[GOAL] Re: Wikipedia founder to help in [UK] government's research scheme
The [UK] government has drafted in the Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales to help make all taxpayer-funded academic research in Britain available online to anyone who wants to read or use it. I was hoping that the new government might be less star-struck than the previous one. Plus ca change, plus ca meme chose, it would seem. We really don't need Jimmy Wales advising on this. The team behind eprints has been (with minimal funding) developing the technology needed for many years and there are many academics in the UK much better versed in the intricacies of UK academic work and life than Mr Wales. Sigh. I foresee another lost couple of years wasted on this instead of getting to grips with the known problem and the known solution (including providing better funding for eprints development to the team that created it and still does the software engineering for it). -- Professor Andrew A Adams aaa at meiji.ac.jp Professor at Graduate School of Business Administration, and Deputy Director of the Centre for Business Information Ethics Meiji University, Tokyo, Japan http://www.a-cubed.info/
[GOAL] Re: Wikipedia founder to help in [UK] government's research scheme
Strict logic is not what we win the battle for open access with. Some celebrity involvement is to be welcomed. On a visceral level the success of Wikipedia (not a logical outcome at the outset on the basis of the premises) may well influence the perception of open access. Jan Velterop On 2 May 2012, at 11:00, Andrew A. Adams wrote: The [UK] government has drafted in the Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales to help make all taxpayer-funded academic research in Britain available online to anyone who wants to read or use it. I was hoping that the new government might be less star-struck than the previous one. Plus ca change, plus ca meme chose, it would seem. We really don't need Jimmy Wales advising on this. The team behind eprints has been (with minimal funding) developing the technology needed for many years and there are many academics in the UK much better versed in the intricacies of UK academic work and life than Mr Wales. Sigh. I foresee another lost couple of years wasted on this instead of getting to grips with the known problem and the known solution (including providing better funding for eprints development to the team that created it and still does the software engineering for it). -- Professor Andrew A Adams aaa at meiji.ac.jp Professor at Graduate School of Business Administration, and Deputy Director of the Centre for Business Information Ethics Meiji University, Tokyo, Japan http://www.a-cubed.info/ ___ GOAL mailing list GOAL at eprints.org http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/goal
[GOAL] Re: Wikipedia founder to help in [UK] government's research scheme
Sorry, but I disagree with this. I understand all the help that celebrities can bring to a cause, but the choice of the celebrity should be wise. In this case, there is a dangerous risk of mixing up concepts. Wikipedia is, by definition, the negation of peer reviewing. Or, at best, it is considering everyone as a peer to everyone else. It works surprisingly well, by the way, in many cases, but it fails completely at times as well. Expurging mistakes from WP (whether they are willingly forged or not) is a very difficult task and it can take forever. And you cannot control everything. I do not want to engage in a debate on Wikipedia's qualities and weaknesses, but tens of thousands of professors around the world spend time explaining their students why WP, though comfortable (who has never used it?), is a dangerous tool because it makes widely public a lot of informations that have not been reviewed by acknowledged specialists. Considering how people these days conflate Open Access and lack of peer reviewing, considering our relentless efforts to fight this confusion, I find it dangerous for a government to choose WP's founder as an advocate of scholarly OA. Bernard Rentier Chairman, EOS (Enabling Open Scholarship) http://www.openscholarship.org/jcms/j_6/accueil Le 2 mai 2012 ? 12:47, Jan Velterop velterop at gmail.com a ?crit : Strict logic is not what we win the battle for open access with. Some celebrity involvement is to be welcomed. On a visceral level the success of Wikipedia (not a logical outcome at the outset on the basis of the premises) may well influence the perception of open access. Jan Velterop On 2 May 2012, at 11:00, Andrew A. Adams wrote: The [UK] government has drafted in the Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales to help make all taxpayer-funded academic research in Britain available online to anyone who wants to read or use it. I was hoping that the new government might be less star-struck than the previous one. Plus ca change, plus ca meme chose, it would seem. We really don't need Jimmy Wales advising on this. The team behind eprints has been (with minimal funding) developing the technology needed for many years and there are many academics in the UK much better versed in the intricacies of UK academic work and life than Mr Wales. Sigh. I foresee another lost couple of years wasted on this instead of getting to grips with the known problem and the known solution (including providing better funding for eprints development to the team that created it and still does the software engineering for it). -- Professor Andrew A Adams aaa at meiji.ac.jp Professor at Graduate School of Business Administration, and Deputy Director of the Centre for Business Information Ethics Meiji University, Tokyo, Japan http://www.a-cubed.info/ ___ GOAL mailing list GOAL at eprints.org http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/goal ___ GOAL mailing list GOAL at eprints.org http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/goal
