Welcome to the discussion of John Willinsky's article,
"Proposing a Knowledge Exchange Model for Scholarly Publishing"

Gatekeepers, Economics, and Academic Validity

Author: Timothy McGettigan (158.142.130.---) Date:   10-11-00 09:38 While the economics of online publication must certainly be appealing to research libraries, based upon my experience as an editor of online journals, individual authors have far more trepidations. Difficult and frustrating as it may be to work within the constraints of conventional print publishing, most authors/academics remain unwilling to consider the option of online publication for a variety of significant reasons: 1. If their work is not "acknowledged" as being important enough to be accepted by visible, gate-keepered journals, then they are unlikely to receive necessary credit for their scholarship. 2. Worse still, scholarship that is published online can even be stigmatized as being sub par simply because the authors have "avoided" the conventional, printed-journal peer review process. 3. Online publishing is a new frontier; untried and unproven in many ways. Many authors remain fearful that their work will fall into a cyber cul-de-sac and be "lost" to the academic community. Of course, each of these fears is founded upon a "print journal mentality," however, despite all of the amazing and economically advantageous developments in the world of online publication, that mentality continues to dominate. Thus, my question is: what will need to happen in order to tip the scales in the direction of online publication? Certainly, computers and the Internet are in the process of revolutionizing scholarship--as well as practically every aspect of the human experience--and scholarly publication is no exception. But, despite all of the advantages of online publication, academics cling doggedly to anachronistic techniques and criteria. When will that change and, precisely, why?

RE: Gatekeepers, Economics, and Academic Validity

Author: Gene Glass (---.ed.asu.edu) Date:   10-11-00 11:44 In the words of our (U.S.) soon-to-be ex-President, I can only console Tim McGettigan with these words: "I feel your pain." I have been at the business of editing an e-journal (http://epaa.asu.edu) for some 8 years now, and I have lived through a great many of the battles with supercilious colleagues that Tim refers to. I can promise you that if you persist and play the game a bit, respectability lies on the other side. Indeed, our "soft" disciplines (education, applied psychology, sociology and the like) lack the structure afforded by the better developed sciences; and so in place of "paradigms" and a consensus on methods and problems to solve, we have intense disciplinary politics and "tribal leaders." (I think "tribal leaders"--Becher's, 1989, term--is a better way to look at the culture of publication in the soft disciplines than "gatekeepers," because it reveals more about how the entire business of education research, for example, actually functions.) But it is the existence of these tribal leaders that makes the whole business of changing the culture of publication manageable. Draw in a few tribal leaders and the rest will follow. I leave to your own imagination the question of how the leaders can be persuaded.

RE: Gatekeepers, Economics, and Academic Validity

Author: Gene Glass (---.ed.asu.edu) Date:   10-11-00 11:51 More on the question of "when will e-publication gain respectability, attention, popularity etc.?" The economics are obvious. The prejudices palpable. But let's get to work and demonstrate to the scholarly community and their audiences that this medium is unparalleled for the presentation of scholarly work, and that it can do things that are absolutely impossible in the traditional medium, e.g., linked access to raw data (http://epaa.asu.edu/epaa/v5n1/ , http://epaa.asu.edu/epaa/v5n3.html , http://cie.ed.asu.edu/volume1/number6/ and several other examples of this type), and audio/video sources that are integral to the subject and not mere baubles attached for cosmetic purposes (http://ijea.asu.edu/v1n3/ ).

RE: Gatekeepers, Economics, and Academic Validity

Author: Gene Glass (---.ed.asu.edu) Date:   10-11-00 11:58 Tim, I notice that your journal Sociological Research Online (http://www.socresonline.org.uk/) has a strange fee structure. You pay if you connect from a university but you can access it free--after a bit of hassle--if you dialup through a private ISP (internet service provider). This seems odd. But more importantly, why should anyone have to pay to access scholarship--particulary when they are essentially paying twice: once to have it produced by the scholars in universities working at public expense, and again when they want to read it? I know the argument on the part of the commercial publishers: "we add value through editing, composing, printing and the like); we have a right to recoup our expenses and make a fair profit." I'm afraid that argument doesn't wash with me. Public universities have more than enough infrastructure and time to make schoalrship freely available to anyone.

