Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Draft of Open Letter on the importance to protecting independent peer review frameworks for Scholarly publications of Scientific Associations

[Suchith Anand]

Mark,


Thank you for your inputs.


My concern is on the wider principle of  open and transparent decision making . 
I just find it difficult to understand the secrecy of this book project . My 
only request was for open and transparent discussions on the community book 
project . I just do not understand what is the problem with that request? I was 
met with hostility from the start when I asked for open and transparent 
discussions on this. If there were open and transparent discussions and all 
clear criteria were provided on the reasons for choosing the publisher , then 
it is fine.


In my humble opinion, Scientific Associations/Organisations are the guardians 
of Science. They can only do this if they themselves put in strong structures 
for openness and transparency in decision making at all levels. These open 
discussions are aimed at learning and sharing ideas for good practices for all 
Scientific associations /Organisations in the future.


Best wishes,


Suchith



From: Mark Gahegan 
Sent: 26 July 2018 01:56
To: María Arias de Reyna
Cc: Suchith Anand; discuss@lists.osgeo.org; geofor...@lists.osgeo.org
Subject: Re: [Geo4All] [OSGeo-Discuss] Draft of Open Letter on the importance 
to protecting independent peer review frameworks for Scholarly publications of 
Scientific Associations

I think Anthony makes a good point here that is worth listening to.  This 
letter is well intentioned, but I think it mixes up ideas.

Two point worth mentioning as follow up.

One: I’m an open source advocate, but I think picking on ESRI Press in this way 
is not helpful.  As I understand it, ESRI don’t expect editorial control of 
content when you use them and they have in the past published several GIS text 
books at a far cheaper price than any other publisher would offer—and in full 
color.  So yes, the branding is an issue from some points of view.  But being 
pragmatic, the result has been that many more people could afford to buy GIS 
text books.  This is not an entirely  bad outcome and the issue is far from 
being black and white.   (Though I concede that these days I don’t know why we 
would use any publisher at all since we should be able to publish free ebooks 
instead.). I also concede that from some points of view this gives ESRI a 
marketing advantage.  But I just wanted to point out that the impacts of this 
have not been wholly negative.

Two.  Repeatability in science is very important, but very difficult, though we 
should aspire to it and work diligently towards it.  Open source software has a 
role to play here.  But we are far behind the more successful practices used in 
communities such as genomics, computational physiology, particle physics and 
others that use fully repeatable computational workflow engines or Virtual 
Laboratories (and not just open source code).  We REALLY should be getting our 
own house in order before we start blaming others.  I can provide references if 
it helps here, but suffice is to say that all GIScience — including Open 
GIScience is a very long way off the pace of current best practice for 
repeatability.  The major problem here is that we have not built the more 
complex workflow systems needed to support open science, rather than because a 
vendor acts in a particular way.

I do agree with the issues around pseudoscience, weak science and 
commercially-sponsored science.  These are directly harmful and where we see 
EVIDENCE of these practices, we need to call them out.

I read somewhere recently that the difference between a prophet and a zealot is 
that a prophet chastises because (s)he loves the community, whereas a zealot 
chastises because (s)he loves to chastise.  Lets be careful how we come over, 
or our important message will fall on deaf ears.

mark
__
Prof. Mark Gahegan
Centre for eResearch & Department of Computer Science U. Auckland

On 25/07/2018, at 9:25 AM, María Arias de Reyna 
mailto:dela...@gmail.com>> wrote:

Hi,

I can't agree more with you :)

On Tue, Jul 24, 2018 at 11:53 AM, Suchith Anand 
mailto:suchith.an...@nottingham.ac.uk>> wrote:

Dear colleagues,



I have prepared a draft letter with my ideas/suggestions .I am just a volunteer 
and I feel sad that  that I have to raise this issue through an open letter.  
But if I remain silent on this , I will be indirectly supporting the degrading 
of  independent peer review frameworks  for Scholarly publications of 
Scientific Associations.


It is the fundamental duty of all Officers of Scientific 
Associations/Organisations  to always take steps to guard and protect 
independent peer review frameworks  for Scholarly publications of Scientific 
Associations. I am hopeful and confident that that they all will do this for 
the future.


I am not a native English speaker, so please help refine this  letter 
correctly. I want us to look at the future not focus on mistakes made in past . 
Some mistakes have been made and I understand that 

Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Draft of Open Letter on the importance to protecting independent peer review frameworks for Scholarly publications of Scientific Associations

[María Arias de Reