Dear Wiki-research,
I'm starting to build the case here in Australia with some universities and academic funding organisations that working with Wikipedia is a good and important part of the educative role of an academic. I'm also conscious that there are quite limited avenues for academics to be able to professionally-justify the time they might devote to improving Wikipedia in their relevant subject area. To that end, I'm beginning to float the idea of a peer-reviewed journal for academics to write Wikipedia articles. [Note, this is not the same as most discussions on this mailing list which are about studying Wikipedia itself]. So, as this list is made up of a high proportion of academics who have a strong interest in Wikipedia I thought I'd like to pass the idea pass you too.
I've written up a first pass at the proposal here: http://www.wittylama.com/2009/09/wikipedia-journal/ (and it's been copied into the Strategic planning wiki proposals here http://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/Proposal:Journal ). There are obviously many issues to sort out not the least of which is funding and scope. But, I'd like your feedback on whether you think it a feasible/desirable way to enable greater academic participation in Wikipedia. I.e. by giving added incentives (naming rights, non-editability) and a more familiar format, but at the same time increasing the quality of Wikipedia without having to change its policies or practices. At the same time I hope it would increase the perceived legitimacy of Wikipedia by demonstrating that we care about their expertise and also increases awareness of what free-culture and free-licensing is all about (because the details of the cc-by-sa license would need to be explained to the authors).
Just a suggestion, and I thought the people on this list might be the kind of people who might like to recruit their friendly neighbourhood professor to write for the first edition! :-)
All the best, -Liam [[witty lama]]
wittylama.com/blog Peace, love & metadata
On Thu, Sep 24, 2009 at 10:56 PM, Liam Wyatt liamwyatt@gmail.com wrote:
Dear Wiki-research,
.... I'm also conscious that there are quite limited avenues for academics to be able to professionally-justify the time they might devote to improving Wikipedia in their relevant subject area. ...
Note that here in Australia, as of this year, academics will have difficulty justifying contributions to journals which are not on the list of journals approved by the Australian Research Council.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Excellence_in_Research_for_Australia
The list of approved journals for next year includes 19060 journals. The journal list has been the result of consultation with professional and academic bodies in each field.
As each journal will be ranked, researchers are rewarded for publishing in journals of a higher quality.
I honestly don't think that real scholars need another venue to publish there work, and expect that governments around the world are pushing the research industry to quality over quantity, which will result in a reduction in the number of viable journals.
I have recorded the list of A* journals here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Academic_Journals/ERA_HCA... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Academic_Journals/ERA_PCE...
It would be interesting to see how many of the approved journals are open access or creative commons.
To that end, I'm beginning to float the idea of a peer-reviewed journal for academics to write Wikipedia articles. ...
IIRC, encyclopedia and dictionary entries were once accepted in the Australian "Higher Education Research Data Collection", however for many years the HERDC has only accepted four types academic outputs. I can write up the entire history of this if anyone is interested in the history of research management in Australia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HERDC
-- John Vandenberg
On Thu, Sep 24, 2009 at 2:58 PM, jayvdb jayvdb@gmail.com wrote:
On Thu, Sep 24, 2009 at 10:56 PM, Liam Wyatt liamwyatt@gmail.com wrote:
Dear Wiki-research,
.... I'm also conscious that there are quite limited avenues for academics to be able to professionally-justify the time they might devote to improving Wikipedia
in
their relevant subject area. ...
Note that here in Australia, as of this year, academics will have difficulty justifying contributions to journals which are not on the list of journals approved by the Australian Research Council.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Excellence_in_Research_for_Australia
The list of approved journals for next year includes 19060 journals. The journal list has been the result of consultation with professional and academic bodies in each field.
As each journal will be ranked, researchers are rewarded for publishing in journals of a higher quality.
Ah ha! Thank you very much for this link. I knew there one some form of Journal ranking but didn't know that it was a government programme. I get in touch with the people I know at the Australian Research Council to ask them about what this ranking system means with regards to the Wikipedia Journal idea - how it might apply, what they would recommend etc... It would seem to me that getting a high ranking on that kind of listing (whether in Australia or in equivalent kinds of programmes elsewhere) would be key to getting the academic legitimacy crucial to the concept.
