A meta issue has not been addressed in this discussion. The primary purpose of publication, other than "or perish," is to increase our understandings. Scholarly review adds value to what is published. Expensive requirements for access reduces access. Charles Balch -----Original Message----- From: air-l-bounces@listserv.aoir.org [mailto:air-l-bounces@listserv.aoir.org] On Behalf Of Christian Fuchs Sent: Sunday, February 10, 2008 8:44 AM To: air-l@listserv.aoir.org Subject: Possible Foreign Spam: Re: [Air-L] summary of the debate: open-access is the future: boycott locked-down academic journals I have been following the debate and try to summarize the positions (maybe I am wrong): Concerning the future role of open-access publishing: P1: Open access online journals are important and should be supported because they give a public character to academic knowledge. Locked down journals should be boycotted. P2: Non-profit open access online journals should be supported because the for-profit ones charge unacceptable author-rates. P3: High-quality academic publishing is in need of a high amount of resources (money, time, persons, etc.), which can be best managed by the established corporate models of publishing. PN: Any combination of other elements. The debate then shifted towards the role of peer-reviewing and the question of there should be open rating instead of anonymous peer-review: S1: Academic publishing is stratified by reputation that is accumulated and controlled through the peer-review system. The alternative is a public review system, all or most works submitted get published, everyone can comment and make ratings. S2: The peer-review procedure works well as it is now, it is a high quality standard in science. Open access and public reviewing/commenting might undercut these quality standards. SN: Some middle-ground. Personal positions and experiences seem to be guiding in such debates, so it might be best, as suggested by Charles, to pause for a moment and resume the discourse in some days, with less emotions and in a less heated way. Christian -- _______________________________________________ The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org Join the Association of Internet Researchers: http://www.aoir.org/