Academia

The logic of free online books

David Glenn, Yale U. Press Places Book Online in Hopes of Increasing Print Sales, Chronicle of Higher Education, September 8, 2006 (accessible only to subscribers). Discusses the advantages of making books available online. His examples include Jack M. Balkin’s Cultural Software: A Theory of Ideology (book chapters online in pdf) and Yochai Benkler’s The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom, which Yale published in May. The book is also available online together with a wiki so that readers can respond.

“The real question,” Mr. Balkin says, “is what the vocation of academic publishing is. Academic publishers saw themselves as trying to spread knowledge â?? high-quality knowledge â?? as far and wide as they could … not just as a service that they provide to the universities that they’re associated with. Well, now they can promote that vocation even better than they could before. And they may even be able to make money off of it, which would be all to the good.”

Without a substantial investigation of a wide selection of material it will be difficult to claim the effects of online material on book sales. Any reports without such a study are anecdotal. But there is also another problem with that kind of study. It is the question of whether the specific book would have sold more or less without the online site.

I believe – a subjective opinion based upon my limited anecdotal evidence – that books sales generally increase when material is placed online. But this requires an important caveat: if the publisher prices the books too high then putting material online will not promote sales.

High-cost academic books are only intended for libraries and therefore online material will only prevent researchers from asking for the book. But high-cost academic books are a bad idea. They cannot claim to be about spreading knowledge (as Balkin states above).

Finding the right price for a large group of potential buyers, then placing material online will first create interest in the book and second ensure that the book is more easily found by those interested in the material. If the book is moderately, or reasonably, priced most (not all) still prefer to read a book in it’s traditional form rather than on a screen.

The problem is arguing with the publishers about this…

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Local Event: Filesharing History

Today Ola Larsmo will be giving a lecture based on his book â??404 Utflykter i glömskans landskapâ?? (Almost translates into â??404 Excursions into the landscape of forgetfulnessâ?? â?? sounds a lot better in Swedish). The book is an excellent book on the role of technology in democratic society. It is written by Ola together with Lars Ilshammar. Besides being in Swedish (which means that it has a limited readership) my only complaint is that the book is somewhat fragmentary. Excellent book.

The lecture today is on file-sharing and information exchange from a historic perspective. This is not a tecchie lecture so it will not be about the technical growth of the Internet. The author (actually there is a rumour that both authors may be in town) are astute social commentators so the focus will be on the social effects.

For more info

The lecture will be followed by a discussion.

Time: Tisdag 5 September at 18.00
Place: Lagerhuset, vån 1, Heurlins plats

Free Entry

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Gender Equality and Terrorism

The question of why people become terrorists is naturally much older than the present discussion. While the trendy (and simplistic) explanations right now are based upon ethnic and religious boundaries we easily forget our all too close past. Terror groups over the last 50 years have not necessarily followed ethnic or religious boundaries. European terrorism between 1960-1990, for example, has plenty of examples of terrorists attacking their ethnic, social and religious peers.

For example: Brigate Rosse (Italien militant leftists), Black Star (Greek anti-Imperialist, anti-capitalist), Rote Armee Fraktion (German Baader-Meinhof Group), Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (Basque Homeland and Freedom), Real (or True) IRA (Irish Republican Army) and First of October Antifascist Resistance Group (Spain)

So if we can cross of ethnic and religious tensions as to the cause of terrorism â?? what else is there? In recent research collaboration between University College London and Zhejiang Normal University in China arrived at one of the root causes is that there are too many men in society. These men are unlikely to be able to have (much/any?) sex and almost no chance of having families of their own. From the UCL media press release (28 August 2006):

Cultures that favour male babies have bred a surplus of men who will struggle to find sexual partners and could find themselves marginalised in society, warns a new paper co-authored by a UCL (University College London) researcher. As more men discover their lack of marriage prospects, this could lead to antisocial behaviour, violence and possibly more opportunities for organised crime and terrorism, threatening the stability and security of many societies.

There you have it. Research claims that lack of sex makes men into terroristsâ?¦ The solution is naturally to be found in the words of the great John Lennon & McCartney: All you need is love, love, love is all you need.

What a load of…

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Three Judges & a Prosecutor

OK so itâ??s not really about judges and prosecutors. The date for my thesis defence looms closer and I thought that I might introduce you all to my three judges and my prosecutor. Actually itâ??s my examination board and my discussant.

My discussant is Professor Jonny Holmström from the Department of Informatics at Umeå University. He has worked diverse areas from IT innovations within organisations to file sharing. I have not met him yet.

My examination board consists of three people: Ulf Petrusson, Agneta Ranerup and Jan Jörnmark.

Professor Ulf Petrusson is Director of the Center for Intellectual Property Studies and wrote his thesis on the patent strategies â?? he continues working in the field of intellectual property strategies. He was also my teacher in my introduction to intellectual property when I was an undergraduate many, many years ago.

Agneta Ranerup is an Associate Professor at my own department. She has worked in the field of eDemocracy in particular the use of web-based service in the citizens choice of governmental and quasi-governmental services. Her work points to the fact that design choices play an important role in democracy.

Jan J̦rnmark is an Associate Professor at the Department of Economic History at G̦teborg University. He is also affiliated with Chalmers Рthe technical university in G̦teborg. He has done work on globalisation and also technology. He also has an interest in deserted places. I have met him on a few occasions.

So these are the main actors in the process â?? along with the audience and me. This is a good group so the process should be an interesting one. It should be a nice affair â?? Feel free to drop by if youâ??re in town.

