Category Archives
September 24, 2007
Publishing Trends of Top Economic Scholars
I came across this entry in Dani Rodrik's blog that discusses an NBER White Paper by Glenn Ellison. Ellison takes a look at the publishing trends of Harvard economists and recounts his findings on their increasing use of the Internet to publish research findings versus the use of peer reviewed journals. The comments on the blog are interesting and discuss the necessity of publishing to achieve a tenured rank, the "problem" of revisions, and the value of peer review.
To access the actual white paper, please access the UT Library Database page for Business and Economics and scroll down to NBER Working Papers. The Ellison paper was published during July 9-16, 2007 and is entitled Is Peer Review In Decline?
--posted by Robbi De Peri
Posted by colldev at 11:10 PM
September 23, 2007
Response to Publishers attacks on Open Access
SPARC Open Access Newsletter, issue #113 September 2, 2007 by Peter Suber
Will open access undermine peer review?
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/newsletter/09-02-07.htm#peerreview
In this article Peter Suber gives a response to publishers claims that Open Access Journals will undermine and eventually destroy Peer Review Toll-Access Journals.
Suber begins by saying, "As soon as governments started contemplating policies to ensure open access to publicly-funded research, publisher trade associations and lobbying coalitions objected that the policies would undermine peer review." He gives 15 responses to these fears and closes with, "I'm saying that publishers have not even come close to making good on either of their claims, that OA archiving would kill TA journals or that killing TA journals would kill peer review."
--posted by Gypsy Moody
Posted by colldev at 05:16 PM
September 05, 2007
Author discusses pros and cons of internet
This article was forwarded to me on a reference listserv I am subscribed to. Although the overall topic is information literacy, I found it interesting that the focus of the interview, Mark Herring, states that one pressing need for today's academic library is the need to "figure out a way to provide information that is scholarly and peer reviewed for students." He goes on to mention how much his library pays for proprietary databases like Lexis-Nexis.
The more I read about the move for Open Access, the more I believe it will only help and not hurt. If we could give internet ease-of-access combined with high level scholarly communication it seems it would be a win-win situation. What are your thoughts?
Once again, here is the link to the article.
-- Posted by Lisa Burley
Posted by colldev at 03:21 PM
August 18, 2007
"University Publishing in a Digital Age" Noted by Chronicle of Higher Education
A new study by Ithaka, a nonprofit group that promotes the use of information technology in higher education, University Publishing in a Digital Age, was noted by Jennifer Howard in the August 3, 2007 issue of The Chronicle of Higher Education (p. A14). Howard quotes from the study: "In American colleges and universities, access to the Internet and World Wide Web is ubiquitous. Consequently, nearly all intellectual effort results in some form of "publishing.'"
Scholarly publishing may now appear on the Web, in an institutional repository, as well as in a traditional peer-reviewed journal or monograph. While some scholars have been quick to adapt to this rapid transformation, administrators are giving little attention to the changing environment. The report suggests that the scholarly publishing industry may be out of step with the values of the academy.
See the complete report at: http://www.ithaka.org/publications/UniversityPublishingInADigitalAge.
--posted by Linda Phillips
Posted by colldev at 02:58 PM
