Organization and Management Theory OMT

OPEN RESEARCH SOCIETY, NGO ------------------------- http://www.open-knowledge-society.org Dear All, we would be grateful if you read and circulate the 34 pages newsletter of our NGO, that just published. It is available at: http://www.open-knowledge-society.org/news.pdf [or right click and select save as] You will find information for: 1. The 67 International Journals we launched - Full Peer Reviewed, Excellent Quality promoting Open Access, Fast Publication and highest Possible Disseminaton and Visibility 2. Information on how to get involved on Editorial Boards or to Propose New Journals. 3. Information for the Social and Humanistic Vision of the Open Research Societty. 4. Pls below find copied the introductory text of the bulletin. 5. After this, find HOW WE WILL MAKE IT with OPEN RESEARCH JOURNALS [this info is also in the Bulletin]: http://www.open-knowledge-society.org/news.pdf We are looking forward for your comments ideas, criticism If you are interested in membership in OPEN RESEARCH SOCIETY pls read this: Membership [http://www.open-knowledge-society.org/member.htm] Any person over 18 years of age can become member, or any legal entity not clashing with the fundamental principles of the Society. There are two options of membership: Official Members: Listed in the NGO official members section, and holding all the rights for participation in elections. Official Members of the Open Research Society can serve on the Editorial Boards of the Open Research Journals and in the governance of the Open Research Society. An annual payment of 45 euros is required. It is needed to fill in the registration form. Supporters: Without need to be registered members and without requirement for a registration payment supporters declare the support to the vision of Open Research Society, promote the principles and particiapte in volunteer basis to Open Research Society actions. Warmest Regards Miltiadis D. Lytras LETTER FROM THE OPEN RESEARCH SOCIETY Dear All, I would like to thank you personally for your interest in our Non Governmental Non for Profit Organization, the OPEN RESEARCH SOCIETY. It took us almost 2 years to set in order many “things” and today to be able to give you the best of our mind and souls towards an excellent vision. We are happy in this newsletter that will be published every month to communicate interesting pieces of news. We launched 60 InternationaL Full Peer Reviewed Journals, of excellent Quality, aiming to provide to the community publication outlets that care for authors and society. Please feel free to read the “KEY” differentiation of our Scientific Journals, and our Key proposition in page 6. I know that many people are worried, and were suprized, by the “Aggressive” promotional messages we decided to circulate internationally. All people are emphasizing on quality and we are paying to much attention to the QUALITY factor. In a recent promotional message we used six banners that you can find them on page 12. We just said the truth. Academic Publications suffer from many inefficiences: EXAMPLES: Reviewing Process many times is not accomplished fast or with hiogh quality criteria. Many times articles submitting in same journal don’t have the same treatment. For example not all the reviewers are of the same quality. Or some times the blind review is not that blind. If you put few keywords on google very easily you can reveal the identity of the sumbitting person etc. Some times it is also crazy, that a paper even in prestigious journals is on review process for six-ten months. Some associations or top Journals/Magazines have applied according to standards a 6-8 weeks review time. In this context, more delays occur on typesetting, due to low-cost typesetting services of emerging economies [most publishers do the typesetting in India, China, etc]. And more delays because of the publication bottleneck. And always the “criterion” of quality. The Prestigous Indexes of Academic Journals. The Impact factor in the era of Web 2.0 and of online publishing. The ISI SCI, SSCI Thomson Journal Rankings seems to be the absolute judgment, the battlefield for promotions of academics, the sign that gives a prestigous image to scientific journals. I copy from ISI SCI 2006 Journal Rankign Reports. The X Journal with impact factor “1.2” - What a nice impact factor. But let us try to comment on the quality a bit more according to this number. The truth of the number and the Quality pitfall. The “1.2” impact factor is calculated with a simple equaction = 24 citations devided with 20 articles published and the magic number appears and the Prestigous Journals justifies its Quality. BUT IS THIS QUALITY? The fact that each article developed 1.2 citations in 2 years time? It is crazy... I know you agree with me that in the Era of Web 2.0 in the Academic Publishing Arena, we need something different, we need something simple. We want: - Excellent Quality in the Review and Publication Process - Excellent conditions for the exposure and dissemination of published articles - “Quality” Enhancement from the Community. I will provide two