Goran and I were talking yesterday and it reminded me on the need which I have from time to time in relation to the Language committee: Wikimedia peer reviewed journal. A couple of months ago I thought to push it as Language committee issue, but yesterday we've released that it's more logical to have it under RCom umbrella.
The journal should publish papers needed by Wikimedia. If we need a research or even a review about anything, we could offer to a researcher or scientist publishing the paper in our journal (of course, if it passes some minimums). Creating infrastructure for peer reviewed journal shouldn't be too hard or costly.
Thoughts?
Hi Milos,
a small-scale version of something like this is on the verge to actually happening with PLoS Computational Biology: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Molecul... and slide 40 at http://www.slideshare.net/pebourne/ten-simple-rules-for-open-access-publishe... , given yesterday as part of http://oaspa.org/coasp/program.php . Dario and I are at that meeting with Phil, and we have been discussing the project in quite some detail, with a number of things still to be worked out.
Will try to report more next week.
Cheers from Tallinn,
Daniel
On Thu, Sep 22, 2011 at 10:53 AM, Milos Rancic millosh@gmail.com wrote:
Goran and I were talking yesterday and it reminded me on the need which I have from time to time in relation to the Language committee: Wikimedia peer reviewed journal. A couple of months ago I thought to push it as Language committee issue, but yesterday we've released that it's more logical to have it under RCom umbrella.
The journal should publish papers needed by Wikimedia. If we need a research or even a review about anything, we could offer to a researcher or scientist publishing the paper in our journal (of course, if it passes some minimums). Creating infrastructure for peer reviewed journal shouldn't be too hard or costly.
Thoughts?
RCom-l mailing list RCom-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/rcom-l
Hello!
I hope that you are all fine.
I am sorry I have most silence the last weeks. I moved from Barcelona to Boston and have had a working overload. I hope to cacht up in the coming weeks. BTW, if someone live or pass by Boston, please nock the door. Alone the year, I plan to visit the San Francisco and the WMF (suggestions for dates are welcome).
On the question of Peer reviewed Journal: I think as such it is a good idea; but I don't think "it shouldn't be too hard or costly". It is a lot of work, particularly the firts years until the Journal is minimally stablish so that researchers prefere to send their results to it instead of to other more established Journals. Then, I would create a group around it with the people interested to put energy into it, such as other researchers from reserach_l. To be impulsed by Rcom is ok, but to me it would be good that the group work independently to guaranty independence.
Cheers! Mayo
«·´`·.(*·.¸(`·.¸ ¸.·´)¸.·*).·´`·» «·´¨*·¸¸« Mayo Fuster Morell ».¸.·*¨`·» «·´`·.(¸.·´(¸.·* *·.¸)`·.¸).·´`·»
Research Digital Commons Governance: http://www.onlinecreation.info
Fellow Berkman center for Internet and Society. Harvard University. Postdoctoral Researcher. Institute of Govern and Public Policies. Autonomous University of Barcelona. Visiting scholar. Internet Interdisciplinary Institute. Open University of Catalonia (UOC). Member Research Committee. Wikimedia Foundation Ph.D European University Institute Visiting researcher (2008). School of information. University of California, Berkeley.
E-mail: mayo.fuster@eui.eu E-mail: mayofm@cyber.law.harvard.edu Twitter/Identica: Lilaroja Skype: mayoneti Phone United States: 001 - 8576548231 Phone Spanish State: 0034-648877748
Berkman Center 23 Everett Street, 2nd Floor Cambridge, MA 02138 +1 (617) 495-7547 (Phone) +1 (617) 495-7641 (Fax)
Personal Postal Address USA: The Acetarium 265 Elm Street - 4 Somerville, MA, USA 02144
________________________________________ From: rcom-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org [rcom-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Daniel Mietchen [daniel.mietchen@googlemail.com] Sent: 22 September 2011 13:17 To: The Wikimedia Foundation Research Committee mailing list Subject: Re: [RCom-l] Peer reviewed journal?
Hi Milos,
a small-scale version of something like this is on the verge to actually happening with PLoS Computational Biology: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Molecul... and slide 40 at http://www.slideshare.net/pebourne/ten-simple-rules-for-open-access-publishe... , given yesterday as part of http://oaspa.org/coasp/program.php . Dario and I are at that meeting with Phil, and we have been discussing the project in quite some detail, with a number of things still to be worked out.
Will try to report more next week.
Cheers from Tallinn,
Daniel
On Thu, Sep 22, 2011 at 10:53 AM, Milos Rancic millosh@gmail.com wrote:
Goran and I were talking yesterday and it reminded me on the need which I have from time to time in relation to the Language committee: Wikimedia peer reviewed journal. A couple of months ago I thought to push it as Language committee issue, but yesterday we've released that it's more logical to have it under RCom umbrella.
The journal should publish papers needed by Wikimedia. If we need a research or even a review about anything, we could offer to a researcher or scientist publishing the paper in our journal (of course, if it passes some minimums). Creating infrastructure for peer reviewed journal shouldn't be too hard or costly.
Thoughts?
RCom-l mailing list RCom-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/rcom-l
_______________________________________________ RCom-l mailing list RCom-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/rcom-l
On Thu, Sep 22, 2011 at 13:17, Daniel Mietchen daniel.mietchen@googlemail.com wrote:
a small-scale version of something like this is on the verge to actually happening with PLoS Computational Biology: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Molecul... and slide 40 at http://www.slideshare.net/pebourne/ten-simple-rules-for-open-access-publishe... , given yesterday as part of http://oaspa.org/coasp/program.php . Dario and I are at that meeting with Phil, and we have been discussing the project in quite some detail, with a number of things still to be worked out.
Will try to report more next week.
That's great! From the point of my work related to LangCom, it would be good to have a procedure for publishing reviews. If I say to a linguist that I need a description of some sociolinguistic situation, it would be good to have at least possibility to publish it in a peer reviewed journal, so the paper could be counted as a part of scientific work.
Would this be a logical thing to have as part of Wikiversity?
Peer review does seem to me very like a Featured article process but with credentialled reviewers.
WSC
On 22 September 2011 09:53, Milos Rancic millosh@gmail.com wrote:
Goran and I were talking yesterday and it reminded me on the need which I have from time to time in relation to the Language committee: Wikimedia peer reviewed journal. A couple of months ago I thought to push it as Language committee issue, but yesterday we've released that it's more logical to have it under RCom umbrella.
The journal should publish papers needed by Wikimedia. If we need a research or even a review about anything, we could offer to a researcher or scientist publishing the paper in our journal (of course, if it passes some minimums). Creating infrastructure for peer reviewed journal shouldn't be too hard or costly.
Thoughts?
RCom-l mailing list RCom-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/rcom-l
On Thu, Sep 22, 2011 at 14:38, WereSpielChequers werespielchequers@gmail.com wrote:
Would this be a logical thing to have as part of Wikiversity?
Peer review does seem to me very like a Featured article process but with credentialled reviewers.
Huh. Wikiversity has its own problems. Since Cormac Lawler went out of WV, its integrity is very questionable. However, I agree that organized boost into the right direction is something which WV needs.
Hello, The idea of a journal is very sound by itself. I doubt that Wikiversity will be helpful. Kind regards Ziko
2011/9/22 Milos Rancic millosh@gmail.com:
On Thu, Sep 22, 2011 at 14:38, WereSpielChequers werespielchequers@gmail.com wrote:
Would this be a logical thing to have as part of Wikiversity?
Peer review does seem to me very like a Featured article process but with credentialled reviewers.
Huh. Wikiversity has its own problems. Since Cormac Lawler went out of WV, its integrity is very questionable. However, I agree that organized boost into the right direction is something which WV needs.
RCom-l mailing list RCom-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/rcom-l
Hi,
the idea on having a peer-reviewed journal specifically related to Wikimedia/Wikipedia needed research that Milos and I have discussed was, of course, to start small.
The idea is to start with a set of dedicated pages that would publish Wikimedia related research, focusing on the needs generated by the community, Rcom or the WMF, and trying to establish consistency of standards and some at least minimal periodicity. The publishing process would involve peer review from the beginning. I don't believe it would be hard to establish a journal editorial in this case.
Of course, the merger with initiatives such as Wikimedia Summer of Research is a natural way to go.
Then we would see what happens. If it happens to be useful (I bet) and sustainable (the hard part: sustainable in terms of periodicity, norms and quality), why not start thinking bigger than the initial small and see if we can push it to a level of a significant journal in the fields of socio-technical systems, user-computer interaction, online collaboration and similar.
Best, Goran
On Thu, Sep 22, 2011 at 6:40 PM, Ziko van Dijk zvandijk@googlemail.com wrote:
Hello, The idea of a journal is very sound by itself. I doubt that Wikiversity will be helpful. Kind regards Ziko
2011/9/22 Milos Rancic millosh@gmail.com:
On Thu, Sep 22, 2011 at 14:38, WereSpielChequers werespielchequers@gmail.com wrote:
Would this be a logical thing to have as part of Wikiversity?
