December 5, 2024

Open Review leads to better books

My book manuscript, Bit by Bit: Social Research in the Digital Age, is now in Open Review.  That means that while the book manuscript goes through traditional peer review, I also posted it online for a parallel Open Review.  During the Open Review everyone—not just traditional peer reviewers—can read the manuscript and help make it […]

If Reddit Really Regrets "Not Taking Stronger Action Sooner", What Will It Do in the Future?

[Editors note: The New York Times weighed in with “When the Web’s Chaos Takes an Ugly Turn“, which includes several quotes from Tufekci.] Reddit may be the most important Internet forum that you have never heard of. It has more than a billion page-views a month, originates many Internet memes, brilliantly exposes hoaxes, hosts commentary […]

Contract hacking and community organizing

I discussed community discontent with copyright terms of some scholarly publishers, and I proposed an economic analysis. Now let’s consider two other approaches. Contract hacking I have published quite a few scholarly papers, and with each one I am invited to sign a copyright form. This is a contract between author and publisher, which which […]

Modest Proposals for Academic Authors

In the scuffles over copyright policies on scholarly articles, what is the academic author to do? First, inform yourself. Find and read the copyright policy of the journals (or refereed conferences) to which you submit the articles describing research results. Find out the subscription price (dead-tree-edition or online) that the publisher charges individuals and institutions, […]

Copyright in Scholarly Publishing, 2012 Edition

I’ve heard a lot recently about copyright policies of scholarly journals. Over 9000 researchers signed a pledge to boycott Elsevier, on three grounds: (1) high prices for journal subscriptions, (2) bundling practices for institutional subscriptions; (3) lobbying regarding SOPA, PIPA, and the Research Works Act. Meanwhile, other organizations such as the ACM (scholarly/professional society for […]