Dear all,

After consulting the organizing persons of MTSR'05
(http://www.metadata-semantics.org/), they have agreed to have a
special track on MTSR'05 on "Open Research: Concepts and Tools". The
following are the very special characteristics of the track:

- Extended abstracts (2-3 pages) have to be submitted before September
15th, using the regular submission system, and indicating that the
paper goes for the OR track (as a comment somewhere in the form).

- Papers will be subject to a quick evaluation for appropriateness to
the topics of the track.

- Accepted extended abstracts will be presented using the on-line
discussion rooms of MTSR'05 (at this point, we can include some form
of "parallel" review by other people in the Yahoo list of OR)

- Registration payment is required only for those authors that want
they papers to be included in the post-proceedings of the conference,
after extension and revision.

The topics may be conceptual (economic models, ethics, reflection on
refereeing systems, etc.) but also technical (systems for open
journals, experiences in running open journals, metadata for open
journals, analysis of impact, proposals for new metrics). The
important issue with the papers is that they are interesting to open
research-interested people.

The track will only be possible if some of us agree to elaborate the
extended abstracts in that short time frame. This is why I kindly ask
you to put a reply to this message if you have the intention to submit.


All the best,

Miltiadis.

Hi All,

I fully subscribe to such a good initiative which I think would serve
as an appropriate forum for deliberations on all about information
systems (IS) technology and the optimum benefits to derive thereof. I
intend pursuing a PhD program in IS and would need a sponsorship.

Yaw Asante.

Would like to hear from experienced researchers how to
get a research PhD sponsorship. I will be finishing my
MSc Strategic Business IT in Septemeber 2005 and
looking forward for a PhD research program.

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
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Dear Konstantinos and dear all,

That's an important point. Open research is *not only* open journals,
but open conferences, open research projects, open Ph.Ds. etc.

I would like to comment some on these other issues:

1) The MTSR'05 (I am one of the organizers) is an on-line conference
that promotes the importance of on-line discussion, since the
proceedings are printed AFTER the discussions, so that there is time
to integrate them. See here:

http://www.metadata-semantics.org/

The deadline is still open (and the fees are low!), consider
submitting your work, it would be very nice to have some of you in
the conference!

2) We organized at my Univ. a workshop in "blended" mode, with no
registration fees, called ONTOSE:

http://www.cc.uah.es/msicilia/ws-onto/

It was a wonderful experience from my viewpoint. You can read a
report on the last SIGSEMIS bulletin:
http://www.sigsemis.org/newsletter/july2005/vol2_issue2.pdf


3) I started some kind of "open Ph.D." with some foreign students,
that is, they apply for the program at my Univ. and I give them the
possibility to do the seminars on-line. Then, the actual Ph.D. work
is conducted at a distance, with a co-supervisor in the other country
(from now, this is working between Greece and Spain). This is an
answer for people that are not interested in the programs offered at
their countries or regions and want to start a research collaboration
witouth the need to move for several years to other country.

Just some thoughs...

All the best,
Miguel-Angel



--- In open-research-society@yahoogroups.com, "K. Kotis" <kkot@a...>
wrote:
> Dear fellows,
>
> indeed, an alternative Journal would be the one that offers such
services
> that will certainly encourage new researchers to try out for their
skills
> for their first time! However, I believe that also experienced
researchers
> will be tempted to submit breakthrough ideas, ...ideas that
elsewhere (in
> traditional Journals and their reviewers) would have been almost
certainly
> rejected.
>
> In my opinion, the open research initiative should not only consider
> Journals as a medium of realizing this great idea. An alternative
medium
> could be an Open Conference, a conference for Open people with Open
ideas.
> In such a way, the open research society will have its own space
and time to
> exchange research and socialize in a completely different way than
the
> traditional conferences. Just imagine an annual international
conference
> (could be "virtual"?) where research papers will not be left out
because of
> the conference schedule (or limit of pages)!!!! Or even more
differently,
> think of a conference session where the "best rejected" papers will
have the
> chance to become accepted, not by a board of reviewers, but by the
highly
> qualified audience...!
>
> I hope these ideas to be further elaborated and become the new
roadmap of
> research for the common interest.
>
> Regards,
>
> Konstantinos
>
>   _____

Dear all,
i am very happy for your reaction to our initiative and i do believe that we can make something different and important. The obvious reason for this is the fact that almost every scientific-acadmic community worldwide is thinking about the one-way road of open access, open research etc.

I decided to boost this initiative for one reason that maybe it sounds stupid. Recently in the European Conference of Information Systems (ECIS 2005) I attended to one session entitled "Meet the editors" whre 5 editors of 5 top IS journals presented their publication strategy. I was very courious to see their approaches and thinking. So after a hard 20 minutes shaking of my hand they gave me the opportunity to ask my question. and I just asked the obvious:

"What about open access? What about the fact that 3 years is required for a publication in an A journal like MISQ etc". The result was NO ANSWER. They didnt even said a word as an answer!!! This was the momment that I felt that we have to act!!! Because rigorous journals get their value from the contributors that need just support in the developmental process of their ideas and the highest possible dissemination of their research.

