From: Stevan Harnad <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Tue, 18 Dec 2012 23:51:59 -0500
On 2012-12-18, at 8:26 PM, Roddy Macleod <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Editors with publishing and library experience, available to do the background work, and backed up with scholarly reviewers - sounds OK to me.
"Please support us in our efforts. We need submissions and we need
volunteers to review them in their areas of expertise. Both can be
done by registering with Social Sciences Directory as a User."
http://www.socialsciencesdirectory.com/index.php/socscidir/article/view/32/69
(1) Is this what was meant by peer review at Heriot-Watt University?
(2) Is this how Heriot-Watt University would have assessed whether
there is a niche or need for a new peer-reviewed journal?
(3) Is this how Heriot-Watt University would have assessed a new
journal's quality in deciding whether to subscribe to it?
(4) Would Heriot-Watt University consider it OK for journals to be
selected (by authors, subscribers, or "members") on the basis of their
economic model rather than their quality?
No question that there are and always were bottom-rung journals among
subscription journals too:
Difference was that they did not have the extra allure of OA and Gold
Fever; they were not subscribed to by institutions if there was no
empty subject niche they were filling, nor before they had
established their track-records for quality. And journals could not
cover their start-up costs by tempting authors to publish with them by
paying for it, again seasoned with the extra allure of OA and Gold
Fever, and perhaps of quick and easy acceptance for publication.
(Needy start-up subscription journals lowering quality standards to
fill the need for submissions would simply reduce their chances of
getting subscriptions -- but this does not necessarily lower the
chances of tempting needy authors to pay-to-publish in OA start-up
journals -- and especially before the journal's quality record is
established, when all a fool's gold start-up needs for legitimacy is
to wrap itself in the mantle of OA and righteous indignation against
the "tyranny of the impact factor" unfairly favouring established
journals…)
As I have said many times, institutions are free to part themselves
from their spare money in any way they like. But if they claim they're
doing it for the sake of OA, they had better mandate Green OA
(effectively) first -- otherwise (as long as they are double-paying,
over and above their uncancelable subscriptions) they are in the iron
pyrite market. (And encouraging this, blindly, is one of the perverse
effects of Finch Folly.)
Stevan Harnad
On Tue, Dec 18, 2012 at 8:26 PM, LIBLICENSE <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> From: Roddy Macleod <[log in to unmask]>
> Date: Tue, 18 Dec 2012 10:56:25 +0000
>
> This discussion seems well over the top.
>
> Editors with publishing and library experience, available to do the
> background work, and backed up with scholarly reviewers - sounds OK to
> me. The SSD website looks well organised (and a lot better and easier
> to use than some I've seen). And, for goodness sakes - it's a
> startup!
>
> Something more relevant to warn against? How about all the 'predatory
> journals' http://scholarlyoa.com/publishers/ and the 'Criminal
> Impersonation' of faked postings
>
> http://lisnews.org/listed_predatory_publishers_fight_back_with_criminal_impersonation
>
> Or the rubbish stuff from some established journal publishers:
>
> http://roddymacleod.wordpress.com/2012/10/24/rubbish-stuff-from-publishers-6/
> http://roddymacleod.wordpress.com/2012/10/23/journal-publishers-the-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly-i-name-names/
>
> Roddy MacLeod
>
> On 18 December 2012 00:08, LIBLICENSE <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> > From: Sandy Thatcher <[log in to unmask]>
> > Date: Sun, 16 Dec 2012 22:49:22 -0600
> >
> > Is there a list of these 100 registered reviewers publicly posted
> > anywhere? And why are reviewers "registered" anyway? Normally, a
> > journal goes to find the best reviewer anywhere, not just limit the
> > selection to a predetermined list. For a journal that claims to cover
> > all of the social sciences, 100 would seem to be a severely inadequate
> > number to draw upon.
> >
> > Sandy Thatcher
> >
> >
> > > From: Dan Scott <[log in to unmask]>
> > > Date: Fri, 14 Dec 2012 11:11:53 +0000
> > >
> > > Stevan: A correction: as the press release and our editorial policy
> > > make clear, we carry out a full peer review. We also have over 100
> > > registered referees.
> > >
> > > Dan Scott
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