tjm.org - Latest Comments

Re: Proposal: experiment to compare open vs paywall publishing

Tim McCormick — Fri, 23 Aug 2013 23:41:51 -0000

thanks, M. N. I look forward to explorations of this problem such as Heekyung Kim's Sloan-funded project. Also, I added a note to post about designing for better diffusion, not just studying it. best, Tim.

Re: Proposal: experiment to compare open vs paywall publishing

MNO — Fri, 23 Aug 2013 17:25:25 -0000

That was pretty epic. Kudos to everyone for raising awareness and access.

Re: Responses to One-Tweet Book Proposals ebook

Guest — Sun, 04 Aug 2013 14:35:09 -0000

I never blocked you on Twitter. Are you lying about that as part of your perverse trolling experiment, or do you actually believe it to be true?

Re: How To Bring Academics to the Social-Media Party? Indirectly

Chris Taylor — Thu, 18 Jul 2013 06:33:41 -0000

Great piece, especially from where it gets meaty about halfway down. I've been pushing Twitter wrapping (for want of a better phrase) at work to encourage non-geek engagement -- you really fleshed that out (I'll have this piece in mind next time it comes up) and chucked in lots of other ideas besides. Thanks for sharing :)

Re: Open is multiple

patlockley — Tue, 16 Jul 2013 12:56:26 -0000

Hello,

Saw this on LSE but thought I would contact here as your own blog

http://www.slideshare.net/O... (slide 10 onwards) - http://vimeo.com/62742159 (video of presentation)

An argument that open has become a slightly meaningless term, but weirdly, a very evocative term in arguments - Open seen as good - but no one is willing to define it. If PLOS advocates - advocates is an odd term - then how do you advocate for one state of mind other an other.

Perhaps I am too literal. But I wonder if openness as was, could be formulated into something explicit? I've been thinking about going past openness into a democratic basis instead, where common resources are managed by a community, rather than open - which has no community guarantee

Re: The “One Size Fits All” Problem in Debate

Tim McCormick — Thu, 11 Jul 2013 21:48:29 -0000

thanks Tom.
yes, you could say Sam's conclusion is kind of similar to what my post/comment points to. I think my point was more to do a frame analysis, and observe what assertions or implications are being made implicitly. For example, Open Access is presented as a well-defined thing that originated outside the humanities, when actually it's a significantly contested and evolving thing that began largely among humanists and social scientists in the 1990s.

The frame opposes "advocates", including the author, to people raising objections, mostly from the humanities, who are "detractors and non-engagers." My point is that, consciously or not, this implies that the advocates define the idea, and any opposing arguments are resistance or reaction. I've been observing this framing pattern regularly in the last year or two of OA debate in the UK, and would suggest that it embodies an evangelizing rather than deliberative/consultative viewpoint, and it is counter-productive because it antagonizes who don't feeled aligned with the advocacy.

I'm interested not only in the particular topic of Open Access, but in it as a laboratory of deliberation/comment practices, explicit and implicit.

One other thing, it looks you posted twice as Guest, then with this profile. Is something not working correctly, or difficult to figure out, with the comment setup? I keep tinkering and trying to figure out what works best, any bug report or feedback is welcome.
thanks, Tim.

Re: The “One Size Fits All” Problem in Debate

Tom Pollard — Thu, 11 Jul 2013 20:43:53 -0000

The way I read Sam's article, you both reach the same conclusion -
that one size *doesn't* fit all. His point, as I saw it, was that this
isn't a reason to resist change in general.

Instead, he suggests,
we must accept that disciplines differ and encourage academics to
'assess which ... publishing practices are beneficial and which merely
persist out of tradition' within their own communities.

That was my take anyway!

Tom (declaration: this interpretation is entirely my own, but I also work at Ubiquity Press). Sorry for the repeated anonymous posts...not sure what happened there.

Re: The “One Size Fits All” Problem in Debate

Guest — Thu, 11 Jul 2013 20:33:17 -0000

The way I read Sam's article, you both reach the same conclusion -
that one size *doesn't* fit all. His point, as I saw it, was that this
isn't a reason to resist change in general.

That was my take anyway!

Tom (declaration: this interpretation is entirely my own, but I also work at Ubiquity Press)

Re: The “One Size Fits All” Problem in Debate

Guest — Thu, 11 Jul 2013 20:31:57 -0000

The way I read Sam's article, you both reach the same conclusion - that one size *doesn't* fit all. His point, as I saw it, was that this isn't a good argument against change in general.

Instead, he suggests, we should accept that disciplines differ and encourage academics to 'assess which ... publishing practices are beneficial and which merely persist out of tradition' within their own communities.

That was my take anyway!