I honestly don't think that real scholars need another venue to publish there work, and expect that governments around the world are pushing the research industry to quality over quantity, which will result in a reduction in the number of viable journals.
Yes, possibly. But I think that this issue (that of "but would academics * actually* write for this Journal?") is the one piece of the proposal that is the genuine and acceptable risk. A lot of feedback has been given about this proposal with varying problems or pitfalls - which I am trying to work out way to mitigate. But, in any academic project there needs to be an element of intentional risk. The risk of the Journal failing because of a lack of interest from academics is indeed a possibility. But, I think that is the thing that needs to be tested. Academics have never yet been given academically legitimate reasons to participate and I would like to give them the option. If the Journal were to fail for lack of interest from Academics, then that is a very important lesson and worth the effort of learning it.
John Vandenberg
Liam [[witty lama]]
wittylama.com/blog Peace, love & metadata
Wiki-research-l mailing list Wiki-research-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wiki-research-l
On 09/25/09 06:59, Liam Wyatt wrote:
But I think that this issue (that of "but would academics * actually* write for this Journal?") is the one piece of the proposal that is the genuine and acceptable risk. [...] The risk of the Journal failing because of a lack of interest from academics is indeed a possibility. But, I think that is the thing that needs to be tested. Academics have never yet been given academically legitimate reasons to participate and I would like to give them the option. If the Journal were to fail for lack of interest from Academics, then that is a very important lesson and worth the effort of learning it.
Sorry to be a party pooper. But, I think that lack of interest from academics is not a risk, it's a near-certainty. There are already plenty of journals and conferences out there, and I can tell you now that we would not be submitting anything.
Now, if the goal is to bring the whole of Wikipedia-related research into one place -- which is a good one, though I would extend it to all wiki research since Wikipedia is just one example and (IMO) over-studied to the exclusion of other systems -- then a (preferably online) publication which put out summaries/reviews of wiki research wherever it's published (think the page on Wikipedia, but better) would be highly desirable. Math does this sort of thing to great success, I think.
Reid
On Sep 25, 2009, at 10:56, Reid Priedhorsky wrote:
On 09/25/09 06:59, Liam Wyatt wrote:
But I think that this issue (that of "but would academics * actually* write for this Journal?") is the one piece of the proposal that is the genuine and acceptable risk. [...] The risk of the Journal failing because of a lack of interest from academics is indeed a possibility. But, I think that is the thing that needs to be tested. Academics have never yet been given academically legitimate reasons to participate and I would like to give them the option. If the Journal were to fail for lack of interest from Academics, then that is a very important lesson and worth the effort of learning it.
Sorry to be a party pooper. But, I think that lack of interest from academics is not a risk, it's a near-certainty. There are already plenty of journals and conferences out there, and I can tell you now that we would not be submitting anything.
Now, if the goal is to bring the whole of Wikipedia-related research into one place -- which is a good one, though I would extend it to all wiki research since Wikipedia is just one example and (IMO) over- studied to the exclusion of other systems -- then a (preferably online) publication which put out summaries/reviews of wiki research wherever it's published (think the page on Wikipedia, but better) would be highly desirable. Math does this sort of thing to great success, I think.
I've considered this for research on free and open source software too. One of the troubles of forming one's "own journal" is that you are essentially ghettoizing the research, ensuring that it will not be read as widely in one's "home/reference discipline".
Reid's suggestion is a good one, if I understand it right (and possibly even if I've gotten it wrong ;), I'd imagine it as a frequent 'best papers' award, a meta-journal, which on a regular basis reviews the peer-reviewed literature and provides pointers and commentary about the Wikipedia-related articles there. Obviously, for copyright reasons, one cannot re-publish the articles, but there's no reason that an editorial board couldn't review submitted, already published papers, and build consensus on the best and most important Wikipedia related papers, perhaps on a bi-monthly basis. Perhaps authors nominating their papers could provide 2 page "contextualization" pieces explaining to the interdisciplinary community something about the venue and why they published there...
Is the Math reference you make something vaguely similar to that?
--J
As Reid and James point out, the idea of collecting notable wiki-related research in one place is a very good one.
