hi,
if the purpose is to create a major player in journals league, and an ISI candidate, which I think is realistic and possible in some ~3 years horizon, we would have to have a "normal" review process (2-3 double blind reviews), editorial board, many submissions (and rejection rates above 90%, but including major R&Rs, that's why R&R is so common).
To process it smoothly we'd need to have tools, such as already mentioned OJS, installed, graphically designed and hosted somewhere. The costs of setting it up are quite small (the last time I did this I think I didn't pay more than 2k$, and we could seek experienced volunteers who know how to go about it anyway), I'd imagine that WMF could perhaps sponsor it, or some research center (but then they'd want to be placed as a sponsor/publisher, so I'm not sure if it is worth it). Costs of upkeeping the website and hosting are completely negligible if you have your own server. WMF can give it to the project really for free (and some of us, me including, can offer free server space as well, but it is better to keep it within wiki-world).
Wiki format is not good for processing submissions, assuring anonymity, as well as setting up automated reminders, when reviews or revisions are due.
So far the only advantage of a new journal I'd see over partnering with the Journal of Peer Production could be the standard selection/rejection process, since publishing all submissions but with reviews practically excludes the chances of participation in the ranking/ISI game. The ranking game is silly, ridiculous, and not fair, but this is the external environment most of us need to take into account (with tenure reviews etc.), and having a well established and "prestigious" journal on wikis is better than not having it. Still, it would probably be easier to negotiate with JPP a change in publication strategy, than to start from the scratch.
The reason why a journal on wiki might be successful in getting to ISI is the huge community of researchers on wiki, which we can address relatively easily, and which would be interested in reading and contributing to a fully open access journal also for ideological reasons. One advantage is also, as discussed with Aaron, that in some fields a conference paper is worth as much as a journal publication (which means that scholars from these fields will not have to downgrade if they submit to an emerging journal).
best,
dariusz
On Mon, Sep 17, 2012 at 5:56 AM, Kerry Raymond k.raymond@qut.edu.au wrote:
Indeed, perhaps we should take a closer look at the Research Portal of Wikiversity:
http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Portal:Research
-----Original Message----- From: wiki-research-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:wiki-research-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Kerry Raymond Sent: Monday, 17 September 2012 1:55 PM To: Research into Wikimedia content and communities Subject: Re: [Wiki-research-l] Open-Access journals for papers about wikis
I don't think the "no original research" rule would apply to a research journal that was hosted/sponsored/whatever by WMF. It's a reasonable rule for Wikipedia as an encyclopaedia but I don't think anyone (that mattered) would think it should apply to a research journal about Wikipedia, WMF, etc.
Should we be thinking of this journal as a new WMF project (a stablemate to Wikipedia, Wikiversity, etc)?
Kerry
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