Tom (declaration: this interpretation is entirely my own, but I also work at Ubiquity Press)

Re: Are you reviewing the work, or your friends?

barrywellman — Mon, 08 Jul 2013 08:57:39 -0000

Mr McCormick, As I told you in an email which you left out, our committee does not meet until August, and I put your contributions in a folder to deal with then. I still plan to. In the past month, I have had to deal with 4 very close friends dying, a major change in my life, the need to run two large research projects, and preparing a number of trips and talks. These have preoccupied me. To the point at hand, Ms Pohl-Weary is a writer I have followed and respected for many years, and as I said, there is a 90% probability I would respect her new book -- not 100%. I regret upsetting you, and that you have upset me. I could not figure out how to post via Disqus, so I now sign this Barry Wellman. Goodbye

Re: amazon

alper — Wed, 03 Jul 2013 01:54:24 -0000

bugun selm

Re: From Monograph to Multigraph: the Distributed Book

digitaldigs — Wed, 29 May 2013 09:36:39 -0000

I agree with your argument here and like the idea of the multigraph. I think we believe that the monograph represents a kind of sustained project and research, but as you point out, that belief is manufactured through rhetorical moves, editorial structures, and the material construction of the book itself. The question then becomes for me to what extent to we value the intellectual synthesis of parts that a monograph represents and how do we recapture that synthesis in the multigraph?

Re: Parking Houses and Houselets: Critical Followups

imtheone — Tue, 21 May 2013 14:21:11 -0000

It would be possible in the near future. It has a good potential on the market as well.
Storage Containers

Re: Contact

Tim McCormick — Fri, 17 May 2013 07:59:54 -0000

Hi Hugh,
I'm afraid it's not my image, I just scooped it up on the interwebs. I see it used quite a few places online, am guessing it came from Geoffrey Moore's book or his presentation materials. You might try contacting him, here's his Web site's contact page: http://www.geoffreyamoore.c....
hope you can get what you need.
best, Tim.

Re: Contact

Hugh Johnson — Fri, 17 May 2013 04:57:07 -0000

Hi Tim - I would like to use the image you have depicting crossing the chasm http://tjm.org/2013/05/03/c... in a blog post I am preparing. Is this your image, and can I use it please?

Re: Escaping from freedom: the problem of designing for user agency

Tim McCormick — Tue, 14 May 2013 20:36:19 -0000

test comment using Disqus, logged in via Twitter, on mobile.

Re: Open Library of Humanities – further envisioning

Eileen A. Joy — Sun, 31 Mar 2013 15:23:01 -0000

I would also add that humanities disciplines, although often comprising all sorts of disparate specialties [like, say, medieval literary studies, eco-studies, sound studies, Civil War history, etc.] that don't necessarily "talk" to each other [or, very well], often have shared theoretical interests that tend to emerge at [almost] the same time, but in different locations [whether blogs, conferences, special journal issues, special essay volumes, etc.], and something OLH could bring these strands together in new and exciting ways that would help make cross-disciplinarity more of a reality than it currently is [it's more of a buzz-word than something most people "live" and do; more of a descriptor of one scholar's, or two scholars', practices than a true revolution in the way we produce knowledge. OLH has the potential to truly radicalize the development of theoretical innovation within the humanities, writ more broadly than it is now, while at the same time, it should think more about some of the good reasons why all fields within the humanities still need certain distinct modes of visibility.

Re: Open Library of Humanities – further envisioning

Eileen A. Joy — Sun, 31 Mar 2013 13:37:36 -0000

Consider this one of those BELATED responses; I've been following the OLH experiment/start-up with great interest, and I think the outline of objectives here for the possible future(s) of the initiative are fantastic, but I offer some cautionary notes ["cautionary" may not be quite the right term; "food for thought" is more like it], esp. relative to some of the concerns that do make humanities [as well as social science + art/design] scholarship unique in terms of their publishing environments. For example, in the sciences, PLoS is pure genius, in my mind, because in that discipline it's imperative to get research/results out there as quickly as possible and to make that information available for review, comment, and re-testing: this literally moves the sciences forward in vitally important ways that traditional print journals actually impeded [due to their content taking too long to move into print, post-all sorts of blind review and also being somewhat hidden behind institutional paywalls]. Humanities publishing has the same problem [in terms of lag-to-publication, often laborious and non-transparent review protocols, non- or too limited/too expensive accessibility, etc.], but what the humanities wrestles with more than the sciences [esp. in non-social sciences study and the arts] is the question of: who wants/desires this research/writing, and why? It's a much more nebulous realm -- production- and reception-wise, and also in terms of how published products "count," not just for tenure review and things like that, but, for a lack of a better descriptor ... emotionally-aesthetically, and also in relation to how certain communities of scholars form around certain areas of interest [whether that be Victorian literature, or even more narrowly, the novels of Dickens]. Scholarly "products" have an aesthetic dimension, as well as an informational one and thinking about both, even within one large humanities main-frame, is important. This will be especially important, I think, more for monographs than journals, or loose articles/pieces. I'm in favor of post-publication review myself [as long as there is rigorous editing on the front end], but in the humanities, unlike in the sciences, people don't just show up to review "results." They mainly read and poach, or skim-read, and ignore/move on. Our work doesn't depend on whether or not someone else's "results" are valid + verifiable, and our fields develop more rhizomatically-idiosyncratically. This is why some sort of creative directorship with online humanities publishing is important -- just something to think about. Because "one size" does not fit all. Otherwise, you lose desire, and we need that in the humanities.