[GOAL] Re: Wikipedia founder to help in [UK] government's research scheme
I very much welcome this appointment. He is no stranger to scholpub - here is an example of him publishing Wikiproteins, in a peer-reviewed journal (with a high imact factor for those who worry): http://genomebiology.com/2008/9/5/R89 And dare we say - he has built a repository that people *want* to put things into ( including me.). Wikipedia is not rubbish and it is maturing all the time. -- Peter Murray-Rust Reader in Molecular Informatics Unilever Centre, Dep. Of Chemistry University of Cambridge CB2 1EW, UK +44-1223-763069 -- next part -- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/pipermail/goal/attachments/20120502/504377c7/attachment.html
[GOAL] Re: Wikipedia founder to help in [UK] government's research scheme
On 2012-05-02, at 9:28 AM, Jan Velterop wrote: On 2 May 2012, at 13:32, Stevan Harnad wrote: Andrew is so right (and the current UK government is showing as much good sense in turning to JW as they showed for many years in turning to RM). Wikipedia is based on the antithesis of peer review. Asking JW to help make sure peer-reviewed research is available to all is like asking McDonalds to help the WHO/FDA make sure that wholesome food is available to all. Ach, come off it, Stevan. By your reckoning arXiv is also the antithesis of peer review. Would you talk in the same way about Paul Ginsparg? Arxiv contains preprints of articles before and after peer review. Arxiv does not do peer review. Neither do institutional repositories. (Why do you ask about Paul Ginsparg?) OA will gain from more involvement of people who understand diplomacy, persuasion, and yes, 'marketing'. At the moment, Jimmy Wales does not have a clue about what are the real problems of getting OA provided by researchers; nor does he have a clear understanding of (or any experience with) peer review. This can all be remedied, if someone has JW's ear, and he listens and understands. Then JW can be a helpful (though no doubt expensive) conduit to the ears of those (David Willetts?) who are in a position to do what needs to get done to make the RCUK mandates work. Meanwhile, regarding diplomacy and persuasion, I suggest that you give more weight to what Professor Rentier has posted about academia's attitude to Wikipedia. We are trying to win researchers over to providing OA to their peer-reviewed research -- not to win them over to some fantasied Wikipedia-style alternative to peer review. http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/pipermail/goal/2012-May/000372.html We've been down this path so many times, Jan. Is the appointment of a celebrity name now to be the occasion for rehearsing it all yet again? It's not diplomacy that's needed; it's effectively formulated and implemented policy. The RCUK already leads the rest of the world in OA, but its OA policy needs tweaking to make it effective. Stevan Harnad
[GOAL] Re: Wikipedia founder to help in [UK] government's research scheme
I wrote a piece a couple of years ago and compared the archives with the backyard steel furnaces during the Big Leap in China. At last an European government has the courage to change all that. We can expect a modern steel industry that will have a global impact. We time of the evangelist is at last over. Jan 2012/5/2 Les A Carr lac at ecs.soton.ac.uk: On 2 May 2012, at 16:32, David Prosser wrote: I must confess to being strangely confused by this animosity to Jimmy Wales. I'd hazard that's because you've never tried to edit a wikipedia page as if you were a research professor. Wikipedia editorial controversies can easily induce a kind of Internet road rage among the mildest of academics :-) ?Willetts is an ally* and I think Wales could be too - if we allow him to be. I do hope that you're right. I'm aware that he's a man with the responsibility of a foundation to promote, and who was originally brought in to provide advice on making research data available. So OA could turn out to be an addendum to an already overcrowded agenda for an unpaid advisor who needs to deliver something! We can help him* deliver, but we may need to be quite agile about how we present our experience and our infrastructure. --- Les Carr *both Wales and Willets ___ GOAL mailing list GOAL at eprints.org http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/goal -- Jan Szczepa?ski F.d F?rste bibliotekare och chef f?r f.d Avdelningen f?r humaniora vid G?teborgs universitetsbibliotek E-post: Jan.Szczepanski63 at gmail.com
[GOAL] Re: Wikipedia founder to help in [UK] government's research scheme