clips from last years that had an impact in my perceptions. Before two years I was in the short list to be the new editor in chief of a journal in a well established publisher in UK specializing in Management titles. I had/have the honor to edit few journals and also to run many special issues in top journals. After few phone calls and a discussion they told me directly their concern: “ We want to give you the position, you have an excellent CV, but you are also serving as EIC in another publisher. That moment something happened. I felt that we just had different priorities. Since nobody is serving as an editor for money, I realized that Pulbishers are “interested” in competition while I was interested for developing more opportunities for the community. To be honest in my mind I had this: If I will be the EIC in this journal I could announce continously special Issues in order through this strategy to show my “special” interest for the “new emerging agenda” for my discipline. One more last clip. Years ago I decided to launch an “online bulletin” for the SIG on Semantic Web and Information Systems [http://www.sigsemis.org] in the Association for Information Systems [http://www.aisnet.org]. And because when ever I like something I like to do it in a “quality way” we made this bulleitn to have per issue 100-200 pages. It was amazing every time we posted with open access the Bulletin we had more than 10.000-15.000 downloads from all over the world. For me it was clear. OPEN ACCESS and FREE DISSEMINATION was/is the way to serve a community. Yes we do believe that it is time for a new era in Academic Publishing, adopting the OPEN RESEARCH model and offering to authors the highest possible visibility and exposure of their work, the highest qualiy standards and the fastest production line. We will make it to offer to the scientific community EXCELLENT open access, Scientific Journals. We invite you to be part of this initiative. Read all the underlying principles and managerial issues in page 8-15. But Open Research Journals is only one pillar of our activities concerning our vision. We are trying to promote the KNOWLEDGE SOCIETY vision. Towards this direction, we invite you to be part of the FIRST WORLD SUMMIT ON THE KNOWLEDGE SOCIETY, organized at 26-28 September, 2008 in Athens Greece. Download Athens World Summit on the Knowledge Society Brochure: http://www.open-knowledge-society.org/cfpsummit.pdf Knowledge & Society: Bulletin of the ORS: http://www.open-knowledge-society.org/bulletin.pdf We want to say a great thank you to the 15.000 people/unique visitors that visited our siteat http://www.open-knowledge-society.org during January, 2008. The mails we received the interest you showed to our initiative shows we are working in the right direction. We want you. So this is why we provide two different options for joining us. Full registered members [there is a requirement for an annual payment of 45euros] and supporters. Feel free to browse the details in the relevant page: http://www.open-knowledge-society.org/member.htm I want to thank from the bottom of my heart the members and supporters of OPEN RESEARCH SOCIETY, and also all of you that commented the launch of our SOCIETY, in Blogs, in Web 2.0 sites. We really mean it. WE JUST STARTED. And our actions and initiatives in the next months and years will convince you for the “value” and the “truth” of our message. Let us work together for a better world for all based on knowledge and learning. In our “projects” page, http://www.open-knowledge-society.org/projects.htm, find some preliminary information for our “social vision”. We have highlighted several interesting initiatives. We are in communication with Unesco and UN in order to promote and to work for the idea of the WORLD UNIVERSITY OF EXCLUDED PEOPLE. Here it is a list also of our current projects: - Open Editions and Open Research Journals - The World University of Excluded People - Antipoverty Networks throught the exploitation of Information and Communication Technologies - number of Think Tanks focusing on Reform of Education, The School of the Future, The World We Deserve - Awards for individuals and organizations that pay attention to social responsibility and undertake actions against exclusions related with knowledge and learning. - The establishment of the World Village of Research and Peace - The dissemination or scientific research outcomes - Research Insitutions on leading edge technologies like Web 2.0, Semantic Web, Knowledge and Learning Management. We don’t have money. But we will make it. And in this journey there is space for all of you that in your heart have a strong breath and passion for a better world for all. Best Regards Dr. Miltiadis D. Lytras President of the OPEN RESEARCH SOCIETY ------------------- HOW THE OPEN RESEARCH JOURNALS WILL WORK ----------- The Open Research Journals are the official Publications of the OPEN RESEARCH SOCIETY. So the obvious question is how these journals differentiate in comparison to the less or more established journals. We will try in the next couple pages to summarize some key points. EDITORIAL BOARDS. OPEN RESEARCH JOURNALS have open editorial boards and a pool of reviewers that respect the principles of the OPEN RESEARCH SOCIETY. The members of the editorial boards are members or supporters and have been selected accordint to specific and high quality criteria. So for each journal there is a well defined “editorial” structure. This is Presented below: 1. EDITORS IN CHIEF Journal has maximum 3 Co-Editors in Chief which must be Associate or Full Professors. Editors in Chief set the strategy for the journal in close collaboration with the OPEN RESEARCH SOCIETY publication strategy and axioms. 