Comments on: mediacommons and peer-to-peer review

By: Kathleen Fitzpatrick

Kathleen Fitzpatrick — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 16:26:54 +0000

Yes, absolutely; that one definitely needs to come into the main text.

By: Paul F. Gehl

Paul F. Gehl — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 02:07:20 +0000

Here again, note 43 contains a crucial observation that I would like to see in text, if only because the online projects that invite review do create labor that did not exist at all in traditional peer-review systems.

By: Paul F. Gehl

Paul F. Gehl — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 02:05:10 +0000

Good point, but I have to say I worry less about the loners inside the university (who will still be able to work on their own, and will perhaps find the relative openness of the ‘online academy’ congenial to the degree that it allows them to have a public without seeing it personally in public forums) than I do about the independent scholars who do not have elaborate academic credentials to present to the community. These folks have always had difficulty getting heard, and unless the new systems allow them to pay-to-play they will continue to do so.

By: Katherine Rowe

Katherine Rowe — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 15:36:29 +0000

Picking up on the professional “culture” thread —

Among the most poignant criticisms of scholarly social networking practices (open reviewing, institutional depositories, facebook pages, etc.) that I’ve heard from colleagues has been the worry that a certain “personality” or “type” will no longer find a home among us. That is to say, that academia (the humanities in particular) has long been a professional haven for thoughtful, socially inept, somewhat twitchy, eccentric people who like to curl up with books or hole up in an archive. The worry goes: with the advent of more connected, collaborative, open and public working lives, will that haven continue to exist? There’s a core “nature of our profession” worry being expressed here.

By: Yuri

Yuri — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 21:26:52 +0000

“… in fact much mitigates against it.”

Should the word be “militates” here?

By: Kathleen Fitzpatrick

Kathleen Fitzpatrick — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 20:04:25 +0000

A good suggestion — thanks!

By: Dorothea Salo

Dorothea Salo — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 16:05:20 +0000

A quick trawl through the history of the institutional repository may be apropos here, to make the point that “community” tends to be discipline- rather than institution-based.

By: David Parry

David Parry — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 15:12:26 +0000

I think the point you make here is crucial, “However, for network-based publishing to succeed, the communal emphasis of network culture will have to take the lead over academic culture’s individualism.” That is, one could build the best online peer, reputation system imaginable, and it would be of little use without an accompanying shift in how we view scholarship. This strikes me as particularly difficult in the humanities where the culture and value of individual/solitary production is valued above all else.