The [UK] government has drafted in the Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales to help make all taxpayer-funded academic research in Britain available online to anyone who wants to read or use it. I was hoping that the new government might be less star-struck than the previous one. Plus ca change, plus ca meme chose, it would seem. We really don't need Jimmy Wales advising on this. The team behind eprints has been (with minimal funding) developing the technology needed for many years and there are many academics in the UK much better versed in the intricacies of UK academic work and life than Mr Wales. Sigh. I foresee another lost couple of years wasted on this instead of getting to grips with the known problem and the known solution (including providing better funding for eprints development to the team that created it and still does the software engineering for it). -- Professor Andrew A Adams a...@meiji.ac.jp Professor at Graduate School of Business Administration, and Deputy Director of the Centre for Business Information Ethics Meiji University, Tokyo, Japan http://www.a-cubed.info/ ___ GOAL mailing list GOAL@eprints.org http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/goal
[GOAL] Re: Wikipedia founder to help in [UK] government's research scheme
Strict logic is not what we win the battle for open access with. Some celebrity involvement is to be welcomed. On a visceral level the success of Wikipedia (not a logical outcome at the outset on the basis of the premises) may well influence the perception of open access. Jan Velterop On 2 May 2012, at 11:00, Andrew A. Adams wrote: The [UK] government has drafted in the Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales to help make all taxpayer-funded academic research in Britain available online to anyone who wants to read or use it. I was hoping that the new government might be less star-struck than the previous one. Plus ca change, plus ca meme chose, it would seem. We really don't need Jimmy Wales advising on this. The team behind eprints has been (with minimal funding) developing the technology needed for many years and there are many academics in the UK much better versed in the intricacies of UK academic work and life than Mr Wales. Sigh. I foresee another lost couple of years wasted on this instead of getting to grips with the known problem and the known solution (including providing better funding for eprints development to the team that created it and still does the software engineering for it). -- Professor Andrew A Adams a...@meiji.ac.jp Professor at Graduate School of Business Administration, and Deputy Director of the Centre for Business Information Ethics Meiji University, Tokyo, Japan http://www.a-cubed.info/ ___ GOAL mailing list GOAL@eprints.org http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/goal ___ GOAL mailing list GOAL@eprints.org http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/goal
[GOAL] Re: Wikipedia founder to help in [UK] government's research scheme
Sorry, but I disagree with this. I understand all the help that celebrities can bring to a cause, but the choice of the celebrity should be wise. In this case, there is a dangerous risk of mixing up concepts. Wikipedia is, by definition, the negation of peer reviewing. Or, at best, it is considering everyone as a peer to everyone else. It works surprisingly well, by the way, in many cases, but it fails completely at times as well. Expurging mistakes from WP (whether they are willingly forged or not) is a very difficult task and it can take forever. And you cannot control everything. I do not want to engage in a debate on Wikipedia's qualities and weaknesses, but tens of thousands of professors around the world spend time explaining their students why WP, though comfortable (who has never used it?), is a dangerous tool because it makes widely public a lot of informations that have not been reviewed by acknowledged specialists. Considering how people these days conflate Open Access and lack of peer reviewing, considering our relentless efforts to fight this confusion, I find it dangerous for a government to choose WP's founder as an advocate of scholarly OA. Bernard Rentier Chairman, EOS (Enabling Open Scholarship) http://www.openscholarship.org/jcms/j_6/accueil Le 2 mai 2012 à 12:47, Jan Velterop velte...@gmail.com a écrit : Strict logic is not what we win the battle for open access with. Some celebrity involvement is to be welcomed. On a visceral level the success of Wikipedia (not a logical outcome at the outset on the basis of the premises) may well influence the perception of open access. Jan Velterop On 2 May 2012, at 11:00, Andrew A. Adams wrote: The [UK] government has drafted in the Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales to help make all taxpayer-funded academic research in Britain available online to anyone who wants to read or use it. I was hoping that the new government might be less star-struck than the previous one. Plus ca change, plus ca meme chose, it would seem. We really don't need Jimmy Wales advising on this. The team behind eprints has been (with minimal funding) developing the technology needed for many years and there are many academics in the UK much better versed in the intricacies of UK academic work and life than Mr Wales. Sigh. I foresee another lost couple of years wasted on this instead of getting to grips with the known problem and the known solution (including providing better funding for eprints development to the team that created it and still does the software engineering for it). -- Professor Andrew A Adams a...@meiji.ac.jp Professor at Graduate School of Business Administration, and Deputy Director of the Centre for Business Information Ethics Meiji University, Tokyo, Japan http://www.a-cubed.info/ ___ GOAL mailing list GOAL@eprints.org http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/goal ___ GOAL mailing list GOAL@eprints.org http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/goal ___ GOAL mailing list GOAL@eprints.org http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/goal