Peer review does seem to me very like a Featured article process but with credentialled reviewers.
Huh. Wikiversity has its own problems. Since Cormac Lawler went out of WV, its integrity is very questionable. However, I agree that organized boost into the right direction is something which WV needs.
RCom-l mailing list RCom-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/rcom-l
-- Ziko van Dijk The Netherlands http://zikoblog.wordpress.com/
RCom-l mailing list RCom-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/rcom-l
A brief summary of the recent develoments is now in the new Signpost: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2011-09-26/News_an... .
Daniel
On Sun, Sep 25, 2011 at 5:46 PM, Goran Milovanovic goran.s.milovanovic@gmail.com wrote:
Hi,
the idea on having a peer-reviewed journal specifically related to Wikimedia/Wikipedia needed research that Milos and I have discussed was, of course, to start small.
The idea is to start with a set of dedicated pages that would publish Wikimedia related research, focusing on the needs generated by the community, Rcom or the WMF, and trying to establish consistency of standards and some at least minimal periodicity. The publishing process would involve peer review from the beginning. I don't believe it would be hard to establish a journal editorial in this case.
Of course, the merger with initiatives such as Wikimedia Summer of Research is a natural way to go.
Then we would see what happens. If it happens to be useful (I bet) and sustainable (the hard part: sustainable in terms of periodicity, norms and quality), why not start thinking bigger than the initial small and see if we can push it to a level of a significant journal in the fields of socio-technical systems, user-computer interaction, online collaboration and similar.
Best, Goran
On Thu, Sep 22, 2011 at 6:40 PM, Ziko van Dijk zvandijk@googlemail.com wrote:
Hello, The idea of a journal is very sound by itself. I doubt that Wikiversity will be helpful. Kind regards Ziko
2011/9/22 Milos Rancic millosh@gmail.com:
On Thu, Sep 22, 2011 at 14:38, WereSpielChequers werespielchequers@gmail.com wrote:
Would this be a logical thing to have as part of Wikiversity?
Peer review does seem to me very like a Featured article process but with credentialled reviewers.
Huh. Wikiversity has its own problems. Since Cormac Lawler went out of WV, its integrity is very questionable. However, I agree that organized boost into the right direction is something which WV needs.
RCom-l mailing list RCom-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/rcom-l
-- Ziko van Dijk The Netherlands http://zikoblog.wordpress.com/
RCom-l mailing list RCom-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/rcom-l
--
"Truth is much too complicated to allow anything but approximations." :: John von Neumann
http://www.milovanovicresearch.com
RCom-l mailing list RCom-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/rcom-l
Having founded and run a peer reviewed journal with Springer over the last 2 years (I stepped down as editor-in-chief a few months ago due to incompatibility with my new WMF duties) – and having considered an OA option at the time of writing the first proposal for this journal back in 2009 – I thought I'd share my 2 cents.
Costs of creating a new journal What are the benefits of creating a dedicated OA journal for Wikipedia research? Traditional, closed access journals are run mostly by scholarly societies or by editorial boards to increase the visibility of research within their respective communities. OA is producing a number of disruptive changes in scholarly publishing. One of these disruptive changes is in the function and scope of journals. The most promising model OA publishers appear to be currently pursuing (based on the talks Daniel and I heard last week at COASP '11– a report on RCom-l will follow shortly) is the one of so-called OA mega-journals. These mega-journals are blurring the boundaries between traditional, narrow-focused scholarly journals and large OA repositories such as ArXiV; mega-journals publish papers in virtually every field and promise a large distribution, a lighter peer-review model (inspired by post-publication filtering criteria) and in some cases (e.g. PLoS One) increased visibility and bibliometric impact. These journals appear to be cannibalizing resources and readers from traditional journals and I think it's fair to expect that in 5 years from now most research will be published in 5-6 large OA journals acting as global research repositories and undermining the need of narrowly focused (and closed access) disciplinary outlets. At the moment, the only serious advantage of creating a new journal is to bridge a disciplinary gap, to build a new research community or to create/reinforce a brand, but there are other important costs to consider if one wants to go for an OA option (see below) and my question is: wouldn't our community be equally well served if it were to publish its research in one of the many OA journals already available? Would community and brand creation justify the effort of creating a new outlet instead of, say, creating and tracking an on-demand collection of articles within one or more existing, general-purpose OA journals? To put it bluntly: do we need a journal or a feed?
Costs of going OA Setting up and running a journal, especially without the support of a traditional publisher, requires an insane amount of effort. As an author or reviewer of a journal, one typically sees only the tip of the iceberg of the editorial and publication workflow, which includes, among other things, effectively triaging and dispatching submissions, inviting and chasing reviewers, supervising the production process, promoting the journal in relevant outlets, maintaining relations with organizations that store/consume metadata and evaluate contents. A self-run journal, without the support of a dedicated production team, also incurs extra costs related to manuscript handling, copyediting, proof creation. OA publishers typically offset these extra costs by charging author fees, which are only waived in particular circumstances. Creating and running a successful OA journal is definitely not something a group of people can achieve as a hobby or with limited financial resources.
Supplementary barriers to OA Crazy as it may sound, in 2011 OA is just starting to get traction. When starting a new journal, the question you typically face is whether you want to have a high scholarly impact within your community (i.e. attract and publish the best research within your field) or change the rules of the game (e.g. embrace OA, publish open-licensed research or explore new, disruptive editorial models). With the exception of OA mega journals and some popular niche journals, by creating a new journal you *either* seek impact *or* game change. The risk is that, as a new OA journal, you'll get to publish papers that have gone through cascading peer review (rejected by other outlets) and that for some reason have failed to be submitted to OA mega journals. One could try an experiment in publishing OA research without focusing on impact, but the effort and risk involved in making this project successful are even higher.
So my recommendation would be: forget about, "it sounds easy, let's try it" as this will result in a lot of frustration and wasted efforts. If someone wants to work on the creation of a new OA journal what's needed is a sound business plan with an analysis of risks and costs involved and an assessment of all, less costly and equally effective alternatives (which at the moment I'd be personally in favor of considering).
Dario
On Sep 25, 2011, at 8:46 AM, Goran Milovanovic wrote:
Hi,
the idea on having a peer-reviewed journal specifically related to Wikimedia/Wikipedia needed research that Milos and I have discussed was, of course, to start small.
The idea is to start with a set of dedicated pages that would publish Wikimedia related research, focusing on the needs generated by the community, Rcom or the WMF, and trying to establish consistency of standards and some at least minimal periodicity. The publishing process would involve peer review from the beginning. I don't believe it would be hard to establish a journal editorial in this case.
Of course, the merger with initiatives such as Wikimedia Summer of Research is a natural way to go.
Then we would see what happens. If it happens to be useful (I bet) and sustainable (the hard part: sustainable in terms of periodicity, norms and quality), why not start thinking bigger than the initial small and see if we can push it to a level of a significant journal in the fields of socio-technical systems, user-computer interaction, online collaboration and similar.
Best, Goran
On Thu, Sep 22, 2011 at 6:40 PM, Ziko van Dijk zvandijk@googlemail.com wrote:
Hello, The idea of a journal is very sound by itself. I doubt that Wikiversity will be helpful. Kind regards Ziko
2011/9/22 Milos Rancic millosh@gmail.com:
On Thu, Sep 22, 2011 at 14:38, WereSpielChequers werespielchequers@gmail.com wrote:
Would this be a logical thing to have as part of Wikiversity?
Peer review does seem to me very like a Featured article process but with credentialled reviewers.
Huh. Wikiversity has its own problems. Since Cormac Lawler went out of WV, its integrity is very questionable. However, I agree that organized boost into the right direction is something which WV needs.
RCom-l mailing list RCom-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/rcom-l
-- Ziko van Dijk The Netherlands http://zikoblog.wordpress.com/
RCom-l mailing list RCom-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/rcom-l
--
"Truth is much too complicated to allow anything but approximations." :: John von Neumann
http://www.milovanovicresearch.com
RCom-l mailing list RCom-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/rcom-l
Hello!
Thanks for the previous e-mails.
I have seen OA journals running on a voluntary bases and without major financial contribution; but still, I agree with Dario that it involves a very big effort and in order to have trully significants outcomes you need a robust dedication. Furthemore, I agree that the type of questions an OA journal I see would solve could be adressed though other channels (like the newsletter, wikipedia library repository, spread suggestions for research from the Wikipedia community, feed, etc.).
Cheers! Mayo
«·´`·.(*·.¸(`·.¸ ¸.·´)¸.·*).·´`·» «·´¨*·¸¸« Mayo Fuster Morell ».¸.·*¨`·» «·´`·.(¸.·´(¸.·* *·.¸)`·.¸).·´`·»
Research Digital Commons Governance: http://www.onlinecreation.info
Fellow Berkman center for Internet and Society. Harvard University. Postdoctoral Researcher. Institute of Govern and Public Policies. Autonomous University of Barcelona. Visiting scholar. Internet Interdisciplinary Institute. Open University of Catalonia (UOC). Member Research Committee. Wikimedia Foundation Ph.D European University Institute Visiting researcher (2008). School of information. University of California, Berkeley.
