Excuse me for correcting your perception that legit journals do not spring up from volunteer efforts, but HCB has been doing this for 4-years. IT is just reaching the minimum age for inclusion in ISI and the last time I did its self-calculated citation rating it was over a 1, which if that holds would make it one of the top two journals in herpetology and ranked higher than Journal of Herpetology which was recently ranked as among the top 100 most influential journals in biology and medicine (although I suspect it is actually just below 1 right now) So, I respectfully must correct your perception that highly ranked journals do not run on volunteer forces. IN fact, we have done this to avoid the need for page charges or submission fees so that authors from nations with fewer funds can afford to publish there.
WHy do most journals not use a voluneer force? Because there are not enough people out there who want to do the work -or- the publishing outlet has become more of a cash cow than anything else. Lets face it, some of these online respected journals charge a few hundred dollars per pub, in other words they cover the entire cost for publishing online with the first paper published. The rest is profit and personnel costs. Sounds almost like a scam, doesn't it?? Malcolm McCallum On Fri, Jul 24, 2009 at 12:41 AM, Susan Kephart<skeph...@willamette.edu> wrote: > Dear Charlene and other Ecologgers..<:) > > I"m really very sorry to hear of this decision coming at a time when there > has been such a movement to integrate teaching and research and to provide > credible, peer-reviewed publication venues for exchange of pedagogical > advances, teaching practices, and research on what works and doesn't work in > the classroom. > > My hope is that others who have used this resource will speak up, that the > responses will be read by the governing board, and that somehow through ESA > and its governing board, or endowed contributions to ESA, that some of this > valuable resource can be continued without interruption. If you teach any > course, and you've not yet looked at TIEE, I suggest checking out the > website while you can. It includes some real gems as the Publication > Committee apparently has already noted. > > Finally, I don't think that an all volunteer effort should be expected or is > realistic for TIEE--we certainly don't do that for important research > journals that are highly rated/cited. ESA has an enviable record of > supporting high quality, peer-reviewed papers, and it takes at least a > minimum of resources to accomplish that well. I have not submitted papers > to TIEE but I've certainly seen it's visibility and presence and I suspect > it's been valuable for high school as well as college level educators. This > means it's potentially a recruiting tool for future ESA members, as is the > SEEDs program as well. > > Thanks to all those who created this resource and have contributed so much > to it.. let's hope we can find a way to support this through ESA. I've been > a very long time member and was impressed by this initiative when it began. > Moreover, although I joined ESA as a PhD student, and not for pedagogical > reasons, I do think TIEE has drawn in many of today's educators and > teacher-scholars who would have never joined ESA otherwise and were not much > a part of the ESA membership in the early days. > > Best to all > > Susan > > Dr. Susan R. Kephart > Dept of BIology > Willamette University > Salem, OR 97301 > 503 370-6481 > > > On Jul 23, 2009, at 2:53 PM, Charlene D'Avanzo wrote: > >> For 5 years Teaching Issues and Experiments in Ecology (TIEE) has been >> supported by several NSF grants to me and Bruce Grant. As many ecology >> faculty know, TIEE is a peer reviewed publication of the ESA designed to >> help ecologists teach well; it also supports college ecology Scholarship of >> Teaching and Learning (SoTL). Last year the TIEE editors submitted a request >> to the ESA Governing Board for ESA to assume publication of TIEE as a >> once-a-year electronic journal. Twice the Governing Board sent this request >> to ESA's Publication Committee, which was very impressed by TIEE's quality >> and depth. Twice this committee strongly recommended that the Board vote to >> move forward with TIEE as an electronic ecology education journal, in part >> because the fairly small cost (about 20% of the Education Coordinator's >> salary) would be so well spent. I am very sad to report that in May the ESA >> Governing Board decided not to accept this committee's recommendation to >> publish TIEE in the foreseeable future. Therefore, we will no longer be >> accepting submissions for TIEE. >> >> A main reason why TIEE is so exceptional is because it is peer reviewed. >> Although the V.P. for Education. Meg Lowman, has no written outcome of the >> meeting, I understand that the Board generally did not view peer review as >> necessary for ecology education resources like TIEE. Many people, including >> grad students, have been able to use TIEE as a SoTL venue because it is peer >> reviewed. For education journals published by all the main professional >> biology societies peer review insures the publication's excellence - just >> as it does for scientific journals. >> This summer I reviewed education proposals for NSF. One sad irony of >> TIEE's demise is that nearly every ecology proposal I read referred to TIEE. >> At last weeks AAAS "Vision and Change in Undergraduate Biology Education" >> meeting, college biology teaching informed by research, assessment, and >> knowledge about 'how people learn' was seen as vital for the future of >> biology education. This is what TIEE embodies. >> >> Those of you unfamiliar with TIEE can go to tiee.ecoed.net to see what it >> is. There you will find Experiments for lab, Issues for use in lecture, >> genuine (e.g. LTER) Data Sets, and research papers written by about 75 >> authors and published in 6 volumes since 2004. All are peer reviewed and are >> based on contemporary, researched-based understanding about the most >> effective teaching practices. >> >> >> -- >> >> >> Charlene D'Avanzo >> Professor of Ecology & >> Director, Center for Learning >> Hampshire College >> >> Homepage: http://helios.hampshire.edu/~cdNS/ >> TIEE: http://tiee.ecoed.net/ >> >> ************************************ > -- Malcolm L. McCallum Associate Professor of Biology Texas A&M University-Texarkana Editor, Herpetological Conservation and Biology http://www.herpconbio.org http://www.twitter.com/herpconbio Fall Teaching Schedule & Office Hours: Landscape Ecology: T,R 10-11:40 pm Environmental Physiology: MW 1-2:40 pm Seminar: T 2:30-3:30pm Genetics: M 6-10pm Office Hours: M 3-6, T: 12-2, W: 3-4 1880's: "There's lots of good fish in the sea" W.S. Gilbert 1990's: Many fish stocks depleted due to overfishing, habitat loss, and pollution. 2000: Marine reserves, ecosystem restoration, and pollution reduction MAY help restore populations. 2022: Soylent Green is People! Confidentiality Notice: This e-mail message, including any attachments, is for the sole use of the intended recipient(s) and may contain confidential and privileged information. Any unauthorized review, use, disclosure or distribution is prohibited. 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