pre-print server | Chris Aldrich

Reply to Greg McVerry about academic samizdat pre-print server

Replied to a post by

Greg McVerry (quickthoughts.jgregorymcverry.com)

Then we also make a 12/31/2019 to have published first issue of a academic samizdat POSSE Journal about blogging research from any discipline. I wanna bring back some lightning talks like BlogCon 2003-2006., but first we do the journal.

I like that idea. Perhaps between the models for news.IndieWeb.org and Kicks Condor’s indiweb.xyz, we could create a syndicatable (pre-print) academic journal that allows sorting by top level academic disciplines.

I don’t recall though, are either of them open source, or do we need to re-build by hand?

I’ve come across many journals (and particularly many talking about Altmetrics^1,2) that are supporting the old refback infrastructure and wonder why they haven’t upgraded to implement the more feature rich webmention specification?

I’ve been thinking more lately about how to create a full stack IndieWeb infrastructure to replace the major portions of the academic journal ecosystem which would allow researchers to own their academic papers but still handle some of the discovery piece. Yesterday’s release of indieweb.xyz, which supports categories, reminds me that I’d had an idea a while back that something like IndieNews’ structure could be modified to create a syndication point that could act as an online journal/pre-print server infrastructure for discovery purposes.

A little birdie has told me that there’s about to be a refback renaissance to match the one currently happening with webrings.

References

Akers KG. Introducing altmetrics to the Journal of the Medical Library Association. Journal of the Medical Library Association. http://jmla.mlanet.org/ojs/jmla/article/view/250/403. Published July 3, 2017. Accessed July 2, 2018.

Roemer RC, Borchardt R. Chapter 2. Major Altmetrics Tools. ALA Tech Source. https://journals.ala.org/index.php/ltr/article/view/5746/7187. Published July 1, 2015. Accessed July 2, 2018.

👓 Possible cultural & technological futures of digital scholarship | W. Ian O’Byrne

Read Possible cultural & technological futures of digital scholarship by W. Ian O'Byrne (wiobyrne.com)

I think there is a need to develop a system to track the draft of a manuscript from the beginning to the end of the process. This will open up new possibilities to scaffold new scholars while we onboard them in the process. This will also provide new opportunities for open scholarship and open science. Finally, this will allow researchers to replicate, remix, or reproduce the (research, reflection, writing, revision, publishing) process. The answer may be in indieweb philosophies, but the main impediment may be in the people and systems that make all of this possible. I think we have an opportunity for new technological opportunities in academic publisher, but I’m not sure if culturally we’re ready. Let me explain.

I think there is a need to develop a system to track the draft of a manuscript from the beginning to the end of the process.

If you’re drafting in WordPress you can set the number of revisions of your posts to infinite so that you can keep (archive) all of your prior drafts. see: https://codex.wordpress.org/Revisions

“pre-print” versions of manuscripts

This is just another, albeit specific, form of academic samizdat.

👓 Blogging, small-b, Big B | W. Ian O’Byrne

Read Blogging, small-b, Big B by W. Ian O'Byrne (W. Ian O'Byrne)

I’ve written quite a bit about blogging, and my creation of open education resources over the past on this website. A lot has changed in my blogging habits, and general digital identity construction since those posts. Most of the response that I get from colleagues, students, and tenure committees is “why in the world would you share that stuff openly online?” As such, I’ve been meaning to write up a post documenting my thinking about why I do…what I do.

One of these days I’ll get around to writing up my larger thesis about using a personal website for an all-in academic samizdat experience to rid academia of the siloed mindset its been stuck in for ages… This post comes relatively close to laying the underlying groundwork for some motivation.

As an academic, I need to regularly have empirical research publications in top-tier, peer-reviewed journals. Nothing else matters. Many senior colleagues bemoan the fact that I need to play double duty…yet the system still exists.

And why can’t your own blog count as a top-tier, peer-reviewed journal?

and serve as pre-prints to work that may live later on, or always exist in their current format

Thinking of a personal site as a pre-print server is an interesting concept and somewhat similar to the idea of a commonplace book.