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RE: [xmca] FW: New PhD comic for 08/05/09!



Jenna,
 
I might disagree I think that open access and open source are the same thing.  The way I read it, and these terms of course are constantly evolving and taking on different meanings - and senses - in different forums is that open access is the idea that individuals all have the same access to ideas and that there is no price on information, but also that individuals have open access to disseminate their ideas.  Open Access is very much tied to the NetNeutrality movement.  That is currently there is a right with communications companies because these companies want to direct you to information that offers more money (and this will almost certainly evolve I think to those sites which claim greater expertise).  So for instance I might want to find out about Vygotsky.  Right now I might be able to Google Vygotsky and then search different sites - one site might be the Disney Vygotsky site where Vygotsky is actually a cat who is a friend of Mickey Mouse who talks about that he he he zone of the ol' proximal developmentalism with Goofy or I might find xmca, the thing is what I find is up to my own interests and abilities and hopefully I will eventually find the more worthwhile site and come back to it again and again (I do like Goofy though).  The fear is that Disney will pay Time Warner though to feed me only the Disney Vygotsky site, or Time Warner decides that is the better site for me to explore.  It becomes far, far less likely that I will eventually find xmca not because of what I want and am interested in but because of the way Time Warner is controlling my flow of information.  NetNeutrality is a phenomenal political battle.
 
Open source actually refers to putting code up so that it can developed by online users, with its name actually coming from the publishing and continued development of source code.  What has happened with Open Source experiments such as Unix and Apache is really quite amazing.  Communities build up around the development of the code.  Pretty much anyone can offer recommendations and whether these recommendations are accepted is based primarily on whether they work, that is make the code stronger.  It is the community as a whole that more or less votes and whether changes become permanent.  When an individual actually offers an addition to source code it doesn't matter who they are or what type of repuation they have because the emphasis is on making the code stronger.  I think pretty much all open source projects are also open access so they overlap but I worry about considering them the same.
 
Open source strikes me as a stronger model for progress in science, but it would be especially important for the social sciences.  It would involve a different way of judging individual's works.  For instance any person would be able to offer a blog entry on Vygotsky, as say they are on xmca, but an individual's work might be judged on how many comments and responses the individual gets, perhaps along with a rating by all voters.  I have found sites that use these types of methodologies develop a very high quality information system in a very short amount of time - but one that is far more democratic than the peer review system.
 
I worry that it is a bit disingenuous to say those who want to use the peer review system can while those who don't like it can go to open access and open source however.  You get rewarded in the scientific community primarily for using the peer review system.  If people ensonsed in the peer review system are willing to say hey, we really need to look at ways for rewarding open source and open access in a way that is parallel to peer reviews this would be great, but I haven't seen very much of that so far.  In how many departments is blogging a tenurable activity?  Even though successful blogs take an enormous amount of time and effort and expertise.
 
Michael

________________________________

From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu on behalf of Jenna McWilliams
Sent: Sun 8/9/2009 8:51 PM
To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
Cc: Jenna McWilliams
Subject: Re: [xmca] FW: New PhD comic for 08/05/09!



It seems to be a fairly common misconception that the open access 
movement works in opposition to the traditional peer review process. 
In fact, the work of the movement is establishing strategies for 
allowing peer review and open access to coexist in harmony, and many 
OA adherents are working to do just that:
http://ucblibraries.colorado.edu/dean/peer_reviewed.htm

As most of you are probably aware, open access is closely aligned with 
the open source and open education movements, all of which embrace the 
notion that more access to more information and a greater capacity for 
expressing and circulating scholarly research benefits everyone. These 
movements have had some trouble getting off the ground for lots of 
reasons, one of which being that academia is in general a notoriously 
ungenerous field: Tenured positions are granted to those who can 
contribute something new, innovative, and unique. Why, then, would 
academics--especially budding academics--want to make their work 
available to all? I ask this as a budding academic who also happens to 
be a True Believer in the Open Education, Open Access, and Open Source 
movements, despite the inherent contradictions.

