Thanks, Michael, for raising some interesting and important issues. In response to Max's questions about whether tenure committees prefer hard copy or online publications, I'd prefer not to fall into a technologically deterministic discussion. I think there are plenty of hard copy publications that would count little toward a tenure case so it's not necessarily the medium that matters. Prestige seems to matter, which is often at least to some degree related to the level of peer-review. Of course, anyone who's submitted to or reviewed for a prestigious (or not) journal knows how much of the process is a fluke. It is far from a perfect system. But to address the question about the types of publications that matter, my impression is that it's hugely field dependent. In some fields, publishing a chapter in an edited book counts for almost nothing. In other fields, publishing something online even as a working paper counts for a lot. Some fields put quite a bit of weight on citations. So instead of simply looking at where you published, they want to know how many times the piece has been cited (granted, again looking at in what types of journals those pieces were published). My understanding is that self-citations don't count in this system which makes a lot of sense (that is, it's not enough for you to keep citing your own work, other people have to as well). It will take some time for any new journal to gain prestige, whether Web-based or hard copy. In that sense, those of us doing research in a new field will face challenges regardless of the medium of the publication because new journals (online or not) geared to our areas of interest can't possibly be as well known as much older venues for work. Over time, some of these journals will gain prestige, hopefully regardless of their medium. In an ideal world - and I'd hope this is the case in some places - tenure committees, at least at the dept level, would read one's work and not simply look at where it was published to determine its quality and contributions. For example, I don't know how many points Danny Kahneman (last year's Nobel winner in Econ) scored in Psychology (his field) for publishing a seminal piece in Econometrica (a very prestigious journal in econ) but it sounds like that was the place to publish it for the kind of impact it had on econ research. (For more: http://www.princeton.edu/pr/news/02/q4/1009-kahneman-b.htm ) Since this is related, I'd like to add that I've been amazed at the number of AoIR members' Web sites I've visited that do not have copies of their publications available for online access. I realize some of these are copyright related, but it's usually possible to put up a "pre-print" copy of one's paper. If not, in the least, I would hope people would make it clear on their sites that by contacting them we can obtain an e-copy via email. For those interested in more about the Soros Open Access initiative to which Michael referred, here's their Web site: http://www.soros.org/openaccess/ Eszter --- Eszter Hargittai http://www.eszter.com My Weblog: http://www.esztersblog.com How to win the Nobel Prize: http://www.roadtostockholm.com _______________________________________________ No banners. No pop-ups. No kidding. Introducing My Way - http://www.myway.com