Just to give my 2 cents, at WikiSym 2008 we had a workshop in which this issue raised as a proposal. Then, it was clear that you need *real effort* (apart from some of your time, that was all I could offer) to make this real. I mean a semi-permanent staff of reviewers and writers, so that the site keeps lively action.
I myself liked the idea very much, but then the dissertation run over me, literally spending all my time and brain resources.
Indeed, for Math and Physics (I think) it works pretty well.
Best, Felipe --
--- El vie, 25/9/09, James Howison james@howison.name escribió:
De: James Howison james@howison.name Asunto: Re: [Wiki-research-l] Wikipedia Journal? Para: "Research into Wikimedia content and communities" wiki-research-l@lists.wikimedia.org Fecha: viernes, 25 septiembre, 2009 5:26
On Sep 25, 2009, at 10:56, Reid Priedhorsky wrote:
On 09/25/09 06:59, Liam Wyatt wrote:
But I think that this issue (that of "but would
academics * actually*
write for this Journal?") is the one piece of the
proposal that is
the genuine and acceptable risk. [...] The risk of
the Journal
failing because of a lack of interest from
academics is indeed a
possibility. But, I think that is the thing that
needs to be tested.
Academics have never yet been given academically
legitimate reasons
to participate and I would like to give them the
option. If the
Journal were to fail for lack of interest from
Academics, then that
is a very important lesson and worth the effort of
learning it.
Sorry to be a party pooper. But, I think that lack of
interest from
academics is not a risk, it's a near-certainty. There
are already
plenty of journals and conferences out there, and I can tell
you now that we
would not be submitting anything.
Now, if the goal is to bring the whole of
Wikipedia-related research
into one place -- which is a good one, though I would
extend it to all
wiki research since Wikipedia is just one example and
(IMO) over-
studied to the exclusion of other systems -- then a
(preferably online)
publication which put out summaries/reviews of wiki
research wherever
it's published (think the page on Wikipedia, but
better) would be
highly desirable. Math does this sort of thing to great
success, I think.
I've considered this for research on free and open source software too. One of the troubles of forming one's "own journal" is that you are essentially ghettoizing the research, ensuring that it will not be read as widely in one's "home/reference discipline".
Reid's suggestion is a good one, if I understand it right (and possibly even if I've gotten it wrong ;), I'd imagine it as a frequent 'best papers' award, a meta-journal, which on a regular basis reviews the peer-reviewed literature and provides pointers and commentary about the Wikipedia-related articles there. Obviously, for copyright reasons, one cannot re-publish the articles, but there's no reason that an editorial board couldn't review submitted, already published papers, and build consensus on the best and most important Wikipedia related papers, perhaps on a bi-monthly basis. Perhaps authors nominating their papers could provide 2 page "contextualization" pieces explaining to the interdisciplinary community something about the venue and why they published there...
Is the Math reference you make something vaguely similar to that?
--J
Wiki-research-l mailing list Wiki-research-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wiki-research-l
I think the original idea here was to have a journal where writing *for* Wikipedia would be rewarded with a publication, and it turned into a discussion about what academics really want: to be rewarded for work *about* Wikipedia and to be able to find the best work out there. :)
I agree with Reid that academics are very unlikely to spend time writing journal articles for an unknown publication either way. I also agree with James that it would be nice to have a place where good wikipedia (and wiki) related research bubbles up.
I see at least two interesting and useful ways of doing this. First is a review system as James suggested to aggregate research and identify the best work out there. Second would be a high quality annual review that synthesizes wiki research, rather than aggregates it. This could be a publication opportunity for some group of researchers who have the time and energy for it. :) Some of us have extensive literature reviews in dissertations and elsewhere that could be tapped perhaps for a first version...
-Andrea
On Fri, Sep 25, 2009 at 11:26 AM, James Howison james@howison.name wrote:
On Sep 25, 2009, at 10:56, Reid Priedhorsky wrote:
On 09/25/09 06:59, Liam Wyatt wrote:
But I think that this issue (that of "but would academics * actually* write for this Journal?") is the one piece of the proposal that is the genuine and acceptable risk. [...] The risk of the Journal failing because of a lack of interest from academics is indeed a possibility. But, I think that is the thing that needs to be tested. Academics have never yet been given academically legitimate reasons to participate and I would like to give them the option. If the Journal were to fail for lack of interest from Academics, then that is a very important lesson and worth the effort of learning it.
