Re: platforms that work and cost little

["Anthony Watkinson" <anthony.watkinson@btopenworld.com>]

I think as a publisher, Bernd-Christoph. I am told that Open 
Source software is going to save my community a lot of money and 
that it works as well if not better than commercial software. I 
want to see which journals regarded as serious by author and 
readers are using this software and how large they are. I am not 
a technical person but that will give me an idea of whether these 
claims are worth considering or not.

Anthony

----- Original Message -----
From: <bernd-christoph.kaemper@ub.uni-stuttgart.de>
To: <liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu>
Sent: Friday, March 16, 2007 10:09 PM
Subject: Re: platforms that work and cost little

> Dear Anthony,
>
> frankly, I do not understand why you insist on arguing (or 
> giving the perception) that PKP OJS has something to conceal 
> ("Why is there this secrecy about all these 800 journals"). It 
> should be pretty obvious why HighWire, Allen Press and PKP OJS 
> are different. The reason is simple and has been stated many 
> times in forums and on the website itself. The software is open 
> source and freely downloaded, so no one is forced to tell PKP 
> what they have done with it. Also, only a minority of journals 
> is hosted by PKP. So 900 journals (current estimate as of March 
> 2007) can only be a rough estimate. Also, not everyone using it 
> or giving it a try will necessarily want PKP to publicize it - 
> although many want. For them there is the list at the PKP OJS 
> website, and everyone is free to register their own journals 
> there.
>
> Currently, 134 journals are listed there. Some or the entries 
> are collections of journals, the largest being RACO with 122 
> journals, and AJOL (African Journals online) with 271 journals, 
> this brings the count of registered journals already up to 525+ 
> To this you can add the 141 brazilian journals (-8 already 
> included above) at ibict, 
> <http://www.ibict.br/secao.php?cat=3DSEER> plus half of the 100 
> other journals listed there (the rest again being already 
> included in the list at PKP), this brings it up to 715. Vietnam 
> Journals Online, linked to from the PKP OJS FAQ, adds another 
> 14 journals, Nepal Journals online another 23, and 12 journals 
> are hosted on the Scholarly Exchange platform (there may be 
> others not hosted by them and not included in any of the above 
> lists), now we have already 764+. From this you can already 
> infer that this is indeed an empowerment tool. And if you are 
> inclined to look who is just tapping into muddy water, starting 
> to use OJS, or having trouble with it, have a look at the PKP 
> support forum, <http://pkp.sfu.ca/support/forum/index.php>. OJS 
> Discussion and OJS Support each have about 500 topics and 2000 
> posts now, so this is a lively community. If you'd like to see 
> the bug reports, they maintain it with Bugzilla, open for 
> everyone to see.
>
> I hope this finally settles the discussion "Where are those 
> 800+ (or now 900+) journals" ... And which journals are 
> well-established? - judge for yourself. It's not up to PKP to 
> decide that.
>
> Further links:
> Review of some peer-review management packages
> Kam Shapiro, Bibliography and Summary: Electronic Peer Review Management,
> University of Michigan Scholarly Publishing Office. Undated.
> http://spo.umdl.umich.edu/monthly/peerreview.html
>
> Peter Suber, in his blog Open Access News
> http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2006_08_27_fosblogarchive.html#115677485=
> 295699332
> adds here two comments (with links):
>
>    1. This review doesn't cover any of the open-source 
> packages. To add them to your own review of the available 
> tools, start with Open Journal Systems (the leader in this 
> niche), but also take a look at DPubS, GAPworks, Hyperjournal, 
> ePublishing Toolkit, OpenACS, SOPS, and TOPAZ.
>
>    2. From an OA perspective, the chief benefit of peer-review 
> management software is the way it automates the clerical tasks 
> of conducting peer review, the primary cost of runnning a 
> peer-reviewed OA journal. Of course it doesn't touch editorial 
> judgment, but that is typically performed by editors and 
> referees who (like authors) donate their labor.
>
> Best regards,
> Bernd-Christoph Kaemper, Stuttgart University Library
>
> ----- Urspr=FCngliche Nachricht -----
> Von: Anthony Watkinson <anthony.watkinson@btopenworld.com>
> Betreff: Re: platforms that work and cost little
>
> > I do not see why we cannot be given the names of these 
> > journals especially the ones that are very well established. 
> > HighWire does. They are not commercial. Allen Press does. Of 
> > course the naughty commercial publishers do. Why is there this 
> > secrecy about all these 800 journals.
> >
> > Anthony