On Feb 9, 2008, at 6:59 PM, Jonathan Sterne, Dr. wrote:
Christian Nelson's understanding of the editorial process seems a bit naive.
Perhaps you'd like to back that comment up with some evidence and reasoning. You know, like how I backed up my claims? Otherwise, all you've just done is engage in name-calling, which befits a grammar school playground more than a scholarly listserv. Or did I mistake the nature of this listserv?
First, I'm not sure that open access journals ought to have open source reviewing. Knowledge is not necessarily democratic: there are people who know more about their fields than others, and frankly, I'd like THOSE people to review my work when I submit it to a journal.
As I noted with the CNET.com example, there is no reason that an online journal must be EITHER reviewed by so-called experts OR by the readership in general. They can do both at once. Aren't you being a bit naive about the possibilities to suggest otherwise?
One of the great values of the humanities and social sciences (and indeed all basic research) is that learned people are allow to pursue lines of inquiry whose immediate payoff may not be immediately apparent to others. Academics should not be subject to popularity contests or ratings.
Uh, didn't you read any of my examples? I pointed out that I've had two editors deny my work even a review because my approach to communication (Wittgensteinian) was too different. One went on to explicitly state that few if any of his readers would read my work because it was so out of the mainstream. (BTW, the paper was later published in Language and Communication, edited by a highly regarded Wittgenstienian scholar whose decision to publish the paper vouches for its quality.) I'd rather take my chances with a real popularity contest than one a lone editors makes up in his head. And who said that a journal should or would have to make editorial decisions based on popularity? I didn't suggest that, as a less careless and/or defensive reading of my post will show.
CNET is very useful for what it is, but it is not a model for scholarship.
Of course, you have reason and evidence for saying that, right? Please do let us in on it.
More often than not, leading figures in a field don't do a lot of journal reviewing because they're too busy with other kinds of reviewing, like tenure dossiers (this has certainly happened to me, and I'm not even full yet). I also find that senior, leading figures are just as likely to be MORE open minded to new ideas and new approaches than younger scholars, who may have more invested in advancing or defending a particular paradigm as they establish themselves. Of course there are also tenured professors who appear to eat their own brains, so I guess we can't generalize too much in this regard.
Open access, yes, but with a solid, blind peer review. In that respect, IJOC is a fine example.
Again, blind peer review can be made part of a review system. Again, take a look at CNET. Christian Nelson