Sorry to be a party pooper. But, I think that lack of interest from academics is not a risk, it's a near-certainty. There are already plenty of journals and conferences out there, and I can tell you now that we would not be submitting anything.
Now, if the goal is to bring the whole of Wikipedia-related research into one place -- which is a good one, though I would extend it to all wiki research since Wikipedia is just one example and (IMO) over- studied to the exclusion of other systems -- then a (preferably online) publication which put out summaries/reviews of wiki research wherever it's published (think the page on Wikipedia, but better) would be highly desirable. Math does this sort of thing to great success, I think.
I've considered this for research on free and open source software too. One of the troubles of forming one's "own journal" is that you are essentially ghettoizing the research, ensuring that it will not be read as widely in one's "home/reference discipline".
Reid's suggestion is a good one, if I understand it right (and possibly even if I've gotten it wrong ;), I'd imagine it as a frequent 'best papers' award, a meta-journal, which on a regular basis reviews the peer-reviewed literature and provides pointers and commentary about the Wikipedia-related articles there. Obviously, for copyright reasons, one cannot re-publish the articles, but there's no reason that an editorial board couldn't review submitted, already published papers, and build consensus on the best and most important Wikipedia related papers, perhaps on a bi-monthly basis. Perhaps authors nominating their papers could provide 2 page "contextualization" pieces explaining to the interdisciplinary community something about the venue and why they published there...
Is the Math reference you make something vaguely similar to that?
--J
Wiki-research-l mailing list Wiki-research-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wiki-research-l
Dear Wiki-Research-L,
Yes, as Andrea said, the original idea proposed was about a new journal *for* Wikipedia but it seems the consensus is that there is far more interest in a journal *about* wikim/pedia research. To that end, I'd like to gauge the opinion of the authors here about the viability of such a journal. I have sounded out a couple of university presses and they're interested in discussing the idea of funding and hosting a "Journal of Wikipedia Research" (or title to that effect). So, I was wondering if the people here could say whether such a thing would be a) viable and b) what factors would be important to you personally in being interested in such a publication. For example: - Do you think that a Journal of Wikipedia Research would be an unhealthy competition against WikiSym, or a boost for it? - Would the reputation/location of the hosting university be a factor for you? - or, would the people on the editorial committee be a more important factor? - would you prefer to see a journal that was entirely an aggregation/synthesis of other publications, or entirely filled with content published no where else, or, would you be happy with a mixture of sections (new work, re-publications, syntheses, reviews...) - Would the frequency of publication be important to you? - Would you prefer something that only published in your particular research field (e.g. statistical/sociological/computer-scinece) or would you be happy with a variety of research fields being included in the one edition? - Would it be more important to you to publish in existing journals with an established reputation or to publish in a journal with a scope that is specific to Wikip/media (even though it's reputation would not yet be established)?
Of course, these are all just exploratory/scoping questions just to gauge interest. The original idea that I had proposed was for a different thing, but, if the research community here would like to see a journal created for them (in some way/shape/form) and if you believe that such a thing would help our field grow and develop - then I'm happy to try and help! :-)
Sincerely, -Liam
wittylama.com/blog Peace, love & metadata
On Wed, Oct 14, 2009 at 9:22 PM, Andrea Forte andrea.forte@gmail.comwrote:
I think the original idea here was to have a journal where writing *for* Wikipedia would be rewarded with a publication, and it turned into a discussion about what academics really want: to be rewarded for work *about* Wikipedia and to be able to find the best work out there. :)
I agree with Reid that academics are very unlikely to spend time writing journal articles for an unknown publication either way. I also agree with James that it would be nice to have a place where good wikipedia (and wiki) related research bubbles up.
