[TOS] Peer-Reviewed Open Source Journal

[Ralph Morelli]

Hi,

Since this is my first posting here, let me introduce myself.  I'm a  
faculty member in computer science at Trinity College in Hartford,  
CT.  I am one of the PIs of an NSF-funded project aimed at  
revitalizing undergraduate computing education by getting students  
engaged in building FOSS that serves the community.  Our project, the  
HFOSS project (http://www.hfoss.org), recently organized a 1-day  
symposium on "Integrating FOSS into the Undergraduate Computing  
Curriculum"  at SIGCSE,  where I met Greg deKoenigsberg, Frank Hecker,  
and Armen Zambrano Gasparnian (and maybe others who are on this  
list).   Here's a link to the Symposium's media page (http://www.hfoss.org/symposium09/?page_id=133 
).

At the meeting, one of the main obstacles we identified toward  
integrating FOSS into higher ed was that tenure and promotion  
committees do not recognize contributions to FOSS as an important part  
of a faculty member's tenure case.  They really only care about peer- 
reviewed publications and, frankly,  I don't see that ever changing.   
It's a strongly entrenched part of the academic culture.  So,  I think  
the existence of peer-reviewed conferences and peer-reviewed journals  
would go a long way toward  addressing this obstacle and I would be  
willing to work with others on this.  It's not clear to me whether  
starting a new conference and/or journal would be better than trying  
to integrate academic FOSS tracks at already well established  
conferences.  Or maybe both strategies would make sense. This is  
something that needs to be sorted out.

Perhaps there should be a session on this topic at the October 29th  
TOS summit.  If so, I'd be willing to participate. I'm CCing this  
Carlos Jensen and Tim Budd at Oregon State University because I know  
they are also interested in this issue and I'm not sure whether they  
are members of this list yet.

Cheers,
-- ralph

On Mar 11, 2009, at 6:53 AM, Rob Cameron wrote:

> This is intriguing.   I would certainly be quite interested
> in discussing the editorial policy of any such journal.   How
> open source contributions can be considered for academic
> contributions is a hot topic here at SFU.
>
> Perhaps dual editorial boards, one for academic review
> and one for open source review would be appropriate.
> Certainly, the success of a journal within academia would
> depend on issues of quality (and perception of quality).
> It might be helpful to work with the ACM on this.   Perhaps
> hosting the journal through an academic center (COSTAR
> at SFU?) would help.
>
> On Tue, Mar 10, 2009 at 11:18 PM, Chris Tyler <chris at tylers.info>  
> wrote:
>>
>> I've found Greg's suggestion of a peer-reviewed journal (and/or
>> conference event) intriguing
>> (http://gregdek.livejournal.com/47357.html).
>>
>> If such a journal was established, I strongly feel that part of the
>> review process should be an evaluation of the researcher's  
>> participation
>> in and contribution back to the community. I've heard some devs say  
>> that
>> they're going to scream and/or throw heavy virtual objects at the  
>> next
>> academic that pops onto their project's list with yet another  
>> research
>> survey; I think we need work hard to foster a culture of  
>> participation
>> and collaboration between researchers and open source communities,
>> because each can benefit from the other.
>>
>> Is the establishment of a journal worthwhile? Any takers?
>>
>> -Chris
>>
>> _______________________________________________
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>>
>
>
>
> -- 
> Robert D. Cameron, Ph.D.
> Professor of Computing Science
> Simon Fraser University
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