From: Dan Scott <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Tue, 18 Dec 2012 09:20:16 +0000

If any Liblicense members would like to know more about us, there is plenty
of information on the website or you can read an article that was published
recently in Insights, the journal of UKSG. To access, visit our homepage
(www.socialsciencesdirectory.com) and scroll down the page below the main
picture to follow the link.

One of our key goals is dissemination - can we speed up the time to
publication and will people then use the content? The answer to both is Yes:
our peer review process takes weeks, rather than months or years; and in the
three months since publication our COUNTER-compliant statistics show there
have been over 3,300 downloads.

Dan Scott

-----Original Message-----
From: Stevan Harnad <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Sun, 16 Dec 2012 22:38:16 -0500

On 2012-12-16, at 4:07 PM, LIBLICENSE <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>From: Dan Scott <[log in to unmask]>
>Date: Fri, 14 Dec 2012 11:11:53 +0000
>
>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.

The editors of SSD appear to be a former Emerald publisher
(http://uk.linkedin.com/pub/dan-scott/10/b31/903) and a special collections
librarian (http://guides.lib.fsu.edu/profile.php?uid=12572), not
researchers.

The only issue the journal has so far published has 5 papers published by
the former publisher, which mainly appear to be marketing literature for the
journal itself, and a short number of journals published by the journal's
editorial board. Only two papers appear to be from outside the small group
that run the journal.

Submissions and peer-reviewers are recruited as follows:
http://www.socialsciencesdirectory.com/index.php/socscidir/article/view/32/6
9

"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."

University of Nottingham policy-makers are encouraged to read more about
SSD: http://www.socialsciencesdirectory.com/index.php/socscidir/index

and then to ask themselves:

(1) Is this what U. Nottingham means by peer review?

(2) Is this how U. Nottingham would assess whether there is a niche or need
for a new peer-reviewed journal?

(3) Is this how U. Nottingham would have assessed journal quality in
deciding whether to subscribe to it?

(4) Does U. Nottingham consider that journals should be selected (by
authors, subscribers, or "members") on the basis of their economic model
rather than their quality?

Stevan Harnad