Introducing Philosophy Journal Mashups!

Any philosophy journal with an RSS feed can be run through a mashup program. Mashups combine multiple RSS feeds and automatically screen those feeds for specific content. Once you've screened the journal articles for the kind of content you want, you can turn the results into a widget to post on a blog.

I tried one out for epistemology. I plugged in the feeds from some of the top philosophy journals and then entered in search criteria so that only journal articles with the right epistemology words in the title made it through. The result was a pretty awesome blog widget that cherry picks many (but not all) of the most recent epistemology articles from some of the top philosophy journals. How awesome is that?

Right now I just have an epistemology mashup, but I'll eventually put up mashups for metaphysics, philosophy of language, mind, ethics, and philosophy of religion. (You may have noticed the new look - the new left-hand column will be for philosophy journal mashups).

Below is more information concerning the search criteria for the mashups, so you can have some idea of what will be caught by the widget and what will not be caught by the widget. I welcome any suggestions for perfecting the widget (especially with respect to keywords that - when in a title - pretty much guarantee an article on the topic of the mashup).


Enjoy the mashups!

Journals Tracked (for all Mashups)
Journals Screened:
Analysis (Blackwell)
Australasian Journal of Philosophy
Pacific Philosophical Quarterly (Blackwell)
Mind
Nous (Blackwell site)
Philosophy and Phenomenological Research (Blackwell site)
Philosophical Quarterly (Blackwell)
Philosophical Review
(I'll be adding more journals soon)

Journals Attempted
Journal of Philosophy (no feed)

Epistemology Mashup (Keywords: Title Search)
knowledge
epistemic
evidentialism
reliabilism
proper functionalism
foundationalism
coherentism
internalism (I'm worried that this might be too permissive)
externalism (I'm worried that this might be too permissive)
contextualism (this one sometimes brings up 'moral contextualism')
justification
gettier
skepticism
scepticism (I found that both spellings are necessary)
safety
a priori
testimony
testimonial
common sense
proper functionalism
proper function
accessibilism
epistemic luck
fallibilism
infallibilism
warrant

Tracking Rule Disclaimer
As of right now the mashup only tracks the above listed journals. It only screens the titles from those journal for one of the above keywords. If one of the above keywords appears in the title of any recent articles from the above listed journals, then the mashup permits the article through to the widget (so don't get lazy. This IS NOT going to catch all the wonderful epistemology that's out there.)

I'll add more journals and tracking rules when I have time. I welcome any suggestions.

Informal Logic just switched over to open access. Consequently.org has a post about it here.
[HT: Mark and Andrei]

I knew it had to be possible for a closed access journal to migrate over to an online open access format, and I even suggested that this would be a way for the discipline to get more open access journals.

My knowledge that it's possible is now more secure (because it's actual). Now all we need is for some general philosophy journals at the top to follow suit.

Couldn't a widely read Open Access Journal pay its referees for timely reports with advertising revenues? (Yes, I'm back to thinking about this issue again.)

Imagine you're an editor and you manage to get your open access journal into the top tier. Suppose you get 500 submissions a year that you deem are worth having an external referee look at. Suppose you offer to pay your referee $50 if the referee gets the paper back to you with substantive comments within 1 month. The referee gets nothing otherwise. If the referee fails to get the comments back within say 2 months, they are not asked to referee again. To pull this off a journal would need to pull in $10,000 a year annually.

A top-tier open access journal could probably do that. Assume a top tier journal could charge what Brian Leiter charges for advertisements on his blog. If Leiter gets his asking price for every month out of the year, then the two tiny ads in the left and right hand column of his blog could generate $9,400 a year. (Note: Leiter appears to be filling his ad spaces.)

Now, a journal wouldn't be able to charge Leiter rates until it had a Leiter-sized audience. If an open-access journal were at the top, it might get there, and that journal could provide incentives to resolve its peer review issues. The operating costs of an open-access journal would be so low that most of the ad revenue could go directly to the referees.

Note: There may be some objection to providing referees with monetary incentives. One possible objection is that this might encourage hasty reviews that are not well thought out because the reviewer is just trying to get the review in time to get the money. But I think I'd rather take my chances on a hasty review than a risk a 12 month hold up on the paper.

