Spaced Out ::

An interesting talk from TEDxMileHighWomen. Worth a watch to get a short 10-min summary of some of the issues involved with publishing academic research - the comments are worth a look too.

As Erica Stone implies, she hasn’t got much experience in academic publishing and it unfortunately shows. There are some points well made, but there is and underlying naivety about the role of publishing, the cost, the requirements of universities and the amount of time academics have. As I noted in my editorial this year:

Academic publishing is a knowledge distribution and academic assessment system, partially funded by universities and research institutes.

To publish you have cross-subsidise, or go down an author or reader pays route - ironically (and perhaps to the chagrin of the OA camp), OA is currently costing the system more than a subscription model on an annual basis and probably on a pageview basis too. But, let’s keep the debate going!