-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: Scholarly Publishing Principles -- Dan Lester
Date: Tue, 13 Jun 2000 13:10:36 -0400
From: David Goodman <dgoodman@princeton.edu>
Reply-To: dgoodman@princeton.edu
Organization: Princeton University Biology Library

The real irony is that, while
> >      ....  Most people outside of higher education
> > (at least in my experience) are much more concerned with the quality
> > and affordability of undergraduate education; they tend to regard research
> > as secondary unless they see it leading directly to economic development in
> > their region.

The undergraduate colleges and non-research oriented universities all
almost
without exception require research of their faculty for both appointment
and
tenure.

Although the research may be truly of

>> no importance to the typical state college or university
>> unless they can see a dollar return, and see it NOW.

the administrators of that typical state college do not see it that way.
I am
cynical enough to suggest that this is because of the need of these
administrators, when confronted with the inconsistent and unreliable
funding
of these institutions, to find all possible excuses for denying tenure.

To some extent, the legislatures and trustees responsible for the
funding of
these institutions are at fault for requiring a higher (or at least more
expensive) standard of work than they are willing to pay for.

Not that all who want to should not do research--we merely need a
radically
less expensive way of publishing it. We now have such a way. So the
remaining
step is for academic institutions to accept peer reviewed publications
regardless of format, and accept other modes of peer review than that by
journal referees, and thus judge work by the quality of the work, not by
the
expense put into the publication of the results.

>
> --
> Dan Lester  dan@RiverOfData.com
> 3577 East Pecan, Boise, ID 83716-7115 USA
> www.riverofdata.com  www.postcard.org  www.gailndan.com

--
Dr. David Goodman
Biology Librarian, and
Co-Chair, Electronic Journals Task Force
Princeton University Library
dgoodman@princeton.edu         http://www.princeton.edu/~biolib/
phone: 609-258-3235            fax: 609-258-2627