I see at least two interesting and useful ways of doing this. First is a review system as James suggested to aggregate research and identify the best work out there. Second would be a high quality annual review that synthesizes wiki research, rather than aggregates it. This could be a publication opportunity for some group of researchers who have the time and energy for it. :) Some of us have extensive literature reviews in dissertations and elsewhere that could be tapped perhaps for a first version...
-Andrea
On Fri, Sep 25, 2009 at 11:26 AM, James Howison james@howison.name wrote:
On Sep 25, 2009, at 10:56, Reid Priedhorsky wrote:
On 09/25/09 06:59, Liam Wyatt wrote:
But I think that this issue (that of "but would academics * actually* write for this Journal?") is the one piece of the proposal that is the genuine and acceptable risk. [...] The risk of the Journal failing because of a lack of interest from academics is indeed a possibility. But, I think that is the thing that needs to be tested. Academics have never yet been given academically legitimate reasons to participate and I would like to give them the option. If the Journal were to fail for lack of interest from Academics, then that is a very important lesson and worth the effort of learning it.
Sorry to be a party pooper. But, I think that lack of interest from academics is not a risk, it's a near-certainty. There are already plenty of journals and conferences out there, and I can tell you now that we would not be submitting anything.
Now, if the goal is to bring the whole of Wikipedia-related research into one place -- which is a good one, though I would extend it to all wiki research since Wikipedia is just one example and (IMO) over- studied to the exclusion of other systems -- then a (preferably online) publication which put out summaries/reviews of wiki research wherever it's published (think the page on Wikipedia, but better) would be highly desirable. Math does this sort of thing to great success, I think.
I've considered this for research on free and open source software too. One of the troubles of forming one's "own journal" is that you are essentially ghettoizing the research, ensuring that it will not be read as widely in one's "home/reference discipline".
Reid's suggestion is a good one, if I understand it right (and possibly even if I've gotten it wrong ;), I'd imagine it as a frequent 'best papers' award, a meta-journal, which on a regular basis reviews the peer-reviewed literature and provides pointers and commentary about the Wikipedia-related articles there. Obviously, for copyright reasons, one cannot re-publish the articles, but there's no reason that an editorial board couldn't review submitted, already published papers, and build consensus on the best and most important Wikipedia related papers, perhaps on a bi-monthly basis. Perhaps authors nominating their papers could provide 2 page "contextualization" pieces explaining to the interdisciplinary community something about the venue and why they published there...
Is the Math reference you make something vaguely similar to that?
--J
Wiki-research-l mailing list Wiki-research-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wiki-research-l
Wiki-research-l mailing list Wiki-research-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wiki-research-l
(snip)
A good idea, but I would advise against making it Australia-centric, both for reasons raised by others, and because this would vastly diminish the pool of potential writers.
In related news (this is not about Liam's journal but about two others he mentions in his blog), http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WikiJournal needs to be merged with http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Wiki_Journal We don't need two ideas that are virtually the same. It's a good idea to have an journal "about Wikipedia", but unless it is properly peer-reviewed (like any good, average open publishing journal) it is not going to attract much attention. I'd love to publish in a Wikipedia-dedicated venue, but I need peer-reviewed publications on my CV - and I doubt my view point here is in a minority.
I second Piotr on the importance of the journal idea. In the internet world, it is not a good idea to limit the geographical scope of a Journal. In addition, being peer-reviewed would improve its exposure and gives a push for scholarly research about Wikipedia.
bilal
On Fri, Sep 25, 2009 at 1:24 PM, Piotr Konieczny piokon@post.pl wrote:
(snip)
A good idea, but I would advise against making it Australia-centric, both for reasons raised by others, and because this would vastly diminish the pool of potential writers.
In related news (this is not about Liam's journal but about two others he mentions in his blog), http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WikiJournal needs to be merged with http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Wiki_Journal We don't need two ideas that are virtually the same. It's a good idea to have an journal "about Wikipedia", but unless it is properly peer-reviewed (like any good, average open publishing journal) it is not going to attract much attention. I'd love to publish in a Wikipedia-dedicated venue, but I need peer-reviewed publications on my CV - and I doubt my view point here is in a minority.
-- Piotr Konieczny
"The problem about Wikipedia is, that it just works in reality, not in theory."
wiki-research-l@lists.wikimedia.org