Recently one more fact forced me to act. As the editor in chief of 3 Journals I face the anxiety of publishers to cover the expanses of the publications (the fixed costs plus marketing etc), so in one journal we have to pursue the X number of subscribers in the next year in order to have a sustained "business model" that will help us to continue contributing to our communities. It is almost evident that printed publications  suffer from the subscribers syndrome which i like to call the non-flexible pricing mechanisms of publishers. In a next mail i will explain further what i mean as non-flexible pricing mechanisms or the misconception of pricing.

I will try very brief to point out some bullets that provide a vision for the open research society:

1) We need to establish our Society as an "Association". So we have to develop our by-laws and maybe we have to make this in a legal form for many reasons. This is an issue of discussion.

2) It is critical to extend the real meaning of OPEN RESEARCH. To this direction my very best friend Amjorn Naeve from the Royal Institute of Technology in Sweden has expressed many aspects and is one of the most important contributors of our vision. Very soon i will ask him to contribute to our debate. (http://kmr.nada.kth.se). In a way this must be done in combination with what i call Humanistic TechnoManagement. In simple words it would be very interesting to see our society under the general title OPEN SOCIETY which means that all of our efforts are concentrated on actions that proove how technologies and research can be applied for the common wealth. Think about a TECHNO-LEAD  "GREENPEACE like" OPEN SOCIETY which cultivates new social sensitive objectives. This is for me a life time dream and objective and i think we can pursue it. This means that we can establish national branches of this OPEN SOCIETY and to go for worldwide actions through emerging technologies. We could try this at the beggining in a X number of countries. I think that it is quite easy to try it in 25 countries until the end of the year.

I have developed a draft document on such a model of organization but we have to put our creative thinking in order to adress a real wordwide need for the developemnt of our OS.

3. After this discussion for the vision and the organization of O(R)S we have to think about our communication means. I think that we can act in many different directions. Here are some thoughts:


-> ORS must help people who are interested in the launch of OPEN RESEARCH journals. This means that we could provide them our know how and infrastrucutres as well as our high quality standards for publications. This is maybe a longterm objective. In the short term I think we must concentrate to some priorities:

-> We must go ASAP to the launch of the International Journal of OPEN (RESEARCH) SOCIETY. This will help us to communicate and to develop our scope trough essays, vision papers, non typical as well as full research papers. This is for me one of the first actions.

-> We must decide in the next month 3 key journals for our society. The one must be the OPEN RESEARCH on IS, a journal that very soon we will promote and deliver a CFP fior the inaugural issue. I have several other relevant titles on my mind but we can reach to a final decision on this.

Of course all these things require resources. I am very optimistic on this and  we can discuss what is required at the beginning.

From the 100s of mails i received one made me really happy. At the beggining there was the expression of interest to our initiative by a very good guy. At the bootom of the mail it was left the initial forward of one of his collegues stating with my announcment. In the communication of the two friends was told:
"It sound like mad but this is something we were thinking and discussed many times. The success depends on the people behind it:)".

So my friends we will SUCCEED!!!

The MAD miltiadis:)

PS: for the operational issues of our journals we can conclude to a great review and publication model. To be continued...

Hi,

I am a bit late with my proposal on how to deal with research quality
ensurance. I think it would fit most the idea of an open research
society that:

(1) there is such a quality ensurance process,

(2) quality ensurance is based on peer-reviews,

(3) paper rerviews are publicly available and not anonymized,

(4) paper reviews are subject to approval by the community.

I believe that the current system of anonymous reviews does not
contribute to quality ensureance. Rather it prmotes the creation of
schooles and individual power.

I agree in the potential critique of my proposal that it takes time to
organize for peer reviews and their approval. I concede that my
proposal is not fully worked out in so far as no procedure for
community approval of paper reviews is proposed. That could be fixed
if we would agree on the basic idea. However, I think my proposal
results in quality and objectivity.

Best regards, Roland Kaschek.