RE: Gatekeepers, Economics, and Academic Validity

Author: Timothy McGettigan (158.142.130.---) Date:   10-11-00 13:28 Gene: Thanks for your comments. I should note that, while I have published an article in Sociological Research Online, I do not number among its administrators or editors--and, thus, have nothing to do with its fee structure. The two journals that I do edit, Radical Pedagogy (http://radicalpedagogy.icaap.org/) and Theory & Science (http://theoryandscience.icaap.org/), are entirely free of charge due to the advantages of my affiliation with ICAAP (http://www.icaap.org). I agree entirely that simply by "doing online publication" we are advancing (and improving) the climate of academic publication. Also, as I noted, if nothing else, the march of information technology will simply and ultimately overwhelm the resolve of sticks-in-the-mud: online publication is the present/future. Perhaps the questions that I posed were rhetorical after all... Still, I think there may be some value in accelerating the process of change--especially since the current state of scholarly publication may be described as a multi-faceted state of crisis. I guess my questions were intended to propose a further step to John's strategy. If there is a crisis, and if the technology exists to resolve the crisis, then why not take the necessary steps to do so? If entrenched interests (e.g., tribal leaders, gatekeepers) oppose such change, might there be an efficient, systematic approach--one that could be laid out as neatly as John's other diagrammatic processes--to disabusing them? Or, is it simply more efficient to march down separate paths until the inevitable happens? Just curious.

RE: Gatekeepers, Economics, and Academic Validity

Author: John Willinsky (---.intchg3.net.ubc.ca) Date:   10-11-00 23:08 Tim, I think you've honed in on my method very nicely. We are now working on creating a persuasive and neatly schematic economic model that will detail costs of the KEM. But your point is also well taken that demonstrating how e-publishing offers rigorous reviewing and reliable archiving may not be enough. The tribal/scibal leaders will move if it is made all too apparent that e-publishing does a better job of supporting and advancing scholarly inquiry, apart from questions of the journal brand-name and refereeing process. Following Gene's lead in the earlier message, this suggests that we need to analyze and establish the impact of electronic publishing on intellectual access (extended globally, as well as at home and office) with resulting increases in exchange and engagement (supported by online discussions and other signs), just as electronic publishing may be able to support greater integrity, integration, and coherence of research studies and fields (by allowing readers and reviewers to readily check citations, sources, data, etc.). Then we get to the persuasive value of increased public access... John

RE: Gatekeepers, Economics, and Academic Validity

Author: David Solomon (---.chm.msu.edu) Date:   10-16-00 04:29 I feel your pain too as another editor of an online journal. You are all right in that we need to keep plugging away, justifying the obvious by example and through persistence, logic and where possible data. However in the end, Max Planck's wonderful old quote says it all..... "New scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it." Max Planck, Scientific Autobiography and Other Papers, Williams & Norgate, London (1950), pages 33-34. /Dave

RE: Gatekeepers, Economics, and Academic Validity

Author: Gene Glass (---.inre.asu.edu) Date:   10-16-00 15:43 On the subject of the time it takes for free online scholarly journals to be accepted into the mainstream, this article is relevant: http://www.library.ucsb.edu/istl/00summer/refereed.html Issues in Science and Technology Librarianship Summer 2000 Free Scholarly Electronic Journals: How Good Are They? Michael Fosmire Physics and Earth and Atmospheric Sciences Librarian Purdue University fosmire@purdue.edu Song Yu Chemical Information Specialist Purdue University syu@purdue.edu Abstract Amidst the furor of serials price increases, there is a steadily growing segment of the serials landscape with prices that can't be beat, that is to say, free. Many scholarly journals are freely available in electronic format (no subscription fee or membership required), but there has been little assessment of their impact on scholarly research. A fairly comprehensive list of free scholarly electronic journals in the science, technology, and medical fields was compiled and was examined using citation analyses. The results indicate that, unlike the situation five years ago (Harter 1998), there are several free scholarly electronic journals that have a significant impact on their respective fields.

