Group items tagged

This article discusses the economic nature of publishing from the viewpoint of an author and editor of the works of others. The author explains the legitimacy of publishing companies' practices in the past, but calls into question those of modern for-profit publishers. He rejects the current model, in which his readers would pay more for a day's use of his article than for either of his books, and supports a billable-hours system like that of lawyers or psychiatrists.

Sean Sherlocks speech at Digital Repository of Ireland, and international workshop, addressed the funding provided by sponsors. He states that they will use the funds to create multiple PhD positions specifically allocated towards the digital humanities and it's future in Ireland. He believes that these positions, and all research in digital humanities, well aid Ireland in becoming socially and economically an international powerhouse. He believes that work in the digital humanities will help create jobs, promote economic stability, and will put Ireland in the forefront of education.

This article is an announcement of, and response to statements issued by the AHA on two separate occasions. The author discusses the stagnant nature of attempts to deal with open access with an economic regard to academic journals. He supports a consortium model, and calls for general support for fledgling open access journals from the AHA.

This article discusses the extensive nature of scholarly publishing. He explains the industry in terms of a social contract between the supply side, publication, and the demand side, the consumers. The supply side of this contract has enjoyed large growth recently, with the continued growth of digital outlets, while the demand side has remained stationary, maintaining its view of the book as the definitive form of publication. In conclusion, the author argues that curation will solve this problem, and become more important that publication once publication ceases to be limited.

This article expands on the subjects discussed in Dan Cohen's earlier article on The Social Contract of Scholarly Publishing. He breaks the supply and demand model, introduced in the previous article, into four influential categories that need focus to better both sides. He argues for impartiality when approaching a text, passion for the subject, shame for the lack of sharing compared to other fields, and the shift from narcissistic desires for compensation to a desire for communal knowledge.

The Sloan Foundation focuses its grants in science, technology, and economic institutions that they believe will improve American quality of life. Many of the open-access journals and projects that the Sloan foundation provides grants for fall under the initiatives for Information Technology and the Dissemination of Knowledge. The initiative look for projects that expand public access to research journals, archives, and books online.

This blog post by Dan Cohen discusses the collection of digital ephemera, such as twitter posts, and its legitimate relevance to historical analysis. Cohen leans towards supporting the Library of Congress in their decision to take historical artifacts like this seriously, citing examples of thankful historians rejoicing over the preservation of what was thought to be scrap paper. He then goes on to discuss the problem in terms of costs, noting the relatively cheep nature of the digital texts.

In China scientist are rewarded with cash for publishing an article in a prestigious general. The more prestigious the journal, the larger the sum. So because of the limited international circulation of Chinese journals, there is a real push to have one's work appear in an international index, such as the science citation index, Engineering index, or the index to scientific & technical proceedings. The author of this article Does the Chinese Model Make Sense, Phil Davis, questions wither or not this model is authentic. He believes that the need for money will eventually exceed the need to produce valid, and original work. Davis is able to justify is argument by mentioning previous works that were written by the chinese that had an extreme amount of plagerism and unoriginal work. From this evidence he was able to persuade readers that the Chinese Model did not make sense nor did it have any valid points. His commentary was a critque of the article The outflow of academic papers from China: Why it happening and can it be stemmed, written by Shao Jufang and Shen Huiyun.

Cohen cites PressForward as a model for the "catching the good" 'style' publication. He believes that scholarly journals should "catch" works that they think should see a wider audience, as opposed to reject and criticize those that are deemed "bad." He emphasizes that there is no submission process. He argues that this form encourages publication and creativity.