E-mail: mayo.fuster@eui.eu E-mail: mayofm@cyber.law.harvard.edu Twitter/Identica: Lilaroja Skype: mayoneti Phone United States: 001 - 8576548231 Phone Spanish State: 0034-648877748
Berkman Center 23 Everett Street, 2nd Floor Cambridge, MA 02138 +1 (617) 495-7547 (Phone) +1 (617) 495-7641 (Fax)
Personal Postal Address USA: The Acetarium 265 Elm Street - 4 Somerville, MA, USA 02144
________________________________________ From: rcom-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org [rcom-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Dario Taraborelli [dtaraborelli@wikimedia.org] Sent: 27 September 2011 03:39 To: The Wikimedia Foundation Research Committee mailing list Subject: Re: [RCom-l] Peer reviewed journal?
Having founded and run a peer reviewed journal with Springer over the last 2 years (I stepped down as editor-in-chief a few months ago due to incompatibility with my new WMF duties) – and having considered an OA option at the time of writing the first proposal for this journal back in 2009 – I thought I'd share my 2 cents.
Costs of creating a new journal What are the benefits of creating a dedicated OA journal for Wikipedia research? Traditional, closed access journals are run mostly by scholarly societies or by editorial boards to increase the visibility of research within their respective communities. OA is producing a number of disruptive changes in scholarly publishing. One of these disruptive changes is in the function and scope of journals. The most promising model OA publishers appear to be currently pursuing (based on the talks Daniel and I heard last week at COASP '11– a report on RCom-l will follow shortly) is the one of so-called OA mega-journals. These mega-journals are blurring the boundaries between traditional, narrow-focused scholarly journals and large OA repositories such as ArXiV; mega-journals publish papers in virtually every field and promise a large distribution, a lighter peer-review model (inspired by post-publication filtering criteria) and in some cases (e.g. PLoS One) increased visibility and bibliometric impact. These journals appear to be cannibalizing resources and readers from traditional journals and I think it's fair to expect that in 5 years from now most research will be published in 5-6 large OA journals acting as global research repositories and undermining the need of narrowly focused (and closed access) disciplinary outlets. At the moment, the only serious advantage of creating a new journal is to bridge a disciplinary gap, to build a new research community or to create/reinforce a brand, but there are other important costs to consider if one wants to go for an OA option (see below) and my question is: wouldn't our community be equally well served if it were to publish its research in one of the many OA journals already available? Would community and brand creation justify the effort of creating a new outlet instead of, say, creating and tracking an on-demand collection of articles within one or more existing, general-purpose OA journals? To put it bluntly: do we need a journal or a feed?
Costs of going OA Setting up and running a journal, especially without the support of a traditional publisher, requires an insane amount of effort. As an author or reviewer of a journal, one typically sees only the tip of the iceberg of the editorial and publication workflow, which includes, among other things, effectively triaging and dispatching submissions, inviting and chasing reviewers, supervising the production process, promoting the journal in relevant outlets, maintaining relations with organizations that store/consume metadata and evaluate contents. A self-run journal, without the support of a dedicated production team, also incurs extra costs related to manuscript handling, copyediting, proof creation. OA publishers typically offset these extra costs by charging author fees, which are only waived in particular circumstances. Creating and running a successful OA journal is definitely not something a group of people can achieve as a hobby or with limited financial resources.
Supplementary barriers to OA Crazy as it may sound, in 2011 OA is just starting to get traction. When starting a new journal, the question you typically face is whether you want to have a high scholarly impact within your community (i.e. attract and publish the best research within your field) or change the rules of the game (e.g. embrace OA, publish open-licensed research or explore new, disruptive editorial models). With the exception of OA mega journals and some popular niche journals, by creating a new journal you *either* seek impact *or* game change. The risk is that, as a new OA journal, you'll get to publish papers that have gone through cascading peer review (rejected by other outlets) and that for some reason have failed to be submitted to OA mega journals. One could try an experiment in publishing OA research without focusing on impact, but the effort and risk involved in making this project successful are even higher.
