[CoDeP] the Betham case

[Thomas Krichel]

  Richard Tol writes

> I volunteered to join a committee on the measurement of journal quality,

  I am not sure where people got the idea from but to me a committee on journal
  quality makes no sense. 

> but appear to have been put on a committee on deceptive publishing.

  Correct.

> The committee targeted a journal and publisher without due
> consideration or process,

  Sure, because there is no process to start with.

> and approached its editorial board

  No, only three seemingly random members were sent mails to.

> with a mildly menacing email

  Sure, you point is well taken. 

> only to discover we misfired

  How come? The three individuals vigurously defended the honesty of
  the operation and we ought to lay the matter to rest. As the
  French say, even the most beautiful woman in the word can only
  give what she has. We have no evidence of deceptive practice. 

> and seem to have confused two publishers with similar names.

  There are no two publishers. This is one publisher---as evidenced by
  the two requests coming from the same person within the time space
  of one hour---that has two brand names.

> There is now a proposal to change the scope of the committee to
> determine what is and is not an economics journal.

  I believe this is outside the comittees remit.
 
> I suggest that (in chronological order):
> We develop terms of reference for this committee.

  Somebody please go ahead.

> Reconsider the membership in the light of those terms of reference.

  That requires more than a terms of reference. It requires a constitution
  that decides who should be on, and how we admit members and remove them.

> Develop criteria for journals and publishers.
> 
> Develop a method for testing journals and publishers against said criteria.
> 
> Apply said method to all journals and publishers at RePEc.

  That's a huge task. There are thousands of journal is RePEc. There is
  no way we can get this done given the resources that we have. 

> I also suggest that we move this discussion away from email and
> onto a discussion forum where all have access to all members,
> documents, and discussions.

  All the documents are the members and the email sent. Members
  list is accessible to all members

http://lists.openlib.org/cgi-bin/mailman/admin/codep-run/members

  and so are the archives

http://lists.openlib.org/pipermail/codep-run/

  I am not aware of a forum software I could run, and I would
  be very weary of using commercial companies for this.

  The problems I see with forums is that

  * the reply structure is ofter not evident
  * digital preservation is very difficult
  * commercial intermediation may place restrictions on archiving
    reuse, and the contents may be spied on.


-- 

  Cheers,

  Thomas Krichel                  http://openlib.org/home/krichel
                                              skype:thomaskrichel