[GOAL] Re: Wikipedia founder to help in [UK] government's research scheme
On Wed, 2012-05-02 at 19:00 +0900, Andrew A. Adams wrote: The [UK] government has drafted in the Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales to help make all taxpayer-funded academic research in Britain available online to anyone who wants to read or use it. I was hoping that the new government might be less star-struck than the previous one. Plus ca change, plus ca meme chose, it would seem. We really don't need Jimmy Wales advising on this. The team behind eprints has been (with minimal funding) developing the technology needed for many years and there are many academics in the UK much better versed in the intricacies of UK academic work and life than Mr Wales. Sigh. I foresee another lost couple of years wasted on this instead of getting to grips with the known problem and the known solution (including providing better funding for eprints development to the team that created it and still does the software engineering for it). Thanks for the kudos. This article did take me to the UK.gov working group: http://www.researchinfonet.org/publish/wg-expand-access/ Unfortunately they seem to have a focus on big deal licensing (!) and author-pays economics. I haven't heard anything from their institutional repository sub-group, although there are a lot of layers between me and them ... hopefully IRs - a solution to access - won't get drowned out by licensing/author-pays reform - a solution to library budget constraints - in their report. In terms of the UK Gateway to Research I expect that is the political equivalent to data.gov.uk. It doesn't make much sense to have national gateways as a research tool and anyway in implementation I can't see much chance of a one solution to rule them all working. In all likelihood we will continue as we are - institutional based EPrints/DSpaces/etc. that are harvested into a central tool for tracking mandate compliance and value for money for UK spending. (This is already in the pipeline with the RCUK ROS system - most likely using something like CERIF to share data within and between institutions, funders, and the UK and EU governments) -- Tim Brody School of Electronics and Computer Science University of Southampton Southampton SO17 1BJ United Kingdom Email: t...@ecs.soton.ac.uk Tel: +44 (0)23 8059 7698 [ Part 1.2, This is a digitally signed message part ] [ Application/PGP-SIGNATURE (Name: signature.asc) 501 bytes. ] [ Unable to print this part. ] [ Part 2: Attached Text ] ___ GOAL mailing list GOAL@eprints.org http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/goal
[GOAL] Re: Wikipedia founder to help in [UK] government's research scheme
âThis initiative is most likely to result in a central repository that will host all research articles that result from public funding.â  Why use the existing distributed system of institutional repositories when you can waste even more public money on a huge centralised IT project?             Rob.   From: goal-boun...@eprints.org [mailto:goal-boun...@eprints.org] On Behalf Of Richard Poynder Sent: 02 May 2012 10:23 To: goal@eprints.org Subject: [GOAL] Wikipedia founder to help in [UK] government's research scheme  The [UK] government has drafted in the Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales to help make all taxpayer-funded academic research in Britain available online to anyone who wants to read or use it. http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2012/may/01/wikipedia-research-jimmy-wales -online This message and any attachment are intended solely for the addressee and may contain confidential information. If you have received this message in error, please send it back to me, and immediately delete it. Please do not use, copy or disclose the information contained in this message or in any attachment. Any views or opinions expressed by the author of this email do not necessarily reflect the views of the University of Nottingham. This message has been checked for viruses but the contents of an attachment may still contain software viruses which could damage your computer system: you are advised to perform your own checks. Email communications with the University of Nottingham may be monitored as permitted by UK legislation. [ Part 2: Attached Text ] ___ GOAL mailing list GOAL@eprints.org http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/goal
[GOAL] Re: Wikipedia founder to help in [UK] government's research scheme