2. REGIONAL EDITORS For Each Journal there are position for Editors Related with Continets: - EUROPE EDITOR IN CHIEF - AMERICAS EDITOR IN CHIEF - AFRICA EDITOR IN CHIEF - ASIA EDITOR IN CHIEF - OCEANIA EDITOR IN CHIEF 3. ASSOCIATE EDITORS In each journal there are 5-8 Associate Editors for the main scientific subdomains fo discipline that the journal covers. Asspciate Editors are people that at least hold a PhD for 5 years. , with an academic hogh quality profile. 3. EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBERS Each Journal has an open editorial board. The requierement for serving as an EB member is to hold a Ph.D and/or to have at least 3 publications in scienrific international journal. 4. REVIEWERS In each journal beyond the editorial board there is also a complementary Pool or Reviewers. A reviewer at least must pursuing a Ph.D and currently being in the last year, or having 5 publications in International Conferences. OPEN RESEARCH SOCIETY is welcoming application forms for EB members. Read the details of the Call for EB members in the page 11. all our open research journals in the major scientific journals indexes, included prestigous ISI SCI, SSCI, JCR Ranking of Thomson Scientific. We will pay the maximum attention to meet all the well documented requirements including: - Excellent Quality of the Editorial Board - International Coverage - On Time Publication - Excellent Quality Peer Review - Citations in other ISI listed journals and proceedings. The OPEN RESEARCH JOURNALS series is a key project of ORS, ralted with the launch of 100 new scientific journals for the 2008. The main charactrisitc of these journals is the compliance with Open Research Publication Principles which are explained in detail in the manifesto of OPEN RESEARCH SOCIETY. All the journals in series have the title: OPEN RESEARCH JOURNAL ON “X” TOPIC. We must make it clear that we are not competing PULBISHERS. This initiative is just promoting the principles of our SOCIETY. In the next pages you will find information about our current catalogue of INTERNATIONAL SCIENTIFIC JOURNALS. Currently 67 Journals and very shortly 100 will serve as the main vehicles for the realization of our vision cocnerning scientific publishing. In the next Bulleting of the Society, you will find information for the OPEN BOOKS PROJECTS. We want to develop a context in which authors and contributors of books end edited collection take the big share of the generated value and society benefits the maximum from the dissemiantion of knowledge. ACTIVE CITIZENS SOCIETY In the Open Research Society WE BELIEVE that researchers and scientists around the world can play a critical role towards actions for a better world based on knowledge and learning for all. With critical gaps in knowledge and learning supply and demand, huge amounts of money are spent with poor outcomes. In our vision WE WANT research outcomes that are disseminated and exploited by the society for social, and humanistic visions. It is crazy billions of euros to be spent on research projects that after the project period are not longer exploited by the society. We CAN NOT be silent for the 1000s of deliverables, systems, reports and prototypes that reside unexploited at european and global level, produced in the context of big research programs like FP5,FP6-FP7 We ARE NOT satisfied with Publishers policies against the open access to scientific journals and deliverables of scientifc research. We can not close our eyes in the poor provision of knowledge and learning to excluded and poor people. We want knowledge and learning for all targeting sustainable development for all. We can not admit that in the 21st century, the information and communication technologies can be applied only for money purposes. We set the social and humanistic computing as one of the first priorities of the OPEN RESEARCH SOCIETY. Top News/downloads: Athens 1st World Summit on the Knowledge Society Brochure http://www.open-knowledge-society.org/cfpsummit.pdf Knowledge & Society: Bulletin of the ORS http://www.open-knowledge-society.org/bulletin.pdf ORS Poster Calendar 2008 http://www.open-knowledge-society.org/ors2008.pdf ORS PROJECTS Brochure http://www.open-knowledge-society.org/ORS-PROJECTS.pdf ORS Poster http://www.open-knowledge-society.org/ORS-english.pdf ORS Call for Regional Chapters http://www.open-knowledge-society.org/ORSChapters.pdf ORS Goals http://www.open-knowledge-society.org/ORSgoals.pdf ORS JOURNALS principles http://www.open-knowledge-society.org/principles.pdf