There is a kind of disdain for anything that is published online even though, oddly enough, the same quality of filtering, evaluation, review, and the like can be applied to a paper that is published online as can be applied to one which is printed on paper.
It seems to me that the Endowment could foster the creation of online journals with the same quality of review and therefore the same authority that the printed journals have. I'm sure that will cause some dislocations here and there, but I've become increasingly unhappy about the cost of the physical journals and the practice which, at least in my disciplines, have the authors paying page charges to get their papers published and then having libraries paying incredibly high fees for access to the printed journals, thereby limiting access by the researchers to this material, which is, in a sense, impeding research progress.
We see pre-prepublication distribution online as an alternative and a faster alternative than waiting for the printed journals. The problem is that when tenure decisions come up, it seems the referencing of the printed journal is a necessity. I would love to see a change in attitude about that.
Posted by
Peter Suber at 3/16/2006 10:40:00 AM.
The open access movement:
Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature
on the internet. Making it available free of charge and
free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Removing the barriers to serious research.
I recommend the OA tracking project (OATP) as the best way to stay on top of new OA developments. You can read the OATP feed on a blog-like web page or subscribe to it by RSS, email, or Twitter. You can also help build the feed by tagging new developments you encounter.