Georges Rouault – The Three Judges circa 1936
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Headless Chickens in Academia

I donâ??t know but I have heard â?? as probably most of you have â?? that if you cut the head of a chicken it may run around even without a head. Now, for the popular scientists out their PLEASE donâ??t take this as a call for experiments â?? leave the chickens alone.

The term headless chicken may come from the (in)famous story of Mike the headless chicken which is basically the story about a chicken called Mike who lived for 18 months after his owner had chopped his head off (more on wikipedia).

The term has come to symbolise a high level of pointless activity. For me the beginning of term is the period of the headless chicken. Lots of staff & students meetings and loads of mail from students who could not be bothered to read the online instructions. The mail and meeting are actually meaningful to the other participants (at least I really hope so) but at the end of the day I have the feeling that I have not accomplished anythingâ?¦

I want to call the society for the prevention of cruelty to academics… Well at least it takes my mind of thesis-anxiety.

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The ungood system of academic publishing

Another text on Free Software that I have written has been accepted for publication. This is good news. But then I read the rather draconian copyright and licensing rules which the publisher wants to apply to my text.

Basically the ideas remain mine but if I want to present them I have to re-write the ideas from scratch.

The author retains the rights to any intellectual property developed â?¦While the author may use any and all thoughts and research results developed or accumulated while working on a manuscript, and may rewrite, update, and re-title them for use in other publications, â?¦ the author CANNOT use the verbatim text of the manuscript or any part thereofâ?¦without first obtaining the written permissionâ?¦

From my limited experience this wording is pretty standard. From the academics point of view I â??needâ?? publications. But the situation becomes strange when the topic I am writing about is Free Software which has a large focus on openness and the freedom of ideas.

Let me just point out from the start â?? there is no limitation on the reader to read and develop the ideas. They just cannot slavishly copy the text.

My niggling concern is the fact that I am paid by an organisation to do research (and teach). So I spend my time gathering information and thinking about the implications of what is occurring in my particular field. I may even have applied for public grants to do this work.

Once I write down my thoughts the only way for the others to gain access to them is for my library to buy the book so that others can read it. Which basically means my university is paying twice for this information. First for me to think/write and then to obtain physical access to the information.

Even though I dislike the contents of the copyright agreement I have just signed it did not prevent me from signing it. The problem is one of incentive structures. Had I written the work and then just posted it to my website â?? it would not have been worth anything to my academic peers and therefore to my academic career.

The academic text only becomes valuable after it passes through the quality control system which is in the hands of the publisher. Without a publishing house behind the text the information contained therein is not seen as knowledgeâ?¦

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Fear of Graduation

The Greek word for fear is phobia. Today an accepted decision of phobia is a strong, persistent fear of situations, objects, activities, or persons…

Yesterday I signed off on the manuscript of my thesis and today I have been followed by an evil thought that I have made a mistake. Nothing precis or definate – just an idea that I have missed something. A logical gap, a lethal flaw. It’s probably the fact that this project has been with me for too long and the last year has been incredibly intense, that now when it’s done I do not feel releived – I feel worried.

So I am playing catch-up with all my todo lists. Carrying out the more or less mechanical administrative tasks that are a part of life. But my brain will not let me relax. The problem is that I cannot define what it is I am afraid of. If I could then I would prepare…

So it’s the fear of the unknown – which is Xenophobia… Not a good thing to become xenophobic. Maybe its the fear of graduating… Thats it!! It’s because I am about to break Newton’s Third Law of Graduation!

Jorge Cham – PhD Comics

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tis done

Today, after spending the whole weekend re-reading and correcting, I approved my thesis manuscript for publication. This means:

1. The printer is pressing the big button

2. There is no turning back – on 2 October I defend

3. No more changes can be made to the thesis

The sensation is one of relief and anxiety. What if I have made a huge error in the middle? Have I said too much? Too little? Have I missed a weak spot in my arguments etc etc. Soon (very soon) the answer to these questions will become clear.

The whole final text and images of the cover can be found here.

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comfortably numb

The song Comfortably Numb is one of my favourits from Pink Floyd’s album The Wall. The lyrics reflect a “coversation” between Pink (who has passed out in his hotel room) and the doctor who is attempting to treat him (or drug him) so that he can perform. The first verse here is the doctor followed by Pink’s reply:

Hello.
Is there anybody in there?
Just nod if you can hear me.
Is there anyone home?
…

There is no pain, you are receding.
A distant ships smoke on the horizon.
You are only coming through in waves.
Your lips move but I cant hear what youre sayin.
When I was a child I had a fever.
My hands felt just like two balloons.
Now I got that feeling once again.
I cant explain, you would not understand.
This is not how I am.
I have become comfortably numb.

Why post this today? Well I have been sitting re-reading and correcting my manuscript and the phrase comfortably numb is actually quite representative of how I feel.

Posted on by mklang

Beautiful Thesis

Today I picked up the proof version â?? including the cover â?? of my thesis. It looks great. I took pictures but forgot to bring the camera cable home with me. So I will have to put pictures online later. But there is another problem. The systems administrators have threatened to do important updates to all the servers. Everything will be down during the weekend. This means I will not have access to the blog until Monday morning!

So despite the fact that I have no pictures to prove it you will have to accept that I have a beautiful thesis. Also without my blog for the weekend I shall be spending the whole time proof-reading (well almost all the time).

As always the link to the latest draft is here – if you can reach it between the systems work.

Posted on by mklang