RE: Gatekeepers, Economics, and Academic Validity

Author: Gene Glass (---.inre.asu.edu) Date:   10-16-00 16:41 Correction: The URL in my last posting on free scholarly journals was missing a hyphen in a critical place. The correct address is http://www.library.ucsb.edu/istl/00-summer/refereed.html

A college librarian's view of KEM

Author: Steve Black (---.strose.edu) Date:   10-19-00 12:32 I would love to see KEM succeed, it's a great idea. I wholeheartedly agree with the view that scholarship is a public good, and should be treated as such. But here are a few concerns. All have the general theme of being sure all the stakeholders' interests are considered. 1. The model should specifically include non-ARL institutions of higher education. Professors at smaller institutions make a substantial contribution to scholarly literature. ARL libraries can certainly lead, but they should not monopolize the system. 2. The same is true for smaller institutions as consumers. Don't look just at the $480M ARL libraries spend. If other institutions were a part of the process, they could also foot part of the bill. I think making the titles available at all colleges and junior colleges would go a very long way to making them universally accessible. 3. Directly involve librarians and/or existing indexing services in the XML metadata markup. Our collective 100+ years of experience are not for nothing, and we can help maintain decent indexing quality. It's really not reasonable to ask authors to do this and expect much consistency. 4. Find a way to maintain double-blind review. Maybe preprints could use some kind of code instead of the authors' names. That way any citation would reveal whether the item is a preprint or a finished product, and reviewers would not know the author. 5. Keep the traditional editorial process in place, and pay the journals a fair price for the service. It could go like this on KEM: A. When author submits preprint to KEM server, he/she may also submit to a chosen participating journal. The author's name would be concealed, and its status would be "submitted to Journal XYZ". B. Editor of Journal XYZ would be sent notice of the submission, and would have 2 weeks(?) to reject or put under review. Status on server would reflect the decision, e.g. "Under review by Journal XYZ". C. Editor would send requests to peer reviewers to review the preprint. Since it's on the server, it's easy to access. D. Comments and mark-up would be done electronically, but off the server, using XML or whatever is chosen as the standard. The reviewers' comments should be confidential to maintain frankness. E. Editorial decision and give-and-take with author proceed as normal, separate from the server, confidentially. F. Journal XYZ would still have responsibility for the quality of the final paper, and would employ copy editors as needed. KEM would establish basic standards of format and coding. G. Before final publishing, paper will be sent to a qualified librarian and/or indexing agency for XML metadata markup. H. Final paper is posted, with author's name and full index record, including Journal XYZ as source. While cutting publishers and indexing services out of the process may save money, I think it will also doom the idea. They add value, and have valuable expertise. They could be paid a fair amount for their services, and the huge efficiencies of a KEM system could still result in a lower total cost of access to scholarly literature.

RE: Gatekeepers, Economics, and Academic Validity

Author: Sarah Brem (129.219.92.---) Date:   10-23-00 14:46 In discussing the possible political consequences of KEM, Willensky says in his article: "Now, it may seem particularly unwise to burden an unproven new system such as the KEM with such additional political (and humane) baggage. Yet if not now, in the very reformation of the publishing process, I would ask, then when exactly would be a good time to expand research's public reach, to extend the basis of its public support and interest?" I think if we *don't* bring on extra "baggage," there will be less reason to leave traditional publishing. I'm not convinced we're going to make much progress unless changes happens on several fronts at once. We need online journals that aren't just copies of print journals. For example, JIME and Kairos are e-journals that really make use of the Web's potential as not just a cheap and easy alternative, but a better alternative. That it is a qualitatively different alternative, though, enabling philosophies like open review, may mean that the tribal leaders won't ever be swayed. But perhaps tribal leaders are made less necessary and less alluring as part of the process. But we need to make changes in the way we scaffold readers at the same time--more baggage to handle the new baggage, as it were. Readers who are used to print media will need some scaffolding just to navigate Kairos or JIME. And in my research I find that the information contained at many sites isn't enough for experts to critically evaluate the ideas, much less lay persons (link coming soon...). Jay Lemke had similar thoughts in his exploration of the NASA Web (http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/education/jlemke/webs/nasa/Davis-NASA.htm). We're going to need to understand much better how information can be extracted and what tools are needed to do it. For example I'm curious about the PKPF for BC schools. I took a quick look, and it seemed that most of the discussion was by a few people who I took to be teachers or researchers. Do you have a sense of how many parents, students, community members, etc. took part, and what they used the system for?

