[Tccc] Promoting open on-line research

Pars Mutaf pars.mutaf
Wed Nov 2 12:20:20 EDT 2011


On Wed, Nov 2, 2011 at 5:20 PM, Joe Touch <touch at isi.edu> wrote:

>
>
> On 11/1/2011 11:37 PM, Pars Mutaf wrote:
> ...
>
>  Conferences may have the benefits that are listed above. The problem is
>> being tied to conferences just for receiving feedback.
>>
>
> It's useful to appreciate that it has always been possible to write drafts
> and tech reports and post them - either via direct email, or to lists* for
> discussion or feedback.
>
> This list in particular is intended for exactly this kind of discussion;
> we are often overrun with CFPs, but they is NOT the primary motivation for
> this list.
>
> Joe (TCCC Chair)
>
> *it's more useful to post only the abstract, not the full text or PDF FWIW.
>
> *there are many IEEE Comsoc TCs; it's always useful to post your ideas to
> the TC most specific to your work.
>

Mentioned method is not frequently used but arxiv.org is very popular:

arxiv model supports the following:

- Our work in arxiv is timestamped and archived. It is recognized by
important databased e.g. DBLP. It can be referenced. They call this "fast
publication".
- We can update our work later. (important because we are suggesting open
discussion of papers)
- Copyrighted

We will get feedback if the work has some merit and in unpredictable ways:
- From researchers who subscribed to a mailing list where the paper is
announced
- From people who browse in the archive

You can argue here that with conferences feedback is guaranteed (although
slow). I think the IETF model is worth considering here because in IETF if
the work has no merit you get no feedback. But you can get lots of
discussion if it has merit.

So we may have an idea about the quality of our work and improve it until
we get some attention (or give up). I think this may reduce the load on
conferences too. Conferences may even require that we first get feedback
from community using this system. Or, since we got our feedback we can go
to a journal directly. The exact outcome of this system is hard to predict.

Pars



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