Re: Featured in New York Times for Houselet ideas

El — Tue, 19 Mar 2013 19:46:36 -0000

Really interesting topic. Good to see you featured.

Re: Free this Book: Open Access Humanities for the MOOCs

Ann M. — Wed, 27 Feb 2013 15:48:13 -0000

Well articulated and interesting ideas. Thanks!

Re: Free this Book: Open Access Humanities for the MOOCs

Bill Trippe — Mon, 25 Feb 2013 08:59:13 -0000

Very thoughtful ideas about an important and growing topic. Many thanks!

Re: Open Access: Revolutionary Disagreements and the Global Library

Hafsa Yacine — Tue, 12 Feb 2013 10:50:54 -0000

Perhaps I should listen more and talk less.

Re: Open Access: Revolutionary Disagreements and the Global Library

Hafsa Yacine — Tue, 12 Feb 2013 10:49:02 -0000

Your e-mail was utterly devastating. I had no idea that what I'd said had hurt you in that way. I apologize. I was trying to motivate - and chose the wrong route. I hope that our friendship will not end. It's extremely important to me and is one of the longest friendships I have. I stand ready to help you with your project, if you need it (was waiting to hear back from you on the project).

Re: Humanities and Open Access: comment on Nature article

Ross Mounce — Fri, 08 Feb 2013 05:07:26 -0000

If you look at the HowOpenIsIt? leaflet ( the english version is here: http://www.plos.org/wp-cont... )

You'll see on page 2 that only the top line of rights has the logo Open Access. All the others below it are nearly but not quite full Open Access. It's even shaded in a different colour to make this even clearer. Only this top line is Open Access.

The title of leaflet says it all really. It's for measuring/assessing how open a publication is. I certainly agree that using a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs (CC BY-ND) license is more *towards* openness than just sticking a 'complimentary' (gratis) but otherwise All Rights Reserved PDF up on the internet, the former allows more types of re-usage without permission than the latter. But equally despite being more permissive CC BY-ND is still definitely NOT compliant with the definition of Open Access.

I predict this year we'll see more journals switching to CC BY. Particularly the ones who aren't currently using any form of CC licencing and thus really hamper their use & re-use. Take for example the Bangladesh Journal of Plant Taxonomy, published by Bangladesh Journals OnLine http://www.banglajol.info/i...
it doesn't use any CC licence. Yet the Bangladesh Journal of Pharmacology is CC BY licensed and rather haphazardly, as if perhaps this is a relatively new thing http://www.banglajol.info/b...

I suspect, if one sent a kind email to the other non-CC license using Bangladesh Journals OnLine journals explaining the situation and how their content could get more re-use and provide more benefit to the world if CC licensed with CC BY (to be properly Open Access) I'm sure they'd change in a second. Mike Taylor & I have already succeeded in doing this with Acta Palaeontologica Polonica. Plenty of journals want to be open access... they just don't quite understand how. But we can change that :)

Re: How To Bring Academics to the Social-Media Party? Indirectly

Cincinatus — Wed, 06 Feb 2013 17:59:37 -0000

The unfortunate aspect of the blog is the lack of recognition of the risks inherent in social media engagement(although a somewhat deprecating option via Orchid might hint that there is some awareness on the part of the blogger) that those of us with intensive and many decade engagement in everything from early computer conferencing onwards are all too well aware of the price of unfettered Big Data moves by government the private sector and intelligence agencies - let alone retrospective health and insurance checks and exclusions, credit ratings and job fitness scans-, as institutinalised under the various banners of convenience of 'anti terror' 'pedophilia' 'copyright violation' and other scare flags.The strong moves to a unified single identity is simply a convenience for these parties. Consequently this 'shy ' but highly digitally literate academic is to await a Tor or Silent Circle form of participation in social media...when many of these delightful concoctions will become accessibly to such digitally over literate academics...