RE: A college librarian's view of KEM

Author: John Willinsky (---.bc.hsia.telus.net) Date:   10-24-00 09:51 Steve I agree that ARL, as it now stands is too exclusive. We need a much more global approach for involving research libraries, perhaps through a consortia of library organizations devoted to the scholarly publishing side of things. The librarians' skills with traditional indexing systems are critical to developing the discipline-specific sets for authors to work from, as well as helping to work out and test better systems, such as the one you've now added to the discussion. We need to explore the possibilities.

RE: A college librarian's view of KEM

Author: David Solomon (---.elnsng1.mi.home.com) Date:   10-26-00 18:18 I think in the abstract, KEM is a great idea and probably the most sensible way to organize a system for disseminating scientific knowledge. However in my opinion it has little chance of succeeding at least in the foreseeable future. It simply runs counter to the interests of too many powerful institutions and people. These include the current commercial publishers, many of the scientific societies and a host of journal editors, members of editorial boards and others, as Gene refers to them, “tribal leaders.” Steve proposes keeping the current publishers in the loop to gain their support and expertise paying them a reasonable fee for their services. Not a bad idea except they are currently getting far more than a reasonable fee for their journals and they control the system – why give it up? I suspect some of you are familiar with the “E-biomed/Pubmed Central” proposal spearheaded about a year and a half ago by Harold Varmus, the then (now former) Director of the National Institutes of Health. ( http://www.nih.gov/about/director/pubmedcentral/ebiomedarch.htm ). I don’t know if Dr. Varmus read some of John’s work or great minds think alike but the parallels are pretty striking in my view. Reading the public commentary on E-biomed is quite enlightening (http://www.nih.gov/about/director/ebiomed/comment.htm ). You can pretty accurately guess what each respondent will say by their stature and position --- “This is a great idea” from graduate students, assistant/associate professors and just about anybody from anywhere other than the USA, Canada, or Western Europe. “This will destroy science as we know it ” from publishers, editors, and senior researchers, ie. the tribal leaders. Unfortunately the proposal for all practical purposes has crashed and burned. Dr. Varmus left the NIH about nine months after making the proposal though I have no idea what if any impact the controversy had on his decision. Here was arguably the most influential person in biomedical research making a proposal for something very similar to KEM. If you look at the comments, the majority of the respondents were enthusiastically behind it, and yet it got blown out of the water. Unfortunately, I think this would be the fate of any serious large-scale attempt at KEM. A KEM type system may well evolve because it clearly makes a lot of sense. But at the moment there are too many people and organizations with vested interests in assuring it does not succeed. In the mean time, free electronic journals are making inroads into the current constipated, overpriced journal system and maybe that is all right for the time being. I posted Max Planck’s quote earlier somewhat in jest but there is a lot of truth in it as well. As the younger scientific (for that matter lay) community grows up comfortable with the notion of freely available electronic information sources, the demand for, and comfort with, a well organized rational, and radically different system for disseminating scholarly information probably will overwhelm the vested interests in opposition to it. At least we can hope.