On 2012-05-02, at 6:00 AM, Andrew A. Adams wrote: The [UK] government has drafted in the Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales to help make all taxpayer-funded academic research in Britain available online to anyone who wants to read or use it. I was hoping that the new government might be less star-struck than the previous one. Plus ca change, plus ca meme chose, it would seem. We really don't need Jimmy Wales advising on this. The team behind eprints has been (with minimal funding) developing the technology needed for many years and there are many academics in the UK much better versed in the intricacies of UK academic work and life than Mr Wales. Sigh. I foresee another lost couple of years wasted on this instead of getting to grips with the known problem and the known solution (including providing better funding for eprints development to the team that created it and still does the software engineering for it). Andrew is so right (and the current UK government is showing as much good sense in turning to JW as they showed for many years in turning to RM). Wikipedia is based on the antithesis of peer review. Asking JW to help make sure peer-reviewed research is available to all is like asking McDonalds to help the WHO/FDA make sure that wholesome food is available to all. The way to make all taxpayer-funded academic research in Britain available online to all is already known: Make it a mandatory condition of funding that the fundees make it available online to all (OA). Britain (RCUK) has already gone a long way toward toward doing just that -- a much longer way than any other country so far. But there are still some crucial implementational details that need tweaking in order to make those mandates work: 1. The requirement has to be to deposit in the fundee's institutional repository. 2. The deposit must be immediately upon acceptance for publication. That way the fundee's institution will be empowered to monitor and ensure compliance with the mandate. In addition, when there is an embargo on making the immediate-deposit OA immediately, the institution's email-eprint-request Button can tide over immediate research usage needs during the embargo on an automated, accelerated individual-request basis. Institutional deposit will also motivate institutions to mandate OA for all of their research output, not just the RCUK-funded portion. But these are all implementational details that could be fixed by just updating the language of the mandates -- making it explicit that research that is not institutionally deposited immediately loses its funding. Each institution's research grant support office, already so solicitous about complying with all conditions for applying for, receiving and retaining grants will assiduously see to it that institutional fundees understand and comply. But JW does not know any of this. And if he did, he would be no better able to implement it than anyone else. It's the *implementation* that's needed, to make the broth edible and available to all -- not more cooks (and especially not from McDonalds' kitchens)! Stevan Harnad ___ GOAL mailing list GOAL@eprints.org http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/goal
[GOAL] Re: Wikipedia founder to help in [UK] government's research scheme
I don't think we need to worry about WIkipedia because Jimmy Wales is being used as an expert in crowd-sourced knowledge initiatives, rather than the purveyor of a system for providing OA. In the UK I think that the best way forward is to embrace the welcome aspects of the government's initiative in an enthusiastic fashion, while showing that a network of institutional OA repositories are just what they were thinking of! Interestingly enough, Jimmy is being co-opted into this agenda having been signed up by the government to look at provisioning Open Data, underlining my feeling that OA in the UK could become a subset of the Open Data agenda. -- Les Carr On 2 May 2012, at 12:40, brent...@ulg.ac.be wrote: Sorry, but I disagree with this. I understand all the help that celebrities can bring to a cause, but the choice of the celebrity should be wise. In this case, there is a dangerous risk of mixing up concepts. Wikipedia is, by definition, the negation of peer reviewing. Or, at best, it is considering everyone as a peer to everyone else. It works surprisingly well, by the way, in many cases, but it fails completely at times as well. Expurging mistakes from WP (whether they are willingly forged or not) is a very difficult task and it can take forever. And you cannot control everything. I do not want to engage in a debate on Wikipedia's qualities and weaknesses, but tens of thousands of professors around the world spend time explaining their students why WP, though comfortable (who has never used it?), is a dangerous tool because it makes widely public a lot of informations that have not been reviewed by acknowledged specialists. Considering how people these days conflate Open Access and lack of peer reviewing, considering our relentless efforts to fight this confusion, I find it dangerous for a government to choose WP's founder as an advocate of scholarly OA. Bernard Rentier Chairman, EOS (Enabling Open Scholarship) http://www.openscholarship.org/jcms/j_6/accueil Le 2 mai 2012 à 12:47, Jan Velterop velte...