--- In open-research-society@yahoogroups.com, "K. Kotis" <kkot@a...>
wrote:
> Dear fellows,
>
> indeed, an alternative Journal would be the one that offers such
services
> that will certainly encourage new researchers to try out for their
skills
> for their first time! However, I believe that also experienced
researchers
> will be tempted to submit breakthrough ideas, ...ideas that
elsewhere (in
> traditional Journals and their reviewers) would have been almost
certainly
> rejected.
>
> In my opinion, the open research initiative should not only consider
> Journals as a medium of realizing this great idea. An alternative medium
> could be an Open Conference, a conference for Open people with Open
ideas.
> In such a way, the open research society will have its own space and
time to
> exchange research and socialize in a completely different way than the
> traditional conferences. Just imagine an annual international conference
> (could be "virtual"?) where research papers will not be left out
because of
> the conference schedule (or limit of pages)!!!! Or even more
differently,
> think of a conference session where the "best rejected" papers will
have the
> chance to become accepted, not by a board of reviewers, but by the
highly
> qualified audience...!
>
> I hope these ideas to be further elaborated and become the new
roadmap of
> research for the common interest.
>
> Regards,
>
> Konstantinos
>
>   _____
>
> From: open-research-society@yahoogroups.com
> [mailto:open-research-society@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of Peter
> Bloodsworth
> Sent: Sunday, August 21, 2005 3:00 PM
> To: open-research-society@yahoogroups.com
> Subject: [open-research-society] Re: Alternatives to standard peer
review
>
>
> Dear All,
>
> I think the problem we have here is a trade-off between rigorous
> academic review and the length of time that is necessary to complete
> the process. It is vital that the Journal meets the highest standards
> of rigor - otherwise the impact of it will be seriously undermined. I
> agree with Miguel, that having a large group of editorial board
> members is key because then each will have fewer reviews to complete,
> which should lead to a higher quality of review.
>
> It appears that the idea of having "developmental" informal reviews
> could act as a feeder process into the main Journal. This would be of
> great use to those just starting out in academia as it would provide
> feedback without the fear factor. It may also allow new ideas room to
> breath. I is often the case that exciting concepts are rejected simply
> because the researcher is inexperienced at putting the ideas across.
> The current standard review process makes this even more difficult as
> you only find out that you have described something when you get
> rejected. Often feedback is rather poor and you can be left with the
> feeling that if only you could talk to the reviewer the outcome would
> be very different.
>
> Is it possible that this feeder process could be accomplished using a
> forum not dissimilar to Yahoo-Groups? Much of the work done by the
> open-source community uses forums to discuss ideas, problems and
> future work. Those with greater experience in the group guide others
> with less. Could we adopt this process with perhaps an expression of
> interest and an initial rough draft of a paper being posted on the
> forum for others (the many) to comment on. I am sure that this would
> encourage collaboration and result in a higher quality of publication.
> It would also allow the community as a whole to guide future
> generations of researchers.
>
>
>
> Kind Regards,
>
> Peter
>
>
> --- In open-research-society@yahoogroups.com, "masicilia"
> <msicilia@u...> wrote:
> > Dear Christian and dear all,
> >
> > I agree with you Christian in that something different to standard
peer
> > review should be done in a open research society. However, I think
that
> > the following points are important:
> >
> > 1) Peer review is old as modern techno-science, and possibly we could
> > not get the journals indexed if we do not adhere to "some form" of
peer
> > review. Removal of peer-review would make the journal be rejected in
> > some countries, e.g. in Spain. :-(
> >
> > 2) The view that many review the many is attracting, but what
would be
> > the concrete review process (the concrete steps and time frame)? The
> > wikipedia is a good model (even though the information put there, at
> > least in the spanish site for politics, is clearly biased) but for
long-
> > running reviews, not for publications that are supposed to be fixed
> > after acceptance and require fast review for the attribution of
> > priority in research results. So I think the model is not directly
> > useful as is, but that it must be "tailored".
> >
> > I have some ideas about alternatives to standard process that are
"more
> > or less" compatible with the traditional view (so that the best of
both
> > worlds could be mantained):
> >
> > 1) Rotating and large editorial boards. Rotation can be
established as
> > a principle from the beginning, so that it becomes a standard of the
> > journal, and it gives chances for more people to collaborate.
> >
> > 2) The peer-review process could be done in two fashions:
> > - "Normal" peer review, but with fast, "guaranteed" turnaround.
> > - "Developmental" review, in which the author submits a *draft*
and it
> > is reviewed informally by many. Then, from the informal review, it is
> > decided o go on to submit a full-prepared manuscript. This is
specially
> > useful for "special issues" and also as a way for new ideas.
> >
> > 3) The time to review will be fixed for reviewers, and failure to
meet
> > the deadlines will eventually result in exclusion. That is, review
> > requires a strong commitmment, and I feel that this is closer to open
> > source, in which leaders are usually hard workers.
> >
> > I believe that the shift should be that of giving guarantees to
authors
> > that their submissions will be properly reviewed in a fixed, short
> > time, which gives them the opportunity to sumbit quickly to other
> > journal is the result is negative. I have many times suffered
> > supposedly "fast" processes that end in waiting a year to obtain very
> > weak reviews. This of course must be avoided by all means.
> >
> > All the best,
> > Miguel Angel.
> >
> > --- In open-research-society@yahoogroups.com, "Christian Wagner"
> > <christian@w...> wrote:
> > > I have read with interest the various arguments on the editorial /
> > > journal system and process.
> > >
> > > My argument, to reiterate, is to brake away from traditional
views of
> > > editorial boards and such.
> > >
> > > An open research society should, in my opinion, adopt more the
> > > principles of opensource, including a peer review process where the
> > > many review the many.
> > >
> > > Some of you may know the wikipedia (http://wikipedia.org), an online
> > > encyclopedia which is entirely peer reviewed and revised, without an
> > > editorial review board as an intermediary that slows down the
> > > publication process.  This model, and the model of slashdot.org or
> > > kuro5hin.org (as mentioned earlier) would seem more appropriate
to me,
> > > to produce a paradigm shift.
>
>
>
>
>
> SPONSORED LINKS
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>
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>
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>
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> Promote
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> cAA>
>
>   _____
>
> YAHOO! GROUPS LINKS
>
>
>
> *  Visit your group "open-research-society
> <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/open-research-society> " on the web.
>
>
> *  To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
>  open-research-society-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
>
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>
> *  Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service
> <http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/> .
>
>
>   _____