I've written about this  a bunch on my (non peer-reviewed) blog, most 
recently at http://jennamcwilliams.blogspot.com/2009/07/opening-up-scholarship-generosity-among.html
. (The nice thing about blogs etc is that I can publish whatever I 
want on whatever topic that interests me, without having to deal with 
silly peer review processes; the downside is that none of the hundreds 
of thousands of words I've published there on academic topics 'count' 
as academic publishing.)

cheers,
jenna

~~

Jenna McWilliams
Candidate of Awesome
Learning Sciences Program, Indiana University
~
http://jennamcwilliams.blogspot.com <http://jennamcwilliams.blogspot.com/> 
http://remediatingassessment.blogspot.com <http://remediatingassessment.blogspot.com/> 
~
jenmcwil@indiana.edu
jennamcjenna@gmail.com




~~

Jenna McWilliams
Candidate of Awesome
Learning Sciences Program, Indiana University
~
http://jennamcwilliams.blogspot.com <http://jennamcwilliams.blogspot.com/> 
http://remediatingassessment.blogspot.com <http://remediatingassessment.blogspot.com/> 

~
jenmcwil@indiana.edu
jennamcjenna@gmail.com





On Aug 8, 2009, at 9:36 AM, Peter Smagorinsky wrote:

> Briefly....I will paraphrase Churchill's remarks about capitalism: 
> Peer
> review the worst system imaginable, except for all the others.
>
> I thought that the comic/cartoon/manga was well-done in that it laid 
> out
> some pretty contentious issues in a short narrative without 
> undermining any
> of the positions presented. So I didn't so much take away anything 
> from the
> comic/cartoon/manga as I thought that it effectively laid out a 
> dilemma.
>
> I'll just repeat that I'm a former journal editor and frequent 
> reviewer for
> journals, and value the peer review system. It makes my work better by
> providing my work with critical readings. If I don't like them or 
> think that
> they or the editor is misguided, I can take my paper elsewhere; but 
> if I
> feel that the editors and reviewers are in synch with my goals and 
> have
> something to offer me, I can stay with their guidance and try again.
>
> Others may disagree, in which case open access forums should serve 
> their
> purposes well. p
>
> Peter Smagorinsky
> Professor of English Education
> Department of Language and Literacy Education
> The University of Georgia
> 125 Aderhold Hall
> Athens, GA 30602
> smago@uga.edu
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-
> bounces@weber.ucsd.edu] On
> Behalf Of Mike Cole
> Sent: Saturday, August 08, 2009 9:03 AM
> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
> Subject: Re: [xmca] FW: New PhD comic for 08/05/09!
>
> What message do you take away from the cartoon, Peter?
> Publishers for sure should not be the gatekeepers.
> And peer review is often flawed.
> But then what?
>
> For many years,what is now MCA was a newsletter. A print discussion 
> forum
> before the internet evolved as it has.
> Then, at Yrjo's urging, it became a print journal, now with online 
> version
> if you pay for the print (ask Andy about the
> joys of this arrangement) and many people, at present the most 
> burdened of
> whom is Wolf-Michael and staff at LCHC,
> plus lots of xmca-ites and other reviewers produce MCA. The argument 
> Yrjo
> used to get the newsletter to journal status
> was that the field and the careers of individuals working in it 
> required
> institutionalized recognition. The most recent
> version of his is the struggle for ISI status to satisfy the current
> generation of bean counters.
>
> It would be easy as pie to chuck all this and have xmca be re-
> organized so
> that people could publish long papers with open
> access and no reviewing, so that members of xmca would simply have a 
> long
> list of "papers for discussion" and quality would
> equal what was discussed a lot.
>
> No ISI, no blind peer commentary. Just agor uber alles. A lot less 
> work for
> editors, managing editors, and reviewers.
>
> Preferable?
> mike
>
> On Fri, Aug 7, 2009 at 2:09 PM, Peter Smagorinsky <smago@uga.edu> 
> wrote:
>
>> This cartoon seems pertinent to some discussions here about academic
> review
>> processes and publication impact. p
>>
>>
>> From: PhD Comics [mailto:new_comic@phdcomics.com]
>> Sent: Friday, August 07, 2009 2:49 PM
>> To: mailinglist2@phdcomics.com
>> Subject: New PhD comic for 08/05/09!
>>
>> Hi!
>>
>> A new 'Piled Higher & Deeper' comic strip has been posted at:
>>
>> http://www.phdcomics.com/comics.php?n=1208
>>
>> Enjoy!
>>
>>
>> --
>> To unsubscribe to this mailing list, go to:
>> www.phdcomics.com/comics/subscribe.html
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> (2)
>>
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