This is not to say that research in academia isn’t valuable, cause it is and leads to more and more research. The more places I can get open (free really) research and publications the better. White papers don’t tend to cut the mustard much of the time.

I am one of those tenure track assistant professor types who unlike Richard, have not received tenure yet. I definitely feel the need to publish in higher tiered journals thet typically have no access unless your in my kind of setting, academic.

However, I do know the difficulty it creates to not have information at your fingertips when you have a question. I am a professor of nursing we struggle with how to provide information to nurses at the bedside so they can make good decisions about care. The reality is that when your at the bedside; often times you make decisions based upon your own experiences and intuition; perhaps journal information feeds into this knowledge but I bet it doesn’t occur overnight.

I don’t think there’s any problem with the authors. The obvious advantage for the authors is the increased visibility and ultimately a citation advantage. The problem we have is from the publishers. Most of the hard work is done by the authors in writing/reviewing those articles and on top of that they often serve as editors for little or no wages. If there’s transparency in the open journals like in the current peer reviewed journals, open source journals would definitely be popular in the future. Over the course of time and if the necessary criteria are met, I think an open source journal can also gain the same prestige as some of the current popular journals.

Go Dana Boyd!

I do understand and respect the prestige of these publications but who does it really hurt?

So many times I’ve wished for a metasearch, since HCI is a multidisciplinary field. Also, I saw someone link to a new FF extension that is meant to allow you to collect a database of articles, in the manner of Reference Manager or Endnote: http://www.zotero.org/

I would think that open-access journals would also be a form of subsidy to smaller towns, developing nations, etc., which might be a tiny step towards closing some of those gaps. I’ve heard a lot of comments from physical therapists, for example, that although they learn how to use all of these cutting edge research resources in graduate school, they cannot access them from their jobs with smaller clinics.

I do think the professors who do not feel the pain of textbooks probably don’t notice the pain of journals, either: all is provided. But some are frustrated, and I know as far back as 1999 I had instructors who were like, okay, none of the normal books are worth the price, so get the Schaum’s outline and we’ll have lectures and office hours and there will be supplemental texts on reserve.

The one problem area I do see is that with publications at least you KNOW what factions or interests might be controlling information, editing, deciding what gets published and what gets killed, etc. In a more open venue, which I would certainly support, I would think that transparency of the participants would be vital to sustaining legitimacy.

I do hope professors are feeling some of my pain in buying textbooks that are ridiculously expensive and not much cheaper in electronic form even when its availalbe, though.