Dear All,

I think the problem we have here is a trade-off between rigorous
academic review and the length of time that is necessary to complete
the process. It is vital that the Journal meets the highest standards
of rigor - otherwise the impact of it will be seriously undermined. I
agree with Miguel, that having a large group of editorial board
members is key because then each will have fewer reviews to complete,
which should lead to a higher quality of review.

It appears that the idea of having "developmental" informal reviews
could act as a feeder process into the main Journal. This would be of
great use to those just starting out in academia as it would provide
feedback without the fear factor. It may also allow new ideas room to
breath. I is often the case that exciting concepts are rejected simply
because the researcher is inexperienced at putting the ideas across.
The current standard review process makes this even more difficult as
you only find out that you have described something when you get
rejected. Often feedback is rather poor and you can be left with the
feeling that if only you could talk to the reviewer the outcome would
be very different.

Is it possible that this feeder process could be accomplished using a
forum not dissimilar to Yahoo-Groups? Much of the work done by the
open-source community uses forums to discuss ideas, problems and
future work. Those with greater experience in the group guide others
with less. Could we adopt this process with perhaps an expression of
interest and an initial rough draft of a paper being posted on the
forum for others (the many) to comment on. I am sure that this would
encourage collaboration and result in a higher quality of publication.
It would also allow the community as a whole to guide future
generations of researchers.



Kind Regards,

Peter


--- In open-research-society@yahoogroups.com, "masicilia"
<msicilia@u...> wrote:
> Dear Christian and dear all,
>
> I agree with you Christian in that something different to standard peer
> review should be done in a open research society. However, I think that
> the following points are important:
>
> 1) Peer review is old as modern techno-science, and possibly we could
> not get the journals indexed if we do not adhere to "some form" of peer
> review. Removal of peer-review would make the journal be rejected in
> some countries, e.g. in Spain. :-(
>
> 2) The view that many review the many is attracting, but what would be
> the concrete review process (the concrete steps and time frame)? The
> wikipedia is a good model (even though the information put there, at
> least in the spanish site for politics, is clearly biased) but for long-
> running reviews, not for publications that are supposed to be fixed
> after acceptance and require fast review for the attribution of
> priority in research results. So I think the model is not directly
> useful as is, but that it must be "tailored".
>
> I have some ideas about alternatives to standard process that are "more
> or less" compatible with the traditional view (so that the best of both
> worlds could be mantained):
>
> 1) Rotating and large editorial boards. Rotation can be established as
> a principle from the beginning, so that it becomes a standard of the
> journal, and it gives chances for more people to collaborate.
>
> 2) The peer-review process could be done in two fashions:
> - "Normal" peer review, but with fast, "guaranteed" turnaround.
> - "Developmental" review, in which the author submits a *draft* and it
> is reviewed informally by many. Then, from the informal review, it is
> decided o go on to submit a full-prepared manuscript. This is specially
> useful for "special issues" and also as a way for new ideas.
>
> 3) The time to review will be fixed for reviewers, and failure to meet
> the deadlines will eventually result in exclusion. That is, review
> requires a strong commitmment, and I feel that this is closer to open
> source, in which leaders are usually hard workers.
>
> I believe that the shift should be that of giving guarantees to authors
> that their submissions will be properly reviewed in a fixed, short
> time, which gives them the opportunity to sumbit quickly to other
> journal is the result is negative. I have many times suffered
> supposedly "fast" processes that end in waiting a year to obtain very
> weak reviews. This of course must be avoided by all means.
>
> All the best,
> Miguel Angel.
>
> --- In open-research-society@yahoogroups.com, "Christian Wagner"
> <christian@w...> wrote:
> > I have read with interest the various arguments on the editorial /
> > journal system and process.
> >
> > My argument, to reiterate, is to brake away from traditional views of
> > editorial boards and such.
> >
> > An open research society should, in my opinion, adopt more the
> > principles of opensource, including a peer review process where the
> > many review the many.
> >
> > Some of you may know the wikipedia (http://wikipedia.org), an online
> > encyclopedia which is entirely peer reviewed and revised, without an
> > editorial review board as an intermediary that slows down the
> > publication process.  This model, and the model of slashdot.org or
> > kuro5hin.org (as mentioned earlier) would seem more appropriate to me,
> > to produce a paradigm shift.

