RE: [xmca] Do academic journals exist?

Dear Michael and Peter and everybody--

I personally do not think that there should be the either-or relationship
between peer-review gatekeeping professional journals and self-publication
on the Internet. As Peter points out, peer-review gatekeeping process can be
very useful for improving the quality of papers, mediating author-reader
relations, checking and bringing credibility of the research reports,
providing (private) meta-discourse around text-making and scholarly quality,
creating a shared focus, providing longevity of texts, increasing levels of
discursively and dialogicity of academic texts, and so on.

On the other hand, I'm glad that we now have an alternative way of
self-publication that provides speed, creativity, innovations (in form and
content), interactivity, and democracy. Pluses of one are usually minuses of
the other. That is why I think they complement each other.

Like Michael, I use Google Scholar search that sometimes can provide more
interesting results than ERIC and PsyINFO combined. I also use general
Google search as well. I plan to post my unpublished manuscript on-line
(like Jay Lemke does). But I do not move away from peer-reviewed gatekeeping
journals (although I do not care much about their level of rejection, accept
negatively, or their index of "impact"). For me a good journal is one that:
1) is sympathetic to my research;
2) has a good pool of reviewers who are relevant and knowledgeable in the
area of my research, helpful, and collegial (i.e., sympathetic with
difficulties of doing research and writing and not arrogant);
3) has a professional editor who has a strategic vision of promoting public
debates with publications (rather than publish papers that support the
editor's particular paradigm);
3) is well organized and efficient (not losing manuscripts and not having
reviewing more than 6 months, which is too long in my view).
I used to care about the readership of a journal of my consideration but now
I think this is irrelevant because I suspect people, like I, read academic
journals less and less.

Michael wrote,
> If connectionism
> is
> right, the building of our knowledge systems is non-linear and dynamic.
> One of the troubles we have had has been that historically publishing
> has been monolithic and hierarchical.
...
> It strikes me as odd that our assessments then are not in any way
> keeping up with our technology - as a matter of fact it is holding us
> back. To succeed in academia we must cling to old media, even as it
> becomes less and less relevant and connected to the world that we live
> in.

Actually, I'm not surprised. Revolution usually breeds counter-revolution
with excesses being on both sides. Proliferation of Internet democracy has
created many problems with credibility of the sources, lack of shared focus,
and the issue of ideological warfare on the Internet (among probably
others). A discussion around WIKI as a non-linear, dynamic, and democratic
"knowledge system" is a good example of this complex process. I wonder if
the ISI bureaucratization is a response to growing academic democracy that,
as its byproduct, pushes for more diversity and alienation...

What do you think?

