Showing posts with label Lanier. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Lanier. Show all posts

Sunday, 12 May 2013

The nature of academic publishing

Image: forwardcom via freeimages

Building up towards my reflective assignment, I thought it might help to draft this in sections, according to particular areas of interest throughout the module. First stop is publishing...

One of the assumptions that I am interested in challenging is the area of academic publishing. We tend to regard the world of academic journals as ‘an open and public forum’ (Colquhoon, 2006) that is created for the common good, but a growing number of people are beginning to question if this holds true, especially in the age of open web content. Wheeler (2011a, b, c) has written a number of blog posts criticising the traditional system of academic publishing, noting that:

‘It’s a hierarchy that rarely changes.’

Furthermore, the hierarchical nature of the publishing world is often self-defeating in terms of securing the widest possible audience:

‘...many of the top, elite journals we are expected to publish in are in fact read by a very small percentage of the community the research is intended to reach.’

From considering my own worldview, I have noted the restrictions that hierarchical institutions place on the education system, particularly when combined with the solutions offered by market organisations (Hobson, 2012; Ronfeldt, 2012b). Potential disruptive alternatives may yet be found in the emerging network sector predicted by Ronfeldt (2012a), or the peer-to-peer ideology (Bauwens, 2009), although sustainable business models are yet to emerge. It should be noted that there are dangers inherent in the misuse of data for either solution. Newby (2010) warns of ‘intellectual imperialism’ when researchers are able to claim sole ownership of research data, discounting the rights of those involved in the study. At the other extreme of open web publishing, Lanier (2006a, b; 2012) warns of the dangers of ‘digital Maoism’, whereby all ownership and authorship of published data is lost, and transferred to control of the crowd.

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Monday, 4 March 2013

Blog post 4.1: Rules vs Principles

Originally posted to eBridge, 17 February 2013

Do we act according to rules or principles? Newby (2010) suggests that there is normally a set of ‘rules’ that are accepted as best practice – but do all researchers accept these, or can they even be held to them like laws? He advises that when researchers make a decision to act differently, they should ensure that they stick to a set of principles that they can defend from a moral standpoint. One thorny question that enters my mind here is the assumption that children’s education will/should be imposed from a top-down perspective by governments and local authorities. Also the teachers themselves are generally forgotten here – no mention is given to their standing as practitioners, or their own right to learn and adapt without excessive intervention.

Honesty – should really go without saying, but when working in a research department I often heard, through hearsay, about professors leaving choice facts out of their research papers to prevent others from successfully replicating their experiments, particularly if they were working competitively with other research groups towards prestigious results. When people are working towards goals concerning commercial competition, it is to be expected that dishonesty would certainly creep into the equation, both externally and internally.

Confidentiality – as for the previous point, it is unlikely that one will always have a clear cut decision to make about this. Relationships and reputations can be destroyed through breach of confidence, but also sometimes through blind adherence to a confidentiality rule over principles.

Publishing – some of the points that Newby raises about publishing data gathered from individuals and organisations, have parallels with concerns that Lanier (2012) mentions with regards to data on the internet. Newby’s talk of ‘intellectual imperialism’ questions the rights of researchers to claim results as being entirely their own when it comes to publishing; Lanier also warns of individuals’ contributions to online material being anonymised, in a form of ‘digital Maoism’, where the finished product is regarded as more important than the contributors. Beyond this there is also the usual tussle over rights to ‘claim’ conclusions, or the petty arguments as to what order names should appear in on a publication!

The problem consistently rearing its head here is the lack of incentive to collaborate effectively, if at all. Jarche (2013) regularly discusses the failure of collaborative ventures, and possible means to break the deadlock.

Participation – with the point raised above about researchers not acknowledging their participants, this is another considerable barrier to effective collaboration. The context of Newby’s (2010) examples is beginning to differ substantially from my own, but some common principles remain, namely that any data and results I gain should be treated carefully with respect to participants, and ensure that they do not suffer from taking part in the study. I would usually expect that people within the same organisation would be more understanding, but cross-organisational collaboration may be more tricky!

Plagiarism – the problem of ‘digital Maoism’ raised by Lanier comes back into play, as people increasingly treat information on the internet as being open-source for all ends. Simply failing to even reference other peoples’ work is bad enough, but often the data is claimed as one’s own work. Without adequate tools for checking plagiarism, we cannot hope to meaningfully assess even undergraduate work, let alone primary research, for plagiarism.

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