Dear Christian and dear all,

I agree with you Christian in that something different to standard peer
review should be done in a open research society. However, I think that
the following points are important:

1) Peer review is old as modern techno-science, and possibly we could
not get the journals indexed if we do not adhere to "some form" of peer
review. Removal of peer-review would make the journal be rejected in
some countries, e.g. in Spain. :-(

2) The view that many review the many is attracting, but what would be
the concrete review process (the concrete steps and time frame)? The
wikipedia is a good model (even though the information put there, at
least in the spanish site for politics, is clearly biased) but for long-
running reviews, not for publications that are supposed to be fixed
after acceptance and require fast review for the attribution of
priority in research results. So I think the model is not directly
useful as is, but that it must be "tailored".

I have some ideas about alternatives to standard process that are "more
or less" compatible with the traditional view (so that the best of both
worlds could be mantained):

1) Rotating and large editorial boards. Rotation can be established as
a principle from the beginning, so that it becomes a standard of the
journal, and it gives chances for more people to collaborate.

2) The peer-review process could be done in two fashions:
- "Normal" peer review, but with fast, "guaranteed" turnaround.
- "Developmental" review, in which the author submits a *draft* and it
is reviewed informally by many. Then, from the informal review, it is
decided o go on to submit a full-prepared manuscript. This is specially
useful for "special issues" and also as a way for new ideas.

3) The time to review will be fixed for reviewers, and failure to meet
the deadlines will eventually result in exclusion. That is, review
requires a strong commitmment, and I feel that this is closer to open
source, in which leaders are usually hard workers.

I believe that the shift should be that of giving guarantees to authors
that their submissions will be properly reviewed in a fixed, short
time, which gives them the opportunity to sumbit quickly to other
journal is the result is negative. I have many times suffered
supposedly "fast" processes that end in waiting a year to obtain very
weak reviews. This of course must be avoided by all means.

All the best,
Miguel Angel.

--- In open-research-society@yahoogroups.com, "Christian Wagner"
<christian@w...> wrote:
> I have read with interest the various arguments on the editorial /
> journal system and process.
>
> My argument, to reiterate, is to brake away from traditional views of
> editorial boards and such.
>
> An open research society should, in my opinion, adopt more the
> principles of opensource, including a peer review process where the
> many review the many.
>
> Some of you may know the wikipedia (http://wikipedia.org), an online
> encyclopedia which is entirely peer reviewed and revised, without an
> editorial review board as an intermediary that slows down the
> publication process.  This model, and the model of slashdot.org or
> kuro5hin.org (as mentioned earlier) would seem more appropriate to me,
> to produce a paradigm shift.

In the new era of open, distributed, and fast evolving research
subjects such as the Semantic Web, it is very exciting to see new
research and publication initiatives such as the open-research-society
(and journals). I wish good luck to all of us.

I have read with interest the various arguments on the editorial /
journal system and process.

My argument, to reiterate, is to brake away from traditional views of
editorial boards and such.

An open research society should, in my opinion, adopt more the
principles of opensource, including a peer review process where the
many review the many.

Some of you may know the wikipedia (http://wikipedia.org), an online
encyclopedia which is entirely peer reviewed and revised, without an
editorial review board as an intermediary that slows down the
publication process.  This model, and the model of slashdot.org or
kuro5hin.org (as mentioned earlier) would seem more appropriate to me,
to produce a paradigm shift.

Hi All,

I am Ponnurangam K (PK), I am a second year PhD. student in the School
of Computer Science and my areas of research range from representing
privacy policies in Machine Readable format, cross-cultural privacy
issues (specifically in the US and India), Electronic Voting and
privacy related to RFID. In particular I am interested in any form of
inter-disciplinary research in privacy related areas (IS, Usability,
Databases, etc.).

I completely agree with the view of Wolfgang, Miguel and others who
have posted regarding the structure of the journal in the following
points:
- Definitely we need to have a high standard / quality of research
work  which we should be publishing
- We definitely need to have commitment by the Review board members
and  Editorial board members. To do this, I think having nominal fee
for both the groups should be acceptable (I leave it for the group to
decide)

In particular this forum must help researchers (in same or different
areas) to work on common issues, contribute to their own respective
field. I sincerely think that this is a great initiative where we
would want to build open research society.

I certainly would like to contribute as much as possible.

Regards,
PK

Hello Miguel and everybody,
I am a researcher at the University of St. Gallen, Switzerland, and
work in the area of knowledge marketplaces and ontology-based systems.
First, let me say that I highly appreciate Miltiadis' initiative. The
IS community seems to be a bit slow in adopting Open Access mind sets
that are already well established in research areas such as Physics
and Medicine.
Let me give some notes on my experience with online and print
journals. At our institute (media and communications management -
www.mcm.unisg.ch) we are hosting two journals (Electronic Markets and
Journal on Media Management). The EM Journal started in 1991 and the
JMM in 1999 as a print and online journal. We implemented everything
by ourselves - first based on Lotus Notes and now on PHP/mySQL.
Counting everything together, i.e. software, editorial work and
marketing, we invested several million Euros (no joke!). As a result
the EM Journal is now ranked 3rd regarding e-commerce research
world-wide.
A decision we had to make quite early for the EM Journal was how to
deal with a high-quality print journal. Therefore we made a joint
venture with Routledge in 1999 and recently with Erlbaum as well for
the JMM. The good thing was that we disposed of all printing issues.
The bad thing was and still is that we received little financial
returns but still have to pay our editors and the technical
infrastructure of the overall journal web site and online management.
Publishers do more or less nothing for growing a journal. Now that the
Open Access initiative is gaining momentum, we might have decided for
a different business model.