RE: A college librarian's view of KEM

Author: Timothy McGettigan (158.142.130.---) Date:   10-27-00 08:56 While I think that many of Steve's points about involving libraries in a more inclusive fashion are valuable, I disagree utterly about retaining the traditional editorial process. Why on earth should we invite people to contunue obfuscating the academic publication process? Much less, "pay" them to do so. Nonsense. The virtue of KEM, and other systems like it, is that it serves as a way to avoid the encumbrances of (and, simultaneously, vastly improve upon) "traditional" publication processes. As David makes clear, the goals of KEM-like publication systems are fundamentally at odds with those who have entrenched interests in the publishing status quo. Thus, no matter how much better KEM may be, its appeal is going to be limited for some time to come. Nevertheless, disdain by the academic publishing establishment has actually permitted a great deal of freedom and creativity in the world of online publication: the establishment won't suffer to pay attention to us, and so we can do almost whatever we want. At the moment, resources may be lacking for online publishers, but, arguably, that has helped fueld their creativity. Prematurely embracing back-breaking compromises would be counterproductive to say the least.

A forum moderator's perspective

Author: Shula Klinger (---.intchg2.net.ubc.ca) Date:   11-01-00 10:52 Dear all, Sarah's question about the PKPF was forwarded to me by John Willinsky at UBC. I was the moderator for this discussion, so he has suggested that I respond to the questions regarding the participants; the PKPF has also been the 'site' of my Ph.D. research, so I am still mulling over the experience as I write.... Your observation that most of the discussion was held by a few (of the 70 or so) participants was accurate. In fact, many of these authors were already known to each other, and to the BC Teachers' Federation membership. "The usual suspects," I was told at the time - and my experience since then, observing discussions on Federation listservs, has confirmed this. The PKPF did not become a forum for professionals to become acquainted, debate key issues in educational technology and offer solutions to the Ministry. Early in the forum, participants commented that, in choosing to host this debate online, many points of view had actually been excluded. This view was supported by a teacher from the interior whose internet connection had been disconnected for six months when we spoke. Therefore, only those who felt comfortable and confident with the technology, and those who had regular access, could take part. Technological literacy was not all, however: many teachers have a great deal to offer the conversation but are unfamiliar or uncomfortable joining a discussion on policy. They have few opportunities to do so and some (off the record) expressed great diffidence at the prospect of speaking out honestly, and especially in print. Other teachers simply don't realise how canny their observations are, and don't think to approach decision makers with advice. Finally, while the forum was set up to discuss a specific publication, "Conditions for Success," most participants actually commented on the daily challenges of teaching with technology, on curricular and philosophical issues and on educator training and support. It seemed to me that many participants were trying to have an agenda-setting conversation - when the policy agenda had been set long before, while many teachers were busy (as they describe) choosing to address the pedagogical challenges of the moment. Given the choice of engaging in a policy debate or helping a child to work through the next forty five minutes, the student would win every time. And now... back to my results chapter! Best regards to all, Shula Klinger Doctoral Candidate Faculty of Education University of British Columbia Vancouver, Canada

RE: A forum moderator's perspective

Author: Sarah Brem (129.219.92.---) Date:   11-06-00 14:50 Shula, thanks for your response. One thing I'm not clear on from this discussion as it's currently developing is what the tie between KEM and public knowledge will be. The successful examples of knowledge exchange are LANL are highly technical, with (according to my sources in physics) individuals logging on to read the papers of the dozen or so researchers that they trust to be relevant and worthwhile to their research program. What do you folks think would be needed for KEM to lead to increased public access to knowledge? To date, the most promising public connections to these sources seems to come about through synthesis by intermediaries--e.g., ERIC digests, PARE (http://ericae.net/pare/)--who may or may not be involved in the research process. Is this less desirable, especially when the intermediary does not have first hand experience? If so, why? Sarah