Another Note: I was going to add this to the list of pros under The Case for Open Access Journals, but it's highly speculative. I'm going to think more about it before I add it to the list. For one, I'm a little doubtful that even a top-tier journal would acheive Leiter-sized audiences. I'd be interested to see what Philosophers' Imprint web stats are.

...the April 2008 edition of Analysis just posted to my RSS feed. Here's the Blackwell Link. Here's the Link for those of you with Ingenta Connect. This edition looks like it is simply loaded with good stuff.

Also, I just noticed that the January 2008 edition of Analysis is available for FREE at Blackwell.

In a previous post, I argued that philosophy should push toward publishing in Open Access Journals. Here's a list of things I think we need to start doing to realize that shift. Some of these will seem quite obvious, but we might as well have the list anyway.

1. Everyone Start Submitting to Open Access Journals

I think everyone should start submitting to open access journals, but the issues for junior faculty are tricky. A good open access publication will surely count for tenure. (See how Philosophers' Imprint fairs in Brian Weatherson's survey of journals). However, there simply are not enough Open Access Journals of Philosophers' Imprint caliber for a Junior Person to put together a successful tenure file based solely on Open Access Publications. (Someone correct me if I'm wrong on this).

Another issue for junior faculty is there aren't any open access journals that have Mind, Journal of Philosophy, Philosophical Review, or Nous level prestige. Until we have an open access journal that is one of the top two or three journals in the field, it may not be in a junior's interests to submit to an open access publication (until they've been rejected by all of the top journals). In many cases, it's in a junior's interests to submit that Mind caliber publication to Mind.

Perhaps juniors with a lot of papers in the works can afford to submit their best work to open access journals. Perhaps juniors at departments that weigh all peer-reviewed publications equally can afford to send their best work to open access journals. But juniors at schools with stringent tenure requirements, or juniors concerned about mobility cannot. Until there are two or three online journals that are clearly in the top ten, it will be difficult to make the shift.

(However, the bottom line is that anyone who can afford to should start submitting more to open access journals.)

2. Big Names Start Submitting to Open Access Journals

The real issue with the shift to open access journals is that we need to get an open access journal to the point where it is widely regarded as one of the top two or three journals in the field. The push to Open Access will have to come from people who are already secure in their career. One of the best ways for an online open access journal to rocket to the top is for people already secure in their career to forgo that 18th top journal publication and start sending their best work to Online Open Access Journals. Moves like this will eventually push open access journals to the top.

3. Create More Open Access Journal

Of course, a big issue with (1) and (2) is that there aren't many Open Access Journals. We need more of them. One way to get more is for people to start them, but I recommend that the new journals be started by leaders in the field at some of our top research institutions. I'm not saying that a quality journal can't be started by good, serious philosophers at a non-research institution - but it may be a longer up hill battle to have the journal acheive a level that would encourage juniors to submit that Mind publication. People will be more likely to take a chance on a start up journal that is housed at a top research institution and run by familiar names. The quickest route to the top for a new journal is on the backs of scholars who are top in the field.

Note: If any of you readers are confident that you've got the connections to start up a journal - I'd like to see an online journal like Analysis. Analysis gets about 500 submissions year, and only accepts about 10%. I bet you the next 5%-10% are pretty good. Many of them might require some work before they fit another journal's style. Wouldn't you like to see those in an Open Access Journal? I sure would. I would start that journal today if I thought I had enough clout.

Note: The new journal wouldn't have to be run by leaders in the field, but it would have to be widely known that the start-up was taken very seriously by leaders in the field if the journal was going to quickly rocket to the top.

4. Top Tier Journals Move to Open Access

An even quicker way to get a Top Tier Open Access Journal would be for the top journals in our field to migrate to an online open-access format. There are legal issues here. Fortunately, I suspect there are two main scenarios, and either way there we can quickly get a top tier journal that is open access.

Scenario One - The Editor/Board Can Switch Publishers
If the editor has the authority to migrate the journal from one publisher to another, then surely they can migrate the journal to an open access format. Moving a top journal to open access format should be EASY if the editor has what I'll call migration authority.

Scenario Two - The Publishing Company Owns the Journal
If the editor doesn't have migration authority, then here is my radical proposal - Walk out! Take your editorial skills, take your editorial board, take your list of great referees and leave. Start your own Open Access Philosophy Journal with your current editorial crew. The philosophical community will know what the deal is. They'll know that this new journal Schmilosophical Studies is the same great journal they've always known and loved.