So my recommendation would be: forget about, "it sounds easy, let's try it" as this will result in a lot of frustration and wasted efforts. If someone wants to work on the creation of a new OA journal what's needed is a sound business plan with an analysis of risks and costs involved and an assessment of all, less costly and equally effective alternatives (which at the moment I'd be personally in favor of considering).
Dario
On Sep 25, 2011, at 8:46 AM, Goran Milovanovic wrote:
Hi,
the idea on having a peer-reviewed journal specifically related to Wikimedia/Wikipedia needed research that Milos and I have discussed was, of course, to start small.
The idea is to start with a set of dedicated pages that would publish Wikimedia related research, focusing on the needs generated by the community, Rcom or the WMF, and trying to establish consistency of standards and some at least minimal periodicity. The publishing process would involve peer review from the beginning. I don't believe it would be hard to establish a journal editorial in this case.
Of course, the merger with initiatives such as Wikimedia Summer of Research is a natural way to go.
Then we would see what happens. If it happens to be useful (I bet) and sustainable (the hard part: sustainable in terms of periodicity, norms and quality), why not start thinking bigger than the initial small and see if we can push it to a level of a significant journal in the fields of socio-technical systems, user-computer interaction, online collaboration and similar.
Best, Goran
On Thu, Sep 22, 2011 at 6:40 PM, Ziko van Dijk <zvandijk@googlemail.commailto:zvandijk@googlemail.com> wrote: Hello, The idea of a journal is very sound by itself. I doubt that Wikiversity will be helpful. Kind regards Ziko
2011/9/22 Milos Rancic <millosh@gmail.commailto:millosh@gmail.com>: On Thu, Sep 22, 2011 at 14:38, WereSpielChequers <werespielchequers@gmail.commailto:werespielchequers@gmail.com> wrote: Would this be a logical thing to have as part of Wikiversity?
Peer review does seem to me very like a Featured article process but with credentialled reviewers.
Huh. Wikiversity has its own problems. Since Cormac Lawler went out of WV, its integrity is very questionable. However, I agree that organized boost into the right direction is something which WV needs.
_______________________________________________ RCom-l mailing list RCom-l@lists.wikimedia.orgmailto:RCom-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/rcom-l
-- Ziko van Dijk The Netherlands http://zikoblog.wordpress.com/
_______________________________________________ RCom-l mailing list RCom-l@lists.wikimedia.orgmailto:RCom-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/rcom-l
-- -------------------------------------------------------------- "Truth is much too complicated to allow anything but approximations." :: John von Neumann -------------------------------------------------------------- http://www.milovanovicresearch.com
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On Tue, Sep 27, 2011 at 03:39, Dario Taraborelli dtaraborelli@wikimedia.org wrote:
Having founded and run a peer reviewed journal with Springer over the last 2 years (I stepped down as editor-in-chief a few months ago due to incompatibility with my new WMF duties) – and having considered an OA option at the time of writing the first proposal for this journal back in 2009 – I thought I'd share my 2 cents. Costs of creating a new journal What are the benefits of creating a dedicated OA journal for Wikipedia research? Traditional, closed access journals are run mostly by scholarly societies or by editorial boards to increase the visibility of research within their respective communities. OA is producing a number of disruptive changes in scholarly publishing. One of these disruptive changes is in the function and scope of journals. The most promising model OA publishers appear to be currently pursuing (based on the talks Daniel and I heard last week at COASP '11– a report on RCom-l will follow shortly) is the one of so-called OA mega-journals. These mega-journals are blurring the boundaries between traditional, narrow-focused scholarly journals and large OA repositories such as ArXiV; mega-journals publish papers in virtually every field and promise a large distribution, a lighter peer-review model (inspired by post-publication filtering criteria) and in some cases (e.g. PLoS One) increased visibility and bibliometric impact. These journals appear to be cannibalizing resources and readers from traditional journals and I think it's fair to expect that in 5 years from now most research will be published in 5-6 large OA journals acting as global research repositories and undermining the need of narrowly focused (and closed access) disciplinary outlets. At the moment, the only serious advantage of creating a new journal is to bridge a disciplinary gap, to build a new research community or to create/reinforce a brand, but there are other important costs to consider if one wants to go for an OA option (see below) and my question is: wouldn't our community be equally well served if it were to publish its research in one