RE: A forum moderator's perspective

Author: Sarah Brem (129.219.92.---) Date:   11-06-00 15:23 Sorry to answer my own post, but I thought this example might help in making clear what I'm getting at. Take Web forums on AIDS or cancer, where patients and their families can go for indepth information, not just 30 sec. "the latest weapon in the arsenal against AIDS" snippets on the news. But often the information is very mixed with respect to technical level. For example, on oncolink (www.oncolink.upenn.edu), common sense guides may be right next to papers filled with jargon that is impenetrable to all but the initiated. The thing is, these patients often are initiates. Epstein's book, Impure Science, for example, tells how AIDS patients have helped to reconceptualize the information ecology of medicine. They become so knowledgeable that they can sit down with researchers and influence the development of the science, and they have the knowledge to outbully any doctor that tries to force them into a treatment they don't want. So, are these members of the public? Is their knowledge public knowledge? In my scheme of things, these folks aren't the public anymore, just experts with a different role. Maybe KEM will lead to the creation of other new classes of experts, but of course none of us will achieve this level of expertise in more than a few areas of our lives, and in the rest we may be in roughly the same place as we are now. Is that the goal? I'm not complaining--it's a fine goal and a far better thing than we have now, but it isn't the same as widespread access and utility. Sarah

RE: A forum moderator's perspective

Author: David Solomon (---.chm.msu.edu) Date:   11-07-00 06:40 Sarah, I think what you describe more than anything demonstrates the tremendous democratizing influence of the free exchange of information provided by electronic dissemination and the growing availability of the Internet access. It’s a two-edge sword, mainly good but with a down side as well. I work in medical education and many of my colleagues are academic physicians. They tell me a growing number of their patients are arriving for appointments with a shelf of articles they downloaded on what ever is ailing them. Overall it is good with these patients having a better understanding of their health problems and better prepared to intelligently discuss treatment options. As active participants in the decision process, they more likely to understand comply with whatever treatment regiment is jointly selected. This is critical, as compliance is a huge problem in medical care. They have also told me that it can be frustrating. The quality of some of the information patients gather is very poor. They spend a lot of time explaining to patients that some of the recommendations they obtain via the Internet are not based on sound scientific evidence and are likely ineffective or even harmful. These issues are not limited to medicine and I suspect are cropping up in all areas of scholarship. Given the direct impact, it just may be a little more noticeable in health care. Dave Solomon

The public agenda, law, moral conscience...

Author: Shula Klinger (---.intchg1.net.ubc.ca) Date:   11-08-00 13:35 Sarah, I'd agree with your point about synthesis. This is the real work, as far as I'm concerned: the more people contribute to an open debate, the more complex and difficult to is to manage. That's where a good editor is needed to summarise the main points of an ongoing discussion and translate the implications of these points for policy or research, depending on the aim and audience for the dialogue. Summaries also help to include people joining the conversation late. So how can the profile of social science research be raised in the public agenda? I think it comes down to the people doing the research, and who they are trained to communicate with.... doing a PhD, I find myself being reminded time and time again that my audience is made up of other academics; there are certainly fewer restrictions in North American academic writing than in the UK, but still I find myself being channelled towards academic publishing because this is the reward for having a Ph.D. But which audience do we want? If we want to reach vast numbers of people, academic publishing cannot be the route... but as you observe, news journalism often conveys only the most superficial or sensational developments in research (human ear grown on mouse, sheep cloned, etc). The challenge, I believe, is for universities to turn out researchers who are capable both of conducting solid, independent research, but who can also turn out newsworthy material which engages the public attention. I wonder if combined PhD's in journalism and education would make a difference? What about medicine and journalism? Or law and journalism? My suggestion is probably shaped by my UK education, where undergraduate degrees are very specialised (ie. you couldn't do anything in journalism if you were taking English Lit), but still.... I think the quality of research we'd hope for in the press ought to be of (at least) a Masters standard.... What do you think? Shula PS As I was writing this, my neighbour came in for a chat. She pointed out (without even knowing the content of our conversation) that "high status" knowledge filters into the collective consciousness when, for example, laws are changed. She illustrated her point using the recent change to the law in BC regarding cases of abuse, where (we believe) it's now an offence to withhold information about a known case of abuse. What is a new law today (ie. high status info/knowledge) becomes expected behaviour tomorrow and subsequently, as she put it, an integral part of our moral consciousness.... that is how our understanding of social responsibility is shaped.. then she thought for a moment, laughed out loud and said "Oh no, we're rats in a Skinner experiment!"