Note: Rock Bands do this all the time. Rather than kick out the annoying guy and risk a legal battle over the name, they simply disband and start up a New Band without the annoying guy.

5. Mid-tier Journals Move to Open Access

Another option to get the ball rolling would be if mid-tier journals with migration authority migrate to open access. Note that a mid-tier journal with migratory rights has some incentive to move to Open Access. They could attract submissions from big name philosophers who feel the moral impetus for open access. A mid-tier journal could easily rocket to being a top journal by switching to open access.

6. Somebody Create An Open Access Version of Analysis!

I know I pretty much covered this one in (3), but an Open Access Online Version of Analysis is so important to me that I want it this issues to have its own number in my list. Will someone please create an Open Access competitor to Analysis! I'll referee articles for you. I'll cough up server space. I'll make you coffee. I'll make sure your office is always stocked with a bowl of green M&Ms. Whatever it takes for you to get this off the ground, I am ON BOARD!

Jon Cogburn has been on a roll with some interesting posts discussing the ethics of blind review. Here is his most recent installment. He argues that blind reviewers ought to take what he calls The Good Samaritan approach to reviewing (as opposed to the Professor Angrypants or Joe Friday approach).

What are those approaches? Read his blog and find out.

UPDATE [3/9/2007] - How To Make the Move To Open Access Journals
UPDATE [3/8/2007] - I just thought of Pro #12 this morning. See below.
UPDATE [3/8/2007] - I just thought of Pro #13 this afternoon. See below.
UPDATE [3/8/2007] - I'm also addressing - Con #6. See below.

In a previous post, I claimed that philosophy journals should push to open access publishers and eliminate the publisher middle-man. Philosophy editors work for free. Reviewers work for free. Philosophers have their articles published without getting paid. Why in the age of internet and computers do we have publishers play the role of circulation middle-man?

It used to be that there were no other means of circulation, type-setting, or binding. There were many very expensive processes that publishers provided, but now with computers and the internet - anyone can create a professional looking journal that is widely-circulated. So why don't we push away from publishers?

In addition, there are so many good reasons to have the top philosophy journals be open-access journals. Below is a list of those pros. After that, I address a a list of potential cons.

I imagine many of these pros and cons are obvious. It's just so striking to see them laid out side-by-side that I thought it was worth posting about.

Note: I intend to update this list when new pros or cons come to mind. Let me know if you think of any I should add.

Pros
1. Free

This is obvious. Free philosophy for everyone (with internet access).

2. Wide-Circulation

Anyone with internet could access the journals. You can't get much wider than that.

3. Tracking

The Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy allows authors to track can track how many times their article is downloaded. If the top philosophy journals were online with this feature, we would have a new powerful instrument for measuring impact of professors and departments. Professors could track their impact which they could use to make tenure and promotion cases stronger. We could also assess the impact of an entire department. I have my worries about factoring impact into tenure decisions (or ranking philosophy departments), but if we're going to do it - this would be great data to have.

4. Professors and Students At Low-Budget Schools Can Research With the Big Dogs

There are a lot of small colleges out there with good, serious philosophers doing good, serious research. However, these colleges don't have the budgets that larger research institutions have. This would make it easier for everyone to stay current and informed.

5. Independent Scholars Can Research With the Big Dogs

There are good, serious philosophers who don't have teaching positions, and they don't have access to even a meager selection of philosophy journals.

6. Professors Can Post Their Actual Articles!

When philosophers post articles to their published material, they often post penultimate drafts to avoid crossing the publishers. If we want to write responses to these papers, we have to track down the article to get the pagination. Open Access would eliminate this silly dance. (Also, wouldn't it be great if you could go to your favorite contemporary philosophers' website and read ALL of his or her actual journal articles)

7. More Specialty Journals

Start-up costs for journals are, I suspect, prohibitively expensive. I suspect that if the norm were open access online journals we could expect to see more specialized journals (e.g., Lewisian Studies, Chisholmian Studies, the Journal of Contemporary Analytic Epistemology, The Journal for Metaethics, The Journal of Experimental Philosophy, or LEMMings: The Journal for LEMMings)

8. Lower Student Costs

If the highest quality philosophy were being published in Open Access journals, most philosophy classes could be taught using cheaper resources. Even if you were to require your students to print all of them out, or get them bound via some PDF-binding service - it would still be remarkably cheaper.