of the many OA journals already available? Would community and brand creation justify the effort of creating a new outlet instead of, say, creating and tracking an on-demand collection of articles within one or more existing, general-purpose OA journals? To put it bluntly: do we need a journal or a feed? Costs of going OA Setting up and running a journal, especially without the support of a traditional publisher, requires an insane amount of effort. As an author or reviewer of a journal, one typically sees only the tip of the iceberg of the editorial and publication workflow, which includes, among other things, effectively triaging and dispatching submissions, inviting and chasing reviewers, supervising the production process, promoting the journal in relevant outlets, maintaining relations with organizations that store/consume metadata and evaluate contents. A self-run journal, without the support of a dedicated production team, also incurs extra costs related to manuscript handling, copyediting, proof creation. OA publishers typically offset these extra costs by charging author fees, which are only waived in particular circumstances. Creating and running a successful OA journal is definitely not something a group of people can achieve as a hobby or with limited financial resources. Supplementary barriers to OA Crazy as it may sound, in 2011 OA is just starting to get traction. When starting a new journal, the question you typically face is whether you want to have a high scholarly impact within your community (i.e. attract and publish the best research within your field) or change the rules of the game (e.g. embrace OA, publish open-licensed research or explore new, disruptive editorial models). With the exception of OA mega journals and some popular niche journals, by creating a new journal you *either* seek impact *or* game change. The risk is that, as a new OA journal, you'll get to publish papers that have gone through cascading peer review (rejected by other outlets) and that for some reason have failed to be submitted to OA mega journals. One could try an experiment in publishing OA research without focusing on impact, but the effort and risk involved in making this project successful are even higher. So my recommendation would be: forget about, "it sounds easy, let's try it" as this will result in a lot of frustration and wasted efforts. If someone wants to work on the creation of a new OA journal what's needed is a sound business plan with an analysis of risks and costs involved and an assessment of all, less costly and equally effective alternatives (which at the moment I'd be personally in favor of considering).
The main reason why I asked for creation of peer reviewed journal in-house is ability to offer a standard procedure for publishing scientific paper (not necessarily research paper) for those who address particular issue needed by Wikimedia. If it could be done in cooperation with a friendly organization, like PLoS is, then the reason for my purpose could be shifted toward creating procedures of cooperation with such organization.
Dario said we should consider less costly alternatives, and that's where I'm thinking that Wikiversity comes in. This is a wikimedia project that encourages original research and supplies all the necessary IT resources. The only slight issues are that it would all be unpaid voluntary work, and the peer review would be done on wiki much like the reviewing at [[wp:FAC]] on wikipedia.
I'm aware that Wikiversity has a poor reputation in the movement, but I don't think that should prevent something worthwhile being done there.
No-one has yet put a ballpark cost on a different business model, but I'm not expecting it to be something we could easily get the WMF or a chapter to fund.
Regards
WereSpielChequers
I think that we could reach out to a number of existing high impact IS and human-computer interaction journals and see if we can talk them into being more lenient in open accessing Wikipedia related articles. That way, scholars will pursue their career objectives in an efficient manner, we benefit from using high-quality peer-review infrastructure and the research will still be available to our community at large. The journals do not necessarily gain that much from such a deal except for increased eyeballs to certain articles but the scholars could benefit by receiving additional citations.
best, Diederik On 2011-09-27, at 4:28 PM, WereSpielChequers wrote:
Dario said we should consider less costly alternatives, and that's where I'm thinking that Wikiversity comes in. This is a wikimedia project that encourages original research and supplies all the necessary IT resources. The only slight issues are that it would all be unpaid voluntary work, and the peer review would be done on wiki much like the reviewing at [[wp:FAC]] on wikipedia.
I'm aware that Wikiversity has a poor reputation in the movement, but I don't think that should prevent something worthwhile being done there.
No-one has yet put a ballpark cost on a different business model, but I'm not expecting it to be something we could easily get the WMF or a chapter to fund.
