Online Publishing

February 12, 2008

It was easy to miss an article today in the New York Times on a proposal at Harvard University to publish academic papers for free online. Here are some of the details:

Under the proposal Harvard would deposit finished papers in an open-access repository run by the library that would instantly make them available on the Internet. Authors would still retain their copyright and could publish anywhere they pleased — including at a high-priced journal, if the journal would have them.

I am all for this kind of arrangement, believing as I do that our system of journals and conferences contributes to the great gulf between the academy and broader culture.

My sense is that things are heading in this direction. Online publication would allow for the easy publication of photos and other multi-media works. Its unlimited capacity means that a lot of work on subjects for which there is no immediate book-buying market could get published.

The only real attack is in the possible vacuum of academic authority:

Such a development would in turn damage the quality of research, they argue, by allowing articles that have not gone through a rigorous process of peer review to be broadcast on the Internet as easily as a video clip of Britney Spears’s latest hairdo.

It is true that there is lots of junk online.. but there is also lots of junk printed in the form of magazines and books. We naturally look past the magazines we encounter in line at the grocery store, but we take a closer look at the serious magazines at the bookstore. Information funnels happen; human beings develop ways of sorting endless minutiae.. this would happen online just as it happens in ever other part of life.

But OK, since you asked here is my vision for academic work. Scholars interested in a topic would join research groups. I, for example, would be interested in a Cairo group, a pilgrimage group, an Egyptology group.. and on the list could grow. Each research group would be connected to an interactive website.. much like the Daily Kos. Various people would play an active role in posting regular thoughts. Longer essays could be solicited and then archived. A wiki on the topic could be maintained. The peer review at such a site would be immediate.. much like it is on a political site. Various respected voices would gradually emerge on each topic. Instead of spending the enormous resources involved in going to far flung conferences, these research groups could hold online conferences through video hook-ups.

This system would also discourage the scientific model of research in the humanities. (Something I hate!) Human culture and behavior is so fundamentally complex that there is no such thing as a growing body of work that year by year comes to better describe and capture the world. There is no incremental growth in our understanding of art and literature.. or culture. Better instead to opt for incessant conversation.. and the introduction of students to this conversation would be the highest aim of our work.