Note: This one might take awhile. We'd need a lot of high quality, accessible research to build up. But over time we would start to see this benefit.

Also note: There is certainly no getting around the fact that we need our students to read some of the really good philosophy that has already been published in proprietary formats. But the sooner we can get the really good philosophy in non-proprietary formats the better.

9. Research From Anywhere

Think about it. If most of the high-quality philosophy research is available for free online you've got access to high quality philosophy - anywhere you have internet!

10. Take Strain Off Library Budgets

It is REALLY expensive for libraries to pay for journal subscriptions. This would free up already strained library budgets for other resources.

11. Philosophy For the Masses

Part of the reason philosophy doesn't impact everyday life as much as some philosophers would like has to do with the difficult, abstract nature of some of the puzzles. But part of the problem is that even the accessible stuff is largely in formats that the masses simply don't have access to. For those of you who wish what we did had more impact on non-philosophers - open access journals would be a huge step in that direction.

12. Data-Mining and Article Recommendation

You know how when you browse Amazon.com, they always give you a list of recommendations that is magically geared toward your interests. A non-proprietary version of that data-mining software could be put to good use to find journal articles you didn't even know were out there. The software would recognize that people who download articles A, B, and C also tend to download articles X, Y, and Z. When you download A, B, and C, it could recommend X, Y, and Z.

13. More Money For Philosophers

It is certainly a rare occasion, but every now and then a philosopher who publishes a book might actually make some money. Open Access Journals might make this a bit less rare. If Open Access Journals would make philosophy more accessible and widely read, we could expect to see increase market demand for the kinds of publications that actually might actually earn a philosopher some money. Some may think this is unlikely, but it is certainly a possibility worth considering. If the masses have regular access to high quality, accessible philosophy - there are going to be more lay persons who are into reading philosophy on a regular basis. It seems that would broaden the market for philosophy books.

Potential Cons (with responses)
1. Legitimacy and Prestige

Con: Some might argue that when a journal comes packaged by an established publisher you've got some guarantee that this journal is quality. On the internet, any hack can put together a journal. This tarnishes electronic journals. Electronic journals lack the seal of legitimacy that a publisher would give it, and they are less prestigious.

Response: Regarding the claim about legitimacy, universities are also well-established institutions. As long as the journals were being housed by established good Universities and Colleges they could have the same seal of legitimate scholarship that publishers might give a journal (if publishers even can do that at all).

Regarding the concerns about prestige: I already think this is a concern that some are starting to shed. Whether a journal is prestigious or not is a function of how good the editorial staff is, the quality of the material they publish, and the selectivity. The transition from print to open access will be gradual, and this will be less and less of a concern. (I intend to post an entry with recommendations for how to push philosophy into an open access format - some of those recommendations would help address this concern even more)

2. Risk Losing Our Best Philosophy

Con: Some will argue that it's easier to lose something on a computer server than it is to lose something that's printed thousands of times and circulated all over the world. If there were one con that I think seriously has the potential to stall open access - this is it.

Response: I think we can alleviate this worry with proper backups. A good open access journal should indicate precisely what it's doing to ensure proper backup. They should secure more server space, and perhaps even contract with an outside proprietary backup company.

A better option, would be for journals to partner up with other Universities and have several mirror sites. A journal could be updated by a single university, but hosted by several hundred.

Keep in mind that server space is so cheap (See #5 below) that it would be so easy for a university to foot the bill for a journal, especially if doing so kept the subscription costs down. In fact, most Universities probably pay enough for server space and bandwidth that most universities already could house at least one journal without incurring any additional costs.

Also note, I think publishing companies are already trying to push content online to maximize profits. The content may well be moving online, whether we like it or not. Why allow publishers to continue to charge for it?

[UPDATE: The Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy has a clause in the Editorial Policy that explains their backup procedures and that they are supported for the indefinite future.]

4. I like the LOOK and FEEL of paper journals.

Con: Some people simply like the look and feel of a paper journal, and don't want to give that up for aesthetic reasons.

