Sat, 18 Oct 2003 14:54:52 GMT

This morning before the 802.11 panel, we had a journal editors roundtable arranged by the incomprable Ulla Bunz. The Editors were asked questions about publication an tenure, about new publication opportunities, online publication and issues surrounding online archives and getting your paper published. I think panels like this are extremely important to have at conferences because they get people to think about new publishing paradigms. This is so important because there should be concerned with the possibility of the professoriate both new and old being caught between technologies. I fully support the transformation toward open access peer reviewed archives, and I've worked hard to produce some technologies that were excellent demonstration platforms for that, but still I know that traditions are hard to break and there is a paper fetish still. But what happens when someone is caught between the new opportunity and the requirements of tenure…. who knows? prudence is required, but as we know prudence is a virtue, a practice, and as such it transforms you through its consideration. So the direction that people must use 'tempers' them; changes them, and perhaps makes them less participative in new forms of publishing.