@gmail.com a écrit : Strict logic is not what we win the battle for open access with. Some celebrity involvement is to be welcomed. On a visceral level the success of Wikipedia (not a logical outcome at the outset on the basis of the premises) may well influence the perception of open access. Jan Velterop On 2 May 2012, at 11:00, Andrew A. Adams wrote: The [UK] government has drafted in the Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales to help make all taxpayer-funded academic research in Britain available online to anyone who wants to read or use it. I was hoping that the new government might be less star-struck than the previous one. Plus ca change, plus ca meme chose, it would seem. We really don't need Jimmy Wales advising on this. The team behind eprints has been (with minimal funding) developing the technology needed for many years and there are many academics in the UK much better versed in the intricacies of UK academic work and life than Mr Wales. Sigh. I foresee another lost couple of years wasted on this instead of getting to grips with the known problem and the known solution (including providing better funding for eprints development to the team that created it and still does the software engineering for it). -- Professor Andrew A Adams a...@meiji.ac.jp Professor at Graduate School of Business Administration, and Deputy Director of the Centre for Business Information Ethics Meiji University, Tokyo, Japan http://www.a-cubed.info/ ___ GOAL mailing list GOAL@eprints.org http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/goal ___ GOAL mailing list GOAL@eprints.org http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/goal ___ GOAL mailing list GOAL@eprints.org http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/goal ___ GOAL mailing list GOAL@eprints.org http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/goal
[GOAL] Re: Wikipedia founder to help in [UK] government's research scheme
It's no more dangerous for a government to choose WP's founder as an advocate of scholarly OA than having Al Gore as the advocate of the climate crisis. Is it peer-review or toll access that is the inconvenient truth? Meanwhile, look at these experiments and proposals: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Medicine/Collaborative_ publication https://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/Proposal:Journal_%28A_peer-review_journ al_to_allow/encourage_academics_to_write_Wikipedia_articles%29 Leslie -Original Message- From: Velterop velte...@gmail.com Reply-To: Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci) goal@eprints.org List-Post: goal@eprints.org List-Post: goal@eprints.org Date: Wed, 2 May 2012 13:12:29 +0100 To: Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci) goal@eprints.org Subject: [GOAL] Re: Wikipedia founder to help in [UK] government's research scheme In my view, this is why OA hasn't really taken off yet in a big enough way. All logic, little persuasion on an emotional level. BTW, Expunging mistakes from the peer-reviewed literature (whether they are willingly forged or not) is a nigh-impossible task. Peer-review works surprisingly well, in many cases, but it fails completely at times as well. Jan On 2 May 2012, at 12:40, brent...@ulg.ac.be wrote: Sorry, but I disagree with this. I understand all the help that celebrities can bring to a cause, but the choice of the celebrity should be wise. In this case, there is a dangerous risk of mixing up concepts. Wikipedia is, by definition, the negation of peer reviewing. Or, at best, it is considering everyone as a peer to everyone else. It works surprisingly well, by the way, in many cases, but it fails completely at times as well. Expurging mistakes from WP (whether they are willingly forged or not) is a very difficult task and it can take forever. And you cannot control everything. I do not want to engage in a debate on Wikipedia's qualities and weaknesses, but tens of thousands of professors around the world spend time explaining their students why WP, though comfortable (who has never used it?), is a dangerous tool because it makes widely public a lot of informations that have not been reviewed by acknowledged specialists. Considering how people these days conflate Open Access and lack of peer reviewing, considering our relentless efforts to fight this confusion, I find it dangerous for a government to choose WP's founder as an advocate of scholarly OA. Bernard Rentier Chairman, EOS (Enabling Open Scholarship) http://www.openscholarship.org/jcms/j_6/accueil Le 2 mai 2012 à 12:47, Jan Velterop velte...@gmail.com a écrit : Strict logic is not what we win the battle for open access with. Some celebrity involvement is to be welcomed. On a visceral level the success of Wikipedia (not a logical outcome at the outset on the basis of the premises) may well influence the perception of open access. Jan Velterop On 2 May 2012, at 11:00, Andrew A. Adams wrote: The [UK] government has drafted in the Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales to help make all taxpayer-funded academic research in Britain available online to anyone who wants to read or use it. I was hoping that the new government might be less star-struck than the previous one. Plus ca change, plus ca meme chose, it would seem. We really don't need Jimmy Wales advising on this. The team behind eprints has been (with minimal funding) developing the technology needed for many years and there are many academics in the UK much better versed in the intricacies of UK academic work and life than Mr Wales. Sigh. I foresee another lost couple of years wasted on this instead of getting to grips with the known problem and the known solution (including providing better funding for eprints development to the team that created it and still does the software engineering for it). -- Professor Andrew A Adams a...@meiji.ac.jp Professor at Graduate School of Business Administration, and Deputy Director of the Centre for Business Information Ethics Meiji University, Tokyo, Japan http://www.a-cubed.info/ ___ GOAL mailing list GOAL@eprints.org http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/goal ___ GOAL mailing list GOAL@eprints.org http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/goal ___ GOAL mailing list GOAL@eprints.org http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/goal ___ GOAL mailing list GOAL@eprints.org http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/goal ___ GOAL mailing list GOAL@eprints.org http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/goal