Therefore I fully agree with Miguels hint that the journal management
has to be financed. Additionally I learned that it is important to
decide on a thoroughly designed business model from the beginning on.
Some questions on the design of an Open Access journal that
immediately poped-up to my mind are:
- Shall it become journal with "ranking quality"?
- Shall it be an online journal or a hybrid journal?
- Who will be the editor-in-chief?
- Who will be the initial board member?
- Which are the important online networks to connect with?

I believe that a good online journal can be managed by a really
dedicated 50%-editor, a dedicated editor-in-chief and an appropriate
intial board. If not done by the editor-in-chief herself, the editor
costs are permanent costs which leads to the question how is this
resource paid from the very first day on but also in the years
thereafter. Continuity is key!
These are some initial thoughts on this topic.

many greetings

Wolfgang

--- In open-research-society@yahoogroups.com, "masicilia"
<msicilia@u...> wrote:
> Dear all and dear Christian,
>
> I completely agree that paper publication must not be a cause of
> delays and restrictions on number of pages. In fact, the plan I
> briefly described was based on quick digital publication, with the
> printed versions coming afterwards as a secondary element.
>
> The "printing on demand" is a nice concept, except that many
printing
> services require a minimum order of 5-10 copies, but this is
probably
> not a big problem.
> Just to continue with the example I commented you, if we adhere to
> such "printing on demand", the fees result as follow:
> - Fee for EB members: About 20 Euros/year
> - Fee for paper published: About 10 euros
> - Printed copies: about 20 Euros.
>
> And a point I didn't mention is that the economic model *scales*. I
> suppose that the initiative of this Open-Research Society is to
host
> *many* journals as the BMC or PLOS (if I am wrong, please
Miltiadis,
> correct me :-))  so that the excedent in funding from one can be
used
> for other. However, I still think that the fee model is required,
> since the cost of management of the digital journals (specially for
> collections or journals) must be paid somewhat to guarantee
> continuity!.
>
> Regards,
> Miguel Angel
>
> --- In open-research-society@yahoogroups.com, "Christian Wagner"
> <christian@w...> wrote:
> > I too agree that a model with author fees is restrictive for the
> > publication of research.  I would even go further and suggest
that
> any
> > "paper based" journal model stiffles research publication.  In
paper
> > based journals, the marginal cost for every page printed is
> considered
> > and so an artifical scarcity is produced, resulting in a
"pipeline"
> > and publication delays.
> >
> > An open research model should better align itself with the
> publication
> > models of slashdot.org or kuro5hin.org, both of which have peer
> > review, yet fast publication, and large readership. Both are
> > electronic publication models.
> >
> > I would consider an alternate paper based model, where the
> publication
> > is essentially electronic, but authors could request (at their
> cost) a
> > "bound journal issue" (printing on demand) so that they can give
it
> to
> > their Dean at the time of tenure decisions.
> >
> > If you have not seen it, the University of British Columbia
offers a
> > free software for the management of electronic journals.  You can
> find
> > it at http://www.pkp.ubc.ca/ and it runs on a PhP/MySQL platform
> > (either with Linux/Apache or with Windows + web server).

Firstly a big hello to you all, my name is Peter Bloodsworth and I am
currently a Research Student at Oxford Brookes University in the UK.
This is a very interesting discussion - here are my views. I believe
that Christian is correct in saying that electronic publication should
be the primary method as this encourages the dissemination of
cutting-edge technologies. I think that this is important because the
speed of development within mainstream Journals is often too
ponderous. Personally speaking it would be nice if there could be an
open exchange of new ideas encouraging a process of group
revision/comment that eventually leads to publication. I suppose this
would be a forum for collaborative research, that could run in
parallel with the Journals. When it comes to printed versions of the
Journals - might it be possible to provide a print yourself option. If
the online Journals were created to a very high standard surely any
laser printer will produce an acceptable hard copy which then can be
bound. Obviously this would depend on employing strong Journal
branding in the online version. I am not sure if this is possible but
it would solve certain problems. On the fees front, I see no problem
with what has been suggested provided that they are kept at a level
which does not prevent access to those with more modest means. Perhaps
one issue of the Journal a year could be completely open with no fees
at all?