Response: Regarding the LOOK...
It's easy to have an electonic journal that look just as clean and professional as a PDF of a print journal. Philosophers' Imprint and the Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy have nice PDF layouts of all articles that formatted to look just like a print journal.

Response: Regarding the FEEL...
If by FEEL you mean simply have a paper copy to make notes on, then print the article.

If by FEEL you mean having a bound copy of the recent issue...there are several PDF-binding services that will mail you nice paperback bound volumes of whatever you PDF give them at super-low costs. Journals could even put together a custom volume with these services and you could have an automatic arrangment to have this sent to you.

BONUS: You could give your students custom readers for your classes via these services.

SUPER BONUS: Philosophers could easily put together a BEST OF THE YEAR volume with these PDF-binding services. Imagine at the end of the spring semester, a volume delivered to your door chock-full of the best philosophy articles for the previous academic year. You wouldn't be limited to a single journal. You could select from all of the top journals a la carte.

5. There's Still a Cost

Con: Online journals take up bandwidth and server space. This costs money.

Response: This is true, but it's a cost that universities already absorb. Chances are Universities already pay for enough server space and bandwidth to house a journal. Even if they don't, buying the extra space is CHEAP, CHEAP, CHEAP compared to journal subscription fees. It really is a drop in the bucket. Example - (At bluehost.com you can get 1,500 GB of server space and 15,000 GB of transfer for 6.95/mo.)

6. No Stable Citations

Con: Online URLs are always subject to change. Given standard citations styles for online content, this would make citation a messy affair. What if you cite an online journal and the URL changes?

Response: This is why journals like Philosophers' Imprint and JESP continue to publish their journals in PDF format so that they look like an online copy of a traditional print journal. They even adhere to the traditional method of indexing their journals with Volume Numbers. To cite Philosophers' Imprint, you need not cite the URL - you can simpy cite the volume # and page# like you would any traditional print journal. Even if those PDFs are housed under a different URL 100 or 200 years from now - the Volume # and Page # will always remain the same.

So there's the case, as I see it. All things considered, I just can't see why we don't start pushing in this direction. Hopefully, Philosophers' Imprint and JESP are a sign of good things to come. I've got some ideas about how we could push in this direction, and I'll probably post about that soon.

Jon Cogburn has an interesting post on the blind review process for philosophy journals here. He also gives us a promissory note to post more on this issue.

UPDATE: Here's the promissory note.

I've heard quite a few journal horror stories from professional philosophers over the past few years. Also, in a recent post, I noted that there have been quite a few discussion threads that highlight major issues concerning peer reviewed philosophy journals. I'm going to start tracking these discussion threads.

Whenever I find a new discussion (or horror story), I'll update this post and move it to the front of the blog. If anyone finds anything out there worthy of note, let me know.

The List
1. There is an interesting discussion over at PEA Soup about when (if at all) to request a re-read. The discussion thread leads to an interesting discussion of a more general problem concerning the blind referee process.

2. Certain Doubts has a discussion thread regarding the tension between blind review and posting draft versions of papers on the internet.

3. Leiter's blog has an old thread discussing which journals are responsible and which ones are not. The discussion thread, however, has recently picked up.

4. Clayton Littlejohn has a rejection woe story here.

5. Here's another good discussion post at PEA Soup. It's about ethics journals generally, but the discussion thread is mixed with some journal woe stories and advice for pre-tenure professors.

6. Jonathan Ichikawa has an interesting post here concerning the length of the journal review process.

7. Jon Cogburn has an interesting little post on the blind review process for philosophy journals here. He also gives us a promissory note to post more on this issue.

8. This is Jon Cogburn's promissory note. This is an interesting diagnosis of three basic types of blind referees.

9. And this is a third post from Cogburn in praise of one of the three basic types of blind referees - the Good Samaritan.

Bonus Track: Conditional Material has a great satire on the referee process here.

There is an interesting discussion over at PEA Soup about when (if at all) to request a re-read. The discussion thread leads to an interesting discussion of a more general problem concerning the blind referee process.

There have been quite a few posts in the blogosphere highlighting problems with the peer review process in philosophy journals.

I wish there was more accountability in the journal referee process, but editing and refereeing seems to be such a thank-less job that it's difficult to see how to proceed.