[GOAL] Re: Wikipedia founder to help in [UK] government's research scheme
On 2 May 2012, at 13:32, Stevan Harnad wrote: Andrew is so right (and the current UK government is showing as much good sense in turning to JW as they showed for many years in turning to RM). Wikipedia is based on the antithesis of peer review. Asking JW to help make sure peer-reviewed research is available to all is like asking McDonalds to help the WHO/FDA make sure that wholesome food is available to all. Ach, come off it, Stevan. By your reckoning arXiv is also the antithesis of peer review. Would you talk in the same way about Paul Ginsparg? OA will gain from more involvement of people who understand diplomacy, persuasion, and yes, 'marketing'. ___ GOAL mailing list GOAL@eprints.org http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/goal
[GOAL] Re: Wikipedia founder to help in [UK] government's research scheme
I very much welcome this appointment. He is no stranger to scholpub - here is an example of him publishing Wikiproteins, in a peer-reviewed journal (with a high imact factor for those who worry): http://genomebiology.com/2008/9/5/R89 And dare we say - he has built a repository that people *want* to put things into ( including me.). Wikipedia is not rubbish and it is maturing all the time. -- Peter Murray-Rust Reader in Molecular Informatics Unilever Centre, Dep. Of Chemistry University of Cambridge CB2 1EW, UK +44-1223-763069 [ Part 2: Attached Text ] ___ GOAL mailing list GOAL@eprints.org http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/goal
[GOAL] Re: Wikipedia founder to help in [UK] government's research scheme
On 2012-05-02, at 9:28 AM, Jan Velterop wrote: On 2 May 2012, at 13:32, Stevan Harnad wrote: Andrew is so right (and the current UK government is showing as much good sense in turning to JW as they showed for many years in turning to RM). Wikipedia is based on the antithesis of peer review. Asking JW to help make sure peer-reviewed research is available to all is like asking McDonalds to help the WHO/FDA make sure that wholesome food is available to all. Ach, come off it, Stevan. By your reckoning arXiv is also the antithesis of peer review. Would you talk in the same way about Paul Ginsparg? Arxiv contains preprints of articles before and after peer review. Arxiv does not do peer review. Neither do institutional repositories. (Why do you ask about Paul Ginsparg?) OA will gain from more involvement of people who understand diplomacy, persuasion, and yes, 'marketing'. At the moment, Jimmy Wales does not have a clue about what are the real problems of getting OA provided by researchers; nor does he have a clear understanding of (or any experience with) peer review. This can all be remedied, if someone has JW's ear, and he listens and understands. Then JW can be a helpful (though no doubt expensive) conduit to the ears of those (David Willetts?) who are in a position to do what needs to get done to make the RCUK mandates work. Meanwhile, regarding diplomacy and persuasion, I suggest that you give more weight to what Professor Rentier has posted about academia's attitude to Wikipedia. We are trying to win researchers over to providing OA to their peer-reviewed research -- not to win them over to some fantasied Wikipedia-style alternative to peer review. http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/pipermail/goal/2012-May/000372.html We've been down this path so many times, Jan. Is the appointment of a celebrity name now to be the occasion for rehearsing it all yet again? It's not diplomacy that's needed; it's effectively formulated and implemented policy. The RCUK already leads the rest of the world in OA, but its OA policy needs tweaking to make it effective. Stevan Harnad ___ GOAL mailing list GOAL@eprints.org http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/goal
[GOAL] Re: Wikipedia founder to help in [UK] government's research scheme
On 2 May 2012, at 15:31, Stevan Harnad wrote: On 2012-05-02, at 9:28 AM, Jan Velterop wrote: On 2 May 2012, at 13:32, Stevan Harnad wrote: Andrew is so right (and the current UK government is showing as much good sense in turning to JW as they showed for many years in turning to RM). Wikipedia is based on the antithesis of peer review. Asking JW to help make sure peer-reviewed research is available to all is like asking McDonalds to help the WHO/FDA make sure that wholesome food is available to all. Ach, come off it, Stevan. By your reckoning arXiv is also the antithesis of peer review. Would you talk in the same way about Paul Ginsparg? Arxiv contains preprints of articles before and after peer review. Arxiv does not do peer review. Neither do institutional repositories. And Wikipedia doesn't either, so why is that the antithesis