From: Maria Bonn <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Wed, 4 Dec 2013 22:21:31 -0600

Ah. I fear in my eagerness to appear catholic and non-dogmatic in my
approach to thinking about the topic, I have instead appeared, at
least to Sandy, to lack clarity. I do think that throughout the
academic and publishing world (And the many places in which the two
come together) there are many dogmatic (and some conflicting) stances
toward measuring value and my hope is that the issue will call those
dogmas into question.  Moreover, in my experience, our measures for
assessing the value of scholarly books are particularly
under-articulated, a liability in a time when that part of the
publishing enterprise is under particular scrutiny.

I am a little puzzled by the strong distinction that Sandy draws
between the perceived value of articles in a journal and the price of
those journals. While I utterly agree that some very fine work appears
in journals with very small price tags, I also think that there are
commercial publishers who justify high price tags by claiming to
publish the best scholarship.

In any case, if the special issue rises to my aspirations, it will do
so by containing intelligent perspectives that precisely DO
"distinguish among different sectors(STEM from humanities and social
sciences, for instance)" and "between books and journals."

Since Sandy asserts a clear understanding of these complexities, I
will hope we count him among our authors. And some of the rest of you
too!

Maria

On Wed, Dec 4, 2013 at 11:53 AM, LIBLICENSE <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> From: Sandy Thatcher <[log in to unmask]>
> Date: Tue, 3 Dec 2013 22:21:41 -0600
>
> I find this presentation of the metrics of scholarly publishing
> confusing because it does not distinguish among different sectors
> (STEM from humanities and social sciences, for instance) nor between
> books and journals.
>
> Does it make any sense at all to say that an article's value depends
> on "number of copies sold"? Nor is there any real relationship between
> the profit margin of a journal and the value of an article. If there
> were, then commercially published journal articles would virtually all
> be  more valuable than those published by non-profit publishers, which
> is absurd.
>
> Impact factors and "altmetrics" have played little to no role in
> scholarly journal publishing in the humanities and social sciences, as
> far as I can tell. They have nothing at all to do with scholarly book
> publishing, where the prestige of the publisher's imprint serves as a
> proxy for value.
>
> What counts much more for books are reviews published in the leading
> scholarly journals and the book prizes awarded by scholarly societies.
> I doubt that many university presses measure value strictly by any
> economic criterion like "number of copies sold" and certainly not by
> profits made.
>
> I hope the JEP's special issue will prove to be more enlightening and
> less obfuscating than this advertisement for it is.
>
> Sandy Thatcher
>
>
> At 2:29 PM -0500 12/3/13, LIBLICENSE wrote:
> >
> > From: Maria Bonn <[log in to unmask]>
> > Date: Tue, 3 Dec 2013 10:49:53 -0600
> >
> > Historically, the value of publication has been measured by success in
> > the marketplace and impact of the publication, whether that impact be
> > cultural or scholarly. The calculus of this value has been as
> > straightforward as number of copies sold (documented most widely in
> > "best seller" lists) and/or dollars in profit generated to the complex
> > citation and referral counts that result in a scholarly "impact
> > factor." As with so many areas of our cultural and intellectual lives,
> > the widespread adoption of digital technology and networked
> > communication (with its attendant social media practices) has
> > disrupted our metrics of publishing value and has called for a
> > revision of the ways in which that value is calculated. In some
> > professional and social circles, page visits, link referrals, Google
> > ranks, presence in the Twitter universe and other social media
> > prominence, are now taken as seriously as scholarly citation and
> > profit margins, a shift that raises questions for how scholars balance
> > the emerging professional requirement for an online presences with the
> > need for privacy and protected space for research. In addition, the
> > value measure of pages visits and glances (where a quick hit might
> > "count" for the same as an extended period of study and engagement)
> > are still in the early stages of development. While we have seen the
> > rise of "altmetrics" and "impact stories," weeks on the New York Times
> > Best Seller List continue to indicate worthiness for attention and the
> > case for scholarly job security continues to be made by citation based
> > measures. In addition, the increased ease of collaboration and
> > co-authoring, even across wide spans of time and space, make assigning
> > authorial and impact "credit" both more compelling and more difficult.
> > We are also still developing rubrics for calculating the broader
> > social contribution of work that is made widely available via the Web.
> > In the scholarly context this revision of measures of value continue
> > to be embedded in disciplinary practices and prejudices, contexts that
> > have a significant impact upon shaping evaluation metrics.
> >
> > The Journal of Electronic Publishing (JEP) invites reflections and
> > reportage on enduring, emerging and potential measures of publication
> > value. We expect such discussions will be rooted in the publishing
> > context (of value to whom, for whom?) and will address both
> > short-comings and usefulness of the metrics under discussion. While we
> > anticipate that our contributors will be attendant to changes wrought
> > by digital technology and networked communication, we are also
> > interested in metrics embedded within print culture, both those that
> > endure and those that are no longer current.
> >
> > Publication is anticipated for late spring, 2014; final drafts will be
> > due in April, 2014. Please send article ideas and indications of
> > interest to the editor, Maria Bonn [log in to unmask] Please see the
> > journal website for more information about the journal and the
> > submission process.
> >
> > JEP articles are peer-reviewed at the request of the author, and
> > peer-reviewed articles are identified as such in both the article and
> > in the preservation metadata. Editorial decisions are otherwise made
> > by the editor in consultation with the editorial board. If you
> > yourself are not prepared to write on these topics but you know of
> > others who should be invited to contribute, please send suggestions to
> > the editor, as above.
> >
> > - See more at: http://www.publishing.umich.edu/2013/11/26/cfp-metrics-for-measuring-publishing-value-jep/#sthash.p7zTqVfL.dpuf
> >
> > Maria Bonn
> >
> > Senior Lecturer,
> > Graduate School of Information and Library Science
> > University of Illinois
> >
> > Editor,
> > Journal of electronic Publishing
> > (http://www.journalofelectronicpublishing.org)