I tried to respond to this earlier, but the moderator deemed it too long (talk about open-access LOL). I work in the media world, and the media world controls publishing and it is less than 20 companies that call all of the shots. The tenured professors are not giving up their cozy relationship with the publishers who are the real flesh peddlers here. No one beats the house at its own game unless new rules come into play. Google, Apple, Amazon and Microsoft have demonstrated that one can utilize the free model for publishing purposes, but we will have to re-define academic publishing. First, the feds require that we create published products in audio, video, print and web that are accessible and 508 compliant by all people. Second colleges should set up their own digital publishing outfits that are run by faculty, students and pros in the business. Printed books are great but becoming unaffordable for many,and the digital alternative that is ad-based may be ready for prime time. There are many great research projects that are not seeing the light of day because of the media monolopoly and it is time for the dispossed to create their own online journals. I have worked in the media for 20 years and I arrived at that conclusion long ago, and so must academic otherwise it is engaging in self-censorship rather than spreading knowledge which we are all required to do. -----Original Message----- From: air-l-bounces@listserv.aoir.org [mailto:air-l-bounces@listserv.aoir.org] On Behalf Of Christian Nelson Sent: Thursday, February 07, 2008 4:47 PM To: air-l@listserv.aoir.org Subject: Re: [Air-L] open-access is the future: boycott locked-down academic journals I wish that publishing became open-access. Unfortunately, it won't any time soon. At least, it won't until renowned scholars switch from publishing in locked-down journals to publishing in open-access journals, because untenured folks have to publish in the places where their most reputable colleagues do, and successful scholars have much to lose by publishing via open-access journals. No longer could they control the editing process as fully as they do now. As plenty of researchers in the sociology of the sciences have observed, the most successful scholars in any discipline form a group who all know each others' work, monopolize editorial board positions, and tend to inflate the value of eachother's work and that of eachother's students such that papers by those outside the group are denied publication much more than consideration of quality warrant. If the current group of gatekeeping scholars advocated open-source publishing they would lose their current publishing advantage and everything that comes with that--an easier time of promoting the careers of their supportive friends and students, an easier time padding out their vitas so that they can get grants, etc. In other words, they would threaten their enjoyment of what famed sociologist Robert Merton called the Matthew effect. Why would they ever do that? --Christian Nelson _______________________________________________ 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/