to peer review? (Why do you ask about Paul Ginsparg?) OA will gain from more involvement of people who understand diplomacy, persuasion, and yes, 'marketing'. At the moment, Jimmy Wales does not have a clue about what are the real problems of getting OA provided by researchers; nor does he have a clear understanding of (or any experience with) peer review. He knows and understands far more about OA that you presume (on the basis of what do you presume that, actually?). For a start, he has been 'educated' on all matters OA by Melissa Hagemann herself. This can all be remedied, if someone has JW's ear, and he listens and understands. Then JW can be a helpful (though no doubt expensive Expensive? No-doubt? You didn't read the article in The Guardian, did you? There it says ⦠he was brought in by No 10 as an unpaid adviser to government on crowdsourcingâ¦. ) conduit to the ears of those (David Willetts?) who are in a position to do what needs to get done to make the RCUK mandates work. Meanwhile, regarding diplomacy and persuasion, I suggest that you give more weight to what Professor Rentier has posted about academia's attitude to Wikipedia. We are trying to win researchers over to providing OA to their peer-reviewed research -- not to win them over to some fantasied Wikipedia-style alternative to peer review. http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/pipermail/goal/2012-May/000372.html We've been down this path so many times, Jan. Is the appointment of a celebrity name now to be the occasion for rehearsing it all yet again? I know somebody who is infinitely more repetitive with his views than I am with my views. It's not diplomacy that's needed; it's effectively formulated and implemented policy. The RCUK already leads the rest of the world in OA, but its OA policy needs tweaking to make it effective. Stevan Harnad ___ GOAL mailing list GOAL@eprints.org http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/goal ___ GOAL mailing list GOAL@eprints.org http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/goal
[GOAL] Re: Wikipedia founder to help in [UK] government's research scheme
Thanks to Jan for pointing out that JW is consulting on OA for the UK government for free. I apologize for having assumed otherwise! On the expertise JW brings to bear on OA, that remains to be seen... Stevan Harnad On 2012-05-02, at 10:56 AM, Jan Velterop wrote: On 2 May 2012, at 15:31, Stevan Harnad wrote: On 2012-05-02, at 9:28 AM, Jan Velterop wrote: On 2 May 2012, at 13:32, Stevan Harnad wrote: Andrew is so right (and the current UK government is showing as much good sense in turning to JW as they showed for many years in turning to RM). Wikipedia is based on the antithesis of peer review. Asking JW to help make sure peer-reviewed research is available to all is like asking McDonalds to help the WHO/FDA make sure that wholesome food is available to all. Ach, come off it, Stevan. By your reckoning arXiv is also the antithesis of peer review. Would you talk in the same way about Paul Ginsparg? Arxiv contains preprints of articles before and after peer review. Arxiv does not do peer review. Neither do institutional repositories. And Wikipedia doesn't either, so why is that the antithesis to peer review? (Why do you ask about Paul Ginsparg?) OA will gain from more involvement of people who understand diplomacy, persuasion, and yes, 'marketing'. At the moment, Jimmy Wales does not have a clue about what are the real problems of getting OA provided by researchers; nor does he have a clear understanding of (or any experience with) peer review. He knows and understands far more about OA that you presume (on the basis of what do you presume that, actually?). For a start, he has been 'educated' on all matters OA by Melissa Hagemann herself. This can all be remedied, if someone has JW's ear, and he listens and understands. Then JW can be a helpful (though no doubt expensive Expensive? No-doubt? You didn't read the article in The Guardian, did you? There it says ⦠he was brought in by No 10 as an unpaid adviser to government on crowdsourcingâ¦. ) conduit to the ears of those (David Willetts?) who are in a position to do what needs to get done to make the RCUK mandates work. Meanwhile, regarding diplomacy and persuasion, I suggest that you give more weight to what Professor Rentier has posted about academia's attitude to Wikipedia. We are trying to win researchers over to providing OA to their peer-reviewed research -- not to win them over to some fantasied Wikipedia-style alternative to peer review. http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/pipermail/goal/2012-May/000372.html We've been down this path so many times, Jan. Is the appointment of a celebrity name now to be the occasion for rehearsing it all yet again? I know somebody who is infinitely more repetitive with his views than I am with my views. It's not diplomacy that's needed; it's effectively formulated and implemented policy. The RCUK already leads the rest of the world in OA, but its OA policy needs tweaking to make it effective. Stevan Harnad ___ GOAL mailing list GOAL@eprints.org http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/goal ___ GOAL mailing list GOAL@eprints.org http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/goal ___ GOAL mailing list GOAL@eprints.org http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/goal
