True, it's probably not in the interests of the traditional publishers, but equally many of the OA journals are very new and may or may not have a sustainable business model. There's not the same level of track record to show whether they attract good papers or are a journal of last resort. The fact that the author pays in some OA journals smells a little of "vanity publishing" (if the journal wants the money, won't they say Yes to lots of papers regardless of merit). OA journals that draw heavily on volunteers rather than paid staff may find the volunteers enthusiasm wanes over time and the journal collapses. Senior academics whose research is published in traditional journals, where they may serve on those editorial boards of those journals, and so on, are often dubious about any new journal (OA or not), and those senior academics are the same people who sit on the committees that decide the "quality" of a journal and sit on selection/promotion committees. So there is a lot of "inertia" in the system around anything new. This creates in turn its own problem, if the older traditional journals are more valued for academic purposes, then they will inevitably attract the better papers, leaving the papers going to the new journals to be more mediocre, which then in turn may give the new journal a mediocre reputation.
I note that all of the above applies to universities too. New universities struggle to attract the best students who tend to be attracted to the proven reputations of older universities. Older universities have bequests and endowments from their early students that newer universities don’t possess. Incumbency is a powerful factor in both universities and in publishing. But with Wikipedia, we saw incumbency overturned, because, despite the fear of low quality, Wikipedia's availability and price (free!) overtook the old model of encyclopedia. This is what we have to hope for with OA journals. That their availability and price (free!) will make it easier for other researchers to read and then CITE them, leading to a rise in their citation index, which is an important aspect of reputation. But, yes, there's a lag before that happens, and so in that lag time, you need lots researchers committed to OA to publish there or researchers compelled to publish there (thinking of WMF grant conditions). Kerry -----Original Message----- From: Wiki-research-l [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Piotr Konieczny Sent: Monday, 4 July 2016 12:41 PM To: Research into Wikimedia content and communities <[email protected]> Subject: Re: [Wiki-research-l] A New Journal: Wiki Studies Second everything, with a note that sadly, until it is in SSCI, I doubt I will be able to contribute much :( Frankly, I wonder if the near impossibility for most new and OA journals to get into the high-end indices isn't some sort of conspiracy on the traditional parasites, I mean, publishers part... :> -- Piotr Konieczny, PhD http://hanyang.academia.edu/PiotrKonieczny http://scholar.google.com/citations?user=gdV8_AEAAAAJ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Piotrus On 7/1/2016 14:56, Andrew Krizhanovsky wrote: > Thank you for this good news about the journal! > > But I (as a usual researcher from the usual research Institute) will > be more interested to submit a paper to your journal if you will > manage to index your journal in WebOfScience or Scopus. Is it > possible? > > Best regards, > Andrew Krizhanovsky. > > On 1 July 2016 at 07:09, Shani <[email protected]> wrote: >> Wonderful initiative! Much luck with it. >> >> Shani. >> >> On 1 Jul 2016 01:44, "Robert E. Cummings" <[email protected]> wrote: >>> Hi All: >>> >>> Given the conversation about fees for publishing articles about >>> Wikipedia in OA journals, I wanted to call your attention to a new >>> journal we are starting, Wiki Studies http://wikistudies.org/ >>> >>> Wiki Studies is an interdisciplinary, open access, peer-reviewed >>> journal focusing on the intersection of Wikipedia and higher >>> education. We are interested in most all of the same topics hosted >>> on the research listserv and the newsletter, including articles >>> about pedagogical practices, epistemology, bias, mission, and >>> reliability. We will not charge for submission or publication, and >>> will offer open access to readers. We will host on Open Journal Systems. >>> >>> We are just getting started. We are recruiting editors, and plan to >>> have a presence at the upcoming Wiki Conference North America in San >>> Diego 7-10 October 2016. We hope to publish our first volume in >>> March of 2017, consisting of submissions received by 31 December 2016. >>> >>> Comments, queries, and suggestions all welcome at >>> [email protected] >>> >>> Yours, >>> Bob Cummings >>> >>> >>> _______________________________________________ >>> Wiki-research-l mailing list >>> [email protected] >>> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wiki-research-l >>> >> _______________________________________________ >> Wiki-research-l mailing list >> [email protected] >> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wiki-research-l >> > _______________________________________________ > Wiki-research-l mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wiki-research-l _______________________________________________ Wiki-research-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wiki-research-l _______________________________________________ Wiki-research-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wiki-research-l