Regards
WereSpielChequers _______________________________________________ RCom-l mailing list RCom-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/rcom-l
I completely agree with Dario, well said and spot on. Diederik
On Mon, Sep 26, 2011 at 8:39 PM, Dario Taraborelli dtaraborelli@wikimedia.org wrote:
Having founded and run a peer reviewed journal with Springer over the last 2 years (I stepped down as editor-in-chief a few months ago due to incompatibility with my new WMF duties) – and having considered an OA option at the time of writing the first proposal for this journal back in 2009 – I thought I'd share my 2 cents. Costs of creating a new journal What are the benefits of creating a dedicated OA journal for Wikipedia research? Traditional, closed access journals are run mostly by scholarly societies or by editorial boards to increase the visibility of research within their respective communities. OA is producing a number of disruptive changes in scholarly publishing. One of these disruptive changes is in the function and scope of journals. The most promising model OA publishers appear to be currently pursuing (based on the talks Daniel and I heard last week at COASP '11– a report on RCom-l will follow shortly) is the one of so-called OA mega-journals. These mega-journals are blurring the boundaries between traditional, narrow-focused scholarly journals and large OA repositories such as ArXiV; mega-journals publish papers in virtually every field and promise a large distribution, a lighter peer-review model (inspired by post-publication filtering criteria) and in some cases (e.g. PLoS One) increased visibility and bibliometric impact. These journals appear to be cannibalizing resources and readers from traditional journals and I think it's fair to expect that in 5 years from now most research will be published in 5-6 large OA journals acting as global research repositories and undermining the need of narrowly focused (and closed access) disciplinary outlets. At the moment, the only serious advantage of creating a new journal is to bridge a disciplinary gap, to build a new research community or to create/reinforce a brand, but there are other important costs to consider if one wants to go for an OA option (see below) and my question is: wouldn't our community be equally well served if it were to publish its research in one of the many OA journals already available? Would community and brand creation justify the effort of creating a new outlet instead of, say, creating and tracking an on-demand collection of articles within one or more existing, general-purpose OA journals? To put it bluntly: do we need a journal or a feed? Costs of going OA Setting up and running a journal, especially without the support of a traditional publisher, requires an insane amount of effort. As an author or reviewer of a journal, one typically sees only the tip of the iceberg of the editorial and publication workflow, which includes, among other things, effectively triaging and dispatching submissions, inviting and chasing reviewers, supervising the production process, promoting the journal in relevant outlets, maintaining relations with organizations that store/consume metadata and evaluate contents. A self-run journal, without the support of a dedicated production team, also incurs extra costs related to manuscript handling, copyediting, proof creation. OA publishers typically offset these extra costs by charging author fees, which are only waived in particular circumstances. Creating and running a successful OA journal is definitely not something a group of people can achieve as a hobby or with limited financial resources. Supplementary barriers to OA Crazy as it may sound, in 2011 OA is just starting to get traction. When starting a new journal, the question you typically face is whether you want to have a high scholarly impact within your community (i.e. attract and publish the best research within your field) or change the rules of the game (e.g. embrace OA, publish open-licensed research or explore new, disruptive editorial models). With the exception of OA mega journals and some popular niche journals, by creating a new journal you *either* seek impact *or* game change. The risk is that, as a new OA journal, you'll get to publish papers that have gone through cascading peer review (rejected by other outlets) and that for some reason have failed to be submitted to OA mega journals. One could try an experiment in publishing OA research without focusing on impact, but the effort and risk involved in making this project successful are even higher. So my recommendation would be: forget about, "it sounds easy, let's try it" as this will result in a lot of frustration and wasted efforts. If someone wants to work on the creation of a new OA journal what's needed is a sound business plan with an analysis of risks and costs involved and an assessment of all, less costly and equally effective alternatives (which at the moment I'd be personally in favor of considering). Dario On Sep 25, 2011, at 8:46 AM, Goran Milovanovic wrote:
Hi,
the idea on having a peer-reviewed journal specifically related to Wikimedia/Wikipedia needed research that Milos and I have discussed was, of course, to start small.
The idea is to start with a set of dedicated pages that would publish Wikimedia related research, focusing on the needs generated by the community, Rcom or the WMF, and trying to establish consistency of standards and some at least minimal periodicity. The publishing process would involve peer review from the beginning. I don't believe it would be hard to establish a journal editorial in this case.
Of course, the merger with initiatives such as Wikimedia Summer of Research is a natural way to go.
Then we would see what happens. If it happens to be useful (I bet) and sustainable (the hard part: sustainable in terms of periodicity, norms and quality), why not start thinking bigger than the initial small and see if we can push it to a level of a significant journal in the fields of socio-technical systems, user-computer interaction, online collaboration and similar.
Best, Goran
On Thu, Sep 22, 2011 at 6:40 PM, Ziko van Dijk zvandijk@googlemail.com wrote:
Hello,
The idea of a journal is very sound by itself. I doubt that
Wikiversity will be helpful.
Kind regards
Ziko
2011/9/22 Milos Rancic millosh@gmail.com:
On Thu, Sep 22, 2011 at 14:38, WereSpielChequers
werespielchequers@gmail.com wrote:
Would this be a logical thing to have as part of Wikiversity?
Peer review does seem to me very like a Featured article process but with
credentialled reviewers.
Huh. Wikiversity has its own problems. Since Cormac Lawler went out of
WV, its integrity is very questionable. However, I agree that
organized boost into the right direction is something which WV needs.
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