Showing posts with label academic writing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label academic writing. Show all posts

22 November 2006

The End of the End for Academic Writing

Scholarship never ends. There is never a last word, even about established facts. What we've had up till now in published works are static snapshots. Sure, there may be follow-up articles, second editions and corrections, but each work stands alone as a completed product. I find myself wondering if researchers - and writers - will continue to be content with snapshots when the technical barriers to revision are so low and readers' comfort level with edited online works is growing.

Ergo, we need other ways of publishing - online, wikis etc. Not rocket science, but definitely something of a leap for the academic world. (Via Open Access News.)

19 May 2006

Sweet News for Sweden - But Not Only

A programme to promote open access in Sweden might seem of interest only to Swedes (or those who like to read Swedish academic papers), but it's actually good for everyone. Because, like open source, the more open access there is in the world, the greater the momentum behind the idea, and the more open acess there is.

As I've pointed out before, the opens are truly additive. Whereas traditional competition is just winner takes all, and losers get nothing, open endeavours are both winner takes all and everyone's a winner.

19 December 2005

Open Access: Books Too

Hitherto, open access has tended to refer to scholarly papers published in journals. This makes the idea of establishing an online "press" devoted to book-length titles particularly interesting.

Of course, online pagination has no real meaning (except in terms of convenient layout), so "long" books are just as easy to produce as "short" papers. In this sense, there's nothing new here. But the move is nonetheless important; let's hope it gain momentum.