a decentralized, peer-reviewed
academic journal system could be a good idea, but only if access is
carefully thought out.
It could be a boon to citizen scientists and the developing world since
they generally prefer open access, but doing so would require low cost. I
believe that a system
should allow payment now or later and donations now and later. Payment
could occur after a certain period of time, or after a certain event such
as revenue from
a project.

Only designing for payment could be a tricky thing. A situation as
described in Richard A. Stallman's right to read <1> could evolve. Access
to literature
could become even more limited than it is today. Some, such as Eben Moglen,
seem to favor support from those with the ability <2>. However, regardless
what happens I believe people would try to subvert it. Sometimes the
results could be hard to interpret <3>. I do believe that people who have
the
ability would want to help out, maybe even more so if they are given the
freedom to choose.

I'm not certain if people will use it. I know the economy is in a slump
<4>, public universities are financially challenged <5>, highly educated
people are unemployed <6>, women
are increasingly getting PhDs <7> but are facing challenges <8> <9>, and
young academics <10> <11>, biohackers <12>, and those in the developing
world are looking for solutions <13>.
Some say that collaboration online is creating a new economic form <14> and
may replace institutions <15>. Innovation may largely also come from the
outside, in the case of manufacturers <16>.
Similar technologies have been around for awhile though <17>, and
innovation may be a geographic thing <18>. The web seems to be widely
adopted, why?

For me personally, access to journal articles and books has helped a lot. I
had a bit of an obsession for almost everything in graduate school, and I
felt I had a clear advantage over those who were less privileged. Learning
about practically anything I was interested in, and comparing various
resources was amazing. How much are books and countless journal articles
worth anyway?

-Brent


<1> Richard M. Stallman, The Right to Read.
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read
<2> Eben Moglen on Facebook, Google and Government Surveillance
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HJCczbSF-B8 Jun. 1, 2012
<3> Canadian Study: Piracy Boosts CD Sales.
http://torrentfreak.com/piracy-boosts-cd-sales-071103/ Nov. 3, 2007
<4> Stoller, Matt. Modern American Economic History in a Few Charts.
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2012/10/modern-american-economic-history-in-a-few-charts.html,
Oct. 13, 2012
<5> Public Universities In Peril.
http://cen.acs.org/articles/90/i27/Public-Universities-Peril.html, Jul. 12,
2012
<6> Barely Hanging On.
http://cen.acs.org/articles/90/i45/Barely-Hanging.html Nov. 5, 2012
<7> For the first time, more women than men earn PhD.
http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/education/2010-09-15-womenphd14_st_N.htmSept.
14, 2010
<8> Women Dropping Out of Science Careers.
http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/story?id=5227334&page=1 June 24, 2008
<9> Being Married Helps Professors Get Ahead, but Only if They're Male.

http://www.theatlantic.com/sexes/archive/2013/01/being-married-helps-professors-get-ahead-but-only-if-theyre-male/267289/Jan.
17, 2013
<10> Young Researchers in Europe Launch Lobby Group.
http://cen.acs.org/articles/90/web/2012/12/Young-Researchers-Europe-Launch-Lobby.htmlDec.
27, 2012
<11> Ethan Perlstien.
http://cen.acs.org/articles/90/i49/Ethan-Perlstein.html Dec. 3, 2012
<12> A Biopunk Manifesto - Meridith Patterson.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Thn7d7-jywU Jan. 10, 2011
<13> Scaling Up Science in South Africa.
http://cen.acs.org/articles/90/i51/Scaling-Science-South-Africa.html Dec.
17. 2012
<14> Howard Rhiengold: Way-new collaboration.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d5s3Z0iesRM Feb. 12. 2008
<15> Clay Shirky: Institutions vs. collaboration
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sPQViNNOAkw Jul. 14, 2008
<16> Eric Von Hippel. Democratizing Innovation.
http://web.mit.edu/evhippel/www/democ1.htm 2005
<17> Parsaye, Kamran. Intelligent Databases: Object-Oriented, Deductive
Hypermedia Technologies, Wiley, New York, 1989
<18> How the Crash Will Reshape America.
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2009/03/how-the-crash-will-reshape-america/307293/6/Mar.
2009

On Fri, Jan 18, 2013 at 12:21 PM, Manu Sporny <msporny@digitalbazaar.com>wrote:

> On 01/14/2013 03:58 PM, Steven Rowat wrote:
> > If, as you say Manu, PaySwarm already has this available in its core
> >  architecture, then I think the time is right to start it.
>
> More food for thought:
>
> Mathematicians aim to take publishers out of publishing
>
> http://www.nature.com/news/mathematicians-aim-to-take-publishers-out-of-publishing-1.12243
>
> I've sent an e-mail to Jean-Pierre Demailly, just to reach out and offer
> our help.
>
> -- manu
>
> --
> Manu Sporny (skype: msporny, twitter: manusporny, G+: +Manu Sporny)
> President/CEO - Digital Bazaar, Inc.
> blog: Aaron Swartz, PaySwarm, and Academic Journals
> http://manu.sporny.org/2013/payswarm-journals/
>
>