Regards,


Peter



--- In open-research-society@yahoogroups.com, "masicilia"
<msicilia@u...> wrote:
> Dear all and dear Christian,
>
> I completely agree that paper publication must not be a cause of
> delays and restrictions on number of pages. In fact, the plan I
> briefly described was based on quick digital publication, with the
> printed versions coming afterwards as a secondary element.
>
> The "printing on demand" is a nice concept, except that many
printing
> services require a minimum order of 5-10 copies, but this is
probably
> not a big problem.
> Just to continue with the example I commented you, if we adhere to
> such "printing on demand", the fees result as follow:
> - Fee for EB members: About 20 Euros/year
> - Fee for paper published: About 10 euros
> - Printed copies: about 20 Euros.
>
> And a point I didn't mention is that the economic model *scales*. I
> suppose that the initiative of this Open-Research Society is to
host
> *many* journals as the BMC or PLOS (if I am wrong, please
Miltiadis,
> correct me :-))  so that the excedent in funding from one can be
used
> for other. However, I still think that the fee model is required,
> since the cost of management of the digital journals (specially for
> collections or journals) must be paid somewhat to guarantee
> continuity!.
>
> Regards,
> Miguel Angel
>
> --- In open-research-society@yahoogroups.com, "Christian Wagner"
> <christian@w...> wrote:
> > I too agree that a model with author fees is restrictive for the
> > publication of research.  I would even go further and suggest
that
> any
> > "paper based" journal model stiffles research publication.  In
paper
> > based journals, the marginal cost for every page printed is
> considered
> > and so an artifical scarcity is produced, resulting in a
"pipeline"
> > and publication delays.
> >
> > An open research model should better align itself with the
> publication
> > models of slashdot.org or kuro5hin.org, both of which have peer
> > review, yet fast publication, and large readership. Both are
> > electronic publication models.
> >
> > I would consider an alternate paper based model, where the
> publication
> > is essentially electronic, but authors could request (at their
> cost) a
> > "bound journal issue" (printing on demand) so that they can give
it
> to
> > their Dean at the time of tenure decisions.
> >
> > If you have not seen it, the University of British Columbia
offers a
> > free software for the management of electronic journals.  You can
> find
> > it at http://www.pkp.ubc.ca/ and it runs on a PhP/MySQL platform
> > (either with Linux/Apache or with Windows + web server).

Dear all and dear Christian,

I completely agree that paper publication must not be a cause of
delays and restrictions on number of pages. In fact, the plan I
briefly described was based on quick digital publication, with the
printed versions coming afterwards as a secondary element.

The "printing on demand" is a nice concept, except that many printing
services require a minimum order of 5-10 copies, but this is probably
not a big problem.
Just to continue with the example I commented you, if we adhere to
such "printing on demand", the fees result as follow:
- Fee for EB members: About 20 Euros/year
- Fee for paper published: About 10 euros
- Printed copies: about 20 Euros.

And a point I didn't mention is that the economic model *scales*. I
suppose that the initiative of this Open-Research Society is to host
*many* journals as the BMC or PLOS (if I am wrong, please Miltiadis,
correct me :-))  so that the excedent in funding from one can be used
for other. However, I still think that the fee model is required,
since the cost of management of the digital journals (specially for
collections or journals) must be paid somewhat to guarantee
continuity!.

Regards,
Miguel Angel

--- In open-research-society@yahoogroups.com, "Christian Wagner"
<christian@w...> wrote:
> I too agree that a model with author fees is restrictive for the
> publication of research.  I would even go further and suggest that
any
> "paper based" journal model stiffles research publication.  In paper
> based journals, the marginal cost for every page printed is
considered
> and so an artifical scarcity is produced, resulting in a "pipeline"
> and publication delays.
>
> An open research model should better align itself with the
publication
> models of slashdot.org or kuro5hin.org, both of which have peer
> review, yet fast publication, and large readership. Both are
> electronic publication models.
>
> I would consider an alternate paper based model, where the
publication
> is essentially electronic, but authors could request (at their
cost) a
> "bound journal issue" (printing on demand) so that they can give it
to
> their Dean at the time of tenure decisions.
>
> If you have not seen it, the University of British Columbia offers a
> free software for the management of electronic journals.  You can
find
> it at http://www.pkp.ubc.ca/ and it runs on a PhP/MySQL platform
> (either with Linux/Apache or with Windows + web server).

Hi

I agree with Christian about the restrictive nature of fees and
paper-based publishing.

The Public Knowledge Project at http://www.pkp.ubc.ca/ is well worth a
visit for journal and conference software.The Open Journal Systems
(OJS) software at   http://pkp.sfu.ca/ojs/  is excellent. I use it for
the open access journal "International Journal of Education and
Development using Information and Communication Technology (IJEDICT)"
at:
      http://ijedict.dec.uwi.edu/index.php

