Jeremy Hunsinger wrote: At the risk of entering what appears to be the beginnings of a serious difference of opinions, I wanted to comment on one point that Jeremy makes:
yes, and then you go on.... but I think you mistake the purpose of the editorial board. the editorial board is not the review board at all. the editorial board exists to generate submissions, and quality content, not to review texts.
I think this is dependent upon the journal. I know our editorial board serves as the reviewers who ensure quality content, and not as generators of submissions (we do sometimes publish works produced by our editorial board of course, and in that case they do generate quality content). But for relatively visible journals, there is no lack of submissions (although the quality does vary). In other words, local conditions and disciplinary needs tend to dictate the actual work of journal production (this includes whether graduate students are funded for the work and how peer-review is carried out). So both understandings of what an editorial board is and does are likely correct, but in different contexts. (On a side note, related to funding and opportunities for graduate students, Kairos was started by graduate students and has slowly shifted to being run primarily by folks who are no longer graduate students--albeit engaged in a wide variety of work, not just tenure-track faculty--and we are now working to once again provide more opportunities to graduate students to join our team in different roles). [snip]
My understand of it is from the basis of paid labor and volunteer labor. I have to say paid labor is much preferred.
Okay I lied -- I want to comment on this part too. Yes, paid labor is preferred, but the economics of production (particularly in academia) would need to significantly change to make this work on a large scale. Most of the knowledge produced by scholars is certainly labor but it is often unpaid (in direct monetary form). However, particularly in academia, social capital can be accrued through volunteer labor, and sometimes that is a better incentive than money by itself (this is not to say that money isn't an incentive of course -- I do work-for-hire stuff for publishers when I can, but I also do a lot of my work for Kairos--unpaid/volunteer work--because it leads to greater value for me as a member of a particular field).
It is likely true that if aoir starts a virtual journal, it will gain slightly less respect than first monday, but should it start a print journal, it would likely garner more respect than that esteemed publication. The thing is though that only print journals get into isi, and while scopus and other second tier ranking systems exist, they don't command the same respect. paper is king, why?
This is an excellent question. At an educational technology conference where the journal editors were concerned with figuring out how to get their journals in to ISI so they'd have an impact factor, I suggested that they come up with alternate forms of judging impact and work to make those accepted in their fields, rather than trying to buy into a system that is already stacked against them (these were mostly print journals). In terms of the scenario you list above, *I* would view an AoIR journal in print or virtual as having value based on what it publishes and how that work is used (and I mean this very broadly -- not just in terms of formal citation). If the journal is good, I wouldn't see it as more or less respect-worthy than First Monday because in a way, that would be comparing apples and oranges and because there is no reason each couldn't be equally respected. The task at hand, then, becomes, how do we get *institutions* to understand value in this broader sense? Doug