If you think the work I’m doing related to The Open Access Landscape 2011-2014 (and potentially 2011-2015) is valuable, read on–understanding that I really need some form of feedback this week (by May 1, 2015).
If you don’t think it’s valuable, feel free to skip the rest of this.
Anybody still here?
If so, then here’s the moderately short version (followed by the three pieces of the longer version):
I need feedback this week to decide how to proceed. Feedback can be a comment on this post, a message to me (waltcrawford@gmail.com), a response to the messages I’ll probably put up on various social networks… It should reach me by May 1, 2015.
Why by May 1, 2015? Because if I’m going to do something like an IndieGoGo campaign (see under “The Possible Campaign”), I’d want to discuss it in the June 2015 Cites & Insights. That would mean writing a new “The Front” before I start to revise and prepare the issue, which I plan to publish early next week.
Why IndieGoGo rather than Kickstarter? Because, at least the last time I looked, Kickstarter requires a video, and I’m not a video person and don’t really have the equipment–hardware and software–to do a decent little intro.
After my last experience staging such a campaign, I’m a little gunshy–and the 100% lack of feedback based on the message at the end of every weekly post, and the extra post, doesn’t make me less gunshy.
Positive feedback does not commit you to contribute to the IndieGoGo campaign or, alternatively, to buy the book (PDF or paperback) when it comes out, which it probably will whether I do the campaign or not. It only says that you might consider it. I will not pester you–there won’t be individual emails saying “Well? Why haven’t you coughed up?”
The lack of positive feedback won’t necessarily doom the project. It will pretty much doom any crowdfunding campaign or putting much additional effort into the current project. It might or might not doom what I really want to do next year (see The Long-Term Goal below). Good feedback and a successful campaign would assure more effort and help assure the long-term goal.
That’s the moderately short version. The rest of this message consists of three parts: Potential additional refinements for 2011-2014; The Possible Campaign Outline; The Long-Term Goal.
Potential Additional Refinements for 2011-2014
Here’s what I’d probably do with good feedback and a successful campaign:
- Add the 220 (or so) 2014 additions to DOAJ to the spreadsheet.
- Do selective rechecking for 2013 values.
- Redo key measures based on 2014 rather than 2013 counts.
- Introduce new measures of article-quantity distribution, one based on quartiles of peak-article-count, one based on quartiles of cumulative article count for 2014 (that is, the range of 2014 article volumes that makes up one-quarter of all articles)
- Try out making these two local and global (that is, showing the local quartiles for a given topic and showing how local distribution differs from global distibution)
- Rework all of the chapters to add topics to table/figure captions, add new measures, and provide narrative summaries of the distinctive aspects of a topic’s OA journals.
- As soon as the Library Technology Reports is issued, change the publication dates on remaining blog posts (which will not include any of these refinrements) so that new chapters appear twice a week rather than once a week.
The Possible Campaign Outline
If I did an IndieGoGo campaign for The Open Access Landscape 2011-2014, it would have a base goal of $1,000 and stretch goals of $1,500, $3,000 and $5,000, as follows:
Base Goal: Prepare and Issue Refined 2011-2014 Study
With refinements as shown above, to the extent that they’re easily doable. Issue results as a PDF ebook and a paperback book (with possible casebound option depending on campaign results).
Note in the perks below that the base goal might include making the ebook/PDF version free.
Note also that, if anybody contributes at the $75 and higher levels, the base goal also involves preparing an indexed version of Ethics and Open Access: A Cites & Insights Reader in late 2015/early 2016.
Stretch Goal 1: $1,500: Post anonymized data to Figshare
Additionally, all revenue in excess of $1,250 would count toward the long-term goal (see below).
Stretch Goal 2: $3,000: Probable move to long-term goal
See below.
Stretch Goal 3: $5,000: Long-term Goal becomes Action Plan
See below.
The Perks
- $25: Option A: Acknowledgment in the book and a free copy of the exclusive PDF version (with in-PDF autograph on title page, and with working links in contents and figures table). At least a $40 value.
- $25: Option B: Same as Option A, but with explicit preference to make regular PDF version freely available. (Otherwise, it will cost $40 for those not participating in the campaign.)
- $50: Options A and B: Same as $25, plus 40% discount off a paperback copy of the book. (Planned price $45, so discounted price would be $27.) At least a $58 value.
- $75: Option A: Same as $50 (and assumes Option B) plus a free PDF exclusive edition of Ethics and Open Access: A Cites & Insights Reader. (Exclusive: working links.) At least a $98 value.
- $75: Option B: Like $75A, but instead of the 40% discount, a free PDF of The Open Access Landscape 2011-2015 in late 2016, if that project goes forward. (If not, I’ll come up with something else.) At least a $98 value.
All levels from here on include acknowledgment, the free exclusive PDF version and the free exclusive PDF Ethics and Open Access, plus whatever’s stated at the level. If at least 20 contributors choose Option B or any level higher than $50, the non-exclusive PDF version of the 2011-2014 book will be made freely available.
- $100: Add a free copy of the paperback. At least a $125 value.
- $125: Add a free signed copy of the paperback. Priceless!
- $150: Like $125, plus a free PDF of the 2011-2015 book. At least a $170 value.
- $175: Add a free casebound copy of the 2011-2014 book.
- $200: Add a free signed casebound copy of the 2011-2015 book.
- $225: Everything–a free signed casebound copy and a free PDF of the 2011-2015 book.
The Long-Term Goal
Prepare The Open Access Landscape 2011-2015 during 2016.
- Start with the DOAJ dataset as of early 2016 (say January 6 or so).
- Gather data for as many journals as possible, including selective use of Google Translate to try to deal with journals with no English interface–and more extensive use of alternative methods to locate journals where the URL in the DOAJ dataset doesn’t work.
- Recheck existing data in all cases.
- Refine grading system and assign all new grades.
- Prepare the project.
- File the anonymized spreadsheet with Figshare.
- (Propose a summary version in Library Technology Reports.)
If an IndieGoGo campaign yields more than $1,500 but less than $5,000, I’d do a later campaign (probably late Fall 2015) to try to raise the rest–that is, looking for $3,500 in new funding for the 2011-2015 project.
There it is. Lunacy? A good idea? Somewhere in between?
Let me know. By May 1, 2015, if at all possible.