Regards

Stewart

On 8/18/05, Christian Wagner <christian@...> wrote:
> I too agree that a model with author fees is restrictive for the
> publication of research.  I would even go further and suggest that any
> "paper based" journal model stiffles research publication.  In paper
> based journals, the marginal cost for every page printed is considered
> and so an artifical scarcity is produced, resulting in a "pipeline"
> and publication delays.
>
> An open research model should better align itself with the publication
> models of slashdot.org or kuro5hin.org, both of which have peer
> review, yet fast publication, and large readership. Both are
> electronic publication models.
>
> I would consider an alternate paper based model, where the publication
> is essentially electronic, but authors could request (at their cost) a
> "bound journal issue" (printing on demand) so that they can give it to
> their Dean at the time of tenure decisions.
>
> If you have not seen it, the University of British Columbia offers a
> free software for the management of electronic journals.  You can find
> it at http://www.pkp.ubc.ca/ and it runs on a PhP/MySQL platform
> (either with Linux/Apache or with Windows + web server).
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>


--
Professor Stewart Marshall
Director, Distance Education Centre
The University of the West Indies
Cave Hill Campus, Bridgetown, BARBADOS, West Indies
phone:   +1 246 417 4497       fax:   +1 246 421 6753
Gmail:   stewartmar@...
url:        http://www.dec.uwi.edu/smarshall

Please view the open access e-journal on ICT in education and
development at: http://ijedict.dec.uwi.edu//index.php
and the recently published books edited by Marshall, Taylor & Yu:
"Closing the Digital Divide"
http://www.greenwood.com/books/BookDetail.asp?dept_id=1&sku=Q602
"Using Community Informatics to Transform Regions"
http://www.idea-group.com/books/details.asp?id=4146
"Encyclopedia of Developing Regional Communities with ICT"
http://www.idea-group.com/encyclopedia/details.asp?ID=4460
_______________________________________________________

I too agree that a model with author fees is restrictive for the
publication of research.  I would even go further and suggest that any
"paper based" journal model stiffles research publication.  In paper
based journals, the marginal cost for every page printed is considered
and so an artifical scarcity is produced, resulting in a "pipeline"
and publication delays.

An open research model should better align itself with the publication
models of slashdot.org or kuro5hin.org, both of which have peer
review, yet fast publication, and large readership. Both are
electronic publication models.

I would consider an alternate paper based model, where the publication
is essentially electronic, but authors could request (at their cost) a
"bound journal issue" (printing on demand) so that they can give it to
their Dean at the time of tenure decisions.

If you have not seen it, the University of British Columbia offers a
free software for the management of electronic journals.  You can find
it at http://www.pkp.ubc.ca/ and it runs on a PhP/MySQL platform
(either with Linux/Apache or with Windows + web server).

Dear colleagues,

This is to give you my personal opinion on the model for OpenResearch
journals. I currently lead a research network funded by the Spanish
ministry of education in which one of the tasks is to start a new
open access journal (in spanish), so that I was somehow forced to
reflect on the topic.

After reading many articles, I found that there is a variety of open
access economic models. However, the well-known ones charge the
authors of papers (or their institutions) fees that in my opinion are
high. This is ok for funded research, but is not fair for disciplines
or researchers that in a moment of their career have not the required
finantial support for a project or concrete research issue. This lead
me to search for an alternate model for my research network, and I
came to the following model:

1) An annual fee for Program comittee members (or their
institutions), around  80 euros.
2) A low fee per published paper for authors, around 30 Euros. Fees
in BMC for example, range from 300 to 1000+ euros.
(these are only rough figures)

With this, and using Spanish labour costs, one can cover four issues
per year (of 80+ pages), full Web maintenance, and a limited hardcopy
edition (about 100 copies) just to send them for storage to major
(physical) libraries around the world.

Even though it may be surprising that EB members pay a fee, this
makes them more committed to the journal, since the role of EB
members in open access is expected to be much more active and
enthusiast than in conventional journals. Further, being EB member or
reviewer in a journal is considered often important for promotion and
evaluation, so that it is as reasonable as author fees, at least from
my "spanish" perspective.

Further, another issue is that of quality. Open access requires *fast
turnaround* in the review process, let's say an average of six weeks.
This means active reviewers and EB members, if we don't want quality
to be compromised. In addition, the use of citation impact measures
should be tracked by the journal authors and editors, complementary
of course to fight for being indexed in major indexes, and of course,
on ISI JCR.

Summing up, I would be very glad to hear your opinions on the
economic model and on the policy for quality.

Best regards,
Miguel-Angel Sicilia
http://www.cc.uah.es/msicilia

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Frans Thamura
CEO
Intercitra Prima Integrasi

Hello Everyone:

My name is Christian Wagner, and I am with the City University of Hong
Kong.  I was very intrigued by Miltiades call, because for a long
while now I have been bothered about the closed nature of IS research,
which, in my belief, really stifles innovation.  When reserach is kept
"hidden" for years until it finally appears in printed journals, it is
frequently obsolete.  So the publications just help to "keep score",
but do not drive the search for truth.

So my hope for this group would be to promote new ways to open up
research and thus improve research innovativeness and relevance.  My
own interest is in the use of wikis to support collaborative knowledge
creation through open web systems.  If you have not heard about wikis
and want to learn more, please ask me.  Now that I have introduced
myself, I hope other group members will do the same.  I am intrigued
by the international nature of this group.

Miltiades, thanks again for this call to action!