Eugene

> -----Original Message-----
> From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu]
> On Behalf Of Peter Smagorinsky
> Sent: Tuesday, July 08, 2008 1:15 PM
> To: 'eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity'
> Subject: RE: [xmca] Do academic journals exist?
>
> Not really. They are those entities because of the people who staff
> them.
>
> And gatekeeping is only part of what happens through an external
> review.
> Rather, pieces are evaluated and supported and moved into something
> better
> (ideally, anyhow).
>
> Undoubtedly, my experiences as co-editor of Research in the Teaching of
> English for 7 years are influencing my opinion of how scholarship is
> produced.
>
> At the same time, you're welcome to bypass the system and post papers
> at
> your website or keep a blog, and see what happens.
>
> Peter Smagorinsky
> The University of Georgia
> 125 Aderhold Hall
> Athens, GA 30602
> smago@uga.edu/phone:706-542-4507
> http://www.coe.uga.edu/lle/faculty/smagorinsky/index.html
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu]
> On
> Behalf Of Michael Glassman
> Sent: Tuesday, July 08, 2008 12:36 PM
> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
> Subject: RE: [xmca] Do academic journals exist?
>
> Right, but that is the gatekeeper argument - that there are entities
> that are capable of vetting knowledge simply because they are those
> entities. I have been following this issue far more within the
> political realm as I watch the slow dissolution of the cache once held
> by The Washington Post and the New York Times. I myself used to pretty
> much accept everything that was in the New York Times, believing that
> there was a vetting process for information and the Times stood at the
> top of the hierarchy. If they had great reporters, who were considered
> great by - well the New York Times - then they must be gatekeepers.
> Political ideas then were passed down to me from a great clearing house
> of ideas - sort of a top down approach. What I have watched, as
> information has become more available, and more non-linear, is that the
> New York Times offers one complex perspective, and I have to understand
> the ideas they dispense as just another source. If I read an idea that
> does not sound right to me, I first look for links (which are rare in
> the Times) and then go on the internet to search out the ideas. I may
> find the best work on a blog that writes for maybe a few thousand
> people, has no cache, but at the same time offers an excellent argument
> and multiple hyperlink sources. For instance the blog Emptywheel is
> far
> superior to the New York Times on the FISA issue (sorry to those living
> outside the United States - a critical political vote that is happening
> today).
>
> What I am saying is that perhaps academia is going to have to catch up
> to this model. The more we depend on old media vetting I worry the
> further we fall behind and become irrelevant.
>
> Michael
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu]
> On Behalf Of Peter Smagorinsky
> Sent: Tuesday, July 08, 2008 11:24 AM
> To: 'eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity'
> Subject: RE: [xmca] Do academic journals exist?
>
> At the risk of saying too much in this discussion.....it's not the
> journal
> itself being valued, but the vetting process it provides for a piece of
> work. So even if you never see the Journal of Reproducible Results as a
> hardbound entity and only grab articles that interest you, what makes
> articles published under its auspices respected is that readers know
> the
> rigor of the review process involved in moving that individual piece
> through
> to publication.
>
> Peter Smagorinsky
> The University of Georgia
> 125 Aderhold Hall
> Athens, GA 30602
> smago@uga.edu/phone:706-542-4507
> http://www.coe.uga.edu/lle/faculty/smagorinsky/index.html
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu]
> On
> Behalf Of Michael Glassman
> Sent: Tuesday, July 08, 2008 12:01 PM
> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
> Subject: RE: [xmca] Do academic journals exist?
>
> Eugene,
>
> I think you make an incredibly salient observation. If connectionism
> is
> right, the building of our knowledge systems is non-linear and dynamic.
> One of the troubles we have had has been that historically publishing
> has been monolithic and hierarchical. The whole idea that an article
> must be good/important because it is published in a specific journal
> really, when you think about, seems kind of absurd. Brilliant,
> innovative ideas can be anywhere, and they often are. So in many ways
> the journals themselves controlled how we viewed knowledge and the
> accumulation of knowledge, acted as gatekeepers, in much the same way
> say The New York Times or Washington Post acted as gatekeepers for our
> political knowledge.
>
> The internet seems to be changing all that on a number of levels.
> Usually when I am interested in a topic I will go to Google Scholar and
> type in words or phrases and surf around. Within the course of a day I
> can usually find what I am looking for - but the actual journal doesn't
> enter in to the search at all, other than it was the vehicle leading to
> the publication. I think as we continue to evolve it will be
> hyperlinks
> within articles that lead us to other articles and things to read,
> moving even beyond Google Scholar.
>
> It strikes me as odd that our assessments then are not in any way
> keeping up with our technology - as a matter of fact it is holding us
> back. To succeed in academia we must cling to old media, even as it
> becomes less and less relevant and connected to the world that we live
> in.
>
> Michael
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu]
> On Behalf Of Eugene Matusov
> Sent: Tuesday, July 08, 2008 10:47 AM
> To: 'eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity'
> Cc: 'Bob Hampel'; 'UD-PIG'
> Subject: [xmca] Do academic journals exist?
>
> Dear xmca folks-
>
>
>
> Our discussion of "publish and/or perish" and the ISI "web of
> knowledge"
> makes me think about the nature of academic journals and my personal
> professional practice of using them. As a reader of academic journals,
> I
> must admit that for me, academic journals do not exist. I rarely read
> academic journals (and it's getting worse). Rather I hunt for
> particular
> articles of my interests using either recommendations coming from other
> articles (regardless journals where they publish) via their reference
> lists
> OR databases such as ERIC and PsyINFO OR recommendations by my
> colleagues
> like you. I've noticed that my reading practice becomes more and more
> like
> that after our university library vastly increase journals available
> electronically on-line. For me, as a reader, now, "journal" becomes an
> accidental assembly of unrelated papers.
>
>
>
> However, as a writer, I still treat journal as a particular institution
> with
> a particular direction, particular editor, possible body of reviewers,
> particular "readership". If my experiences are not unique, I wonder if
> the
> later is my myth by now, forgetting that I, myself, do not belong to
> any
> journal readership anymore.
>
>
>
> Are your reader and writer experiences similar with regard to academic
> journals? I wonder what consequences and new opportunities these
> changes
> bring to the academia.
>
>
>
> What do you think?
>
>
>
> Eugene
>
>
>
> ---------------------
>
> Eugene Matusov, Ph.D.
>
> Professor of Education
>
> School of Education
>
> University of Delaware
>
> Newark, DE 19716, USA
>
>
>
> email: ematusov@udel.edu
>
> fax: 1-(302)-831-4110
>
> website: http://ematusov.soe.udel.edu
>
> publications: http://ematusov.soe.udel.edu/vita/publications.htm
>
> ---------------------
>
>
>
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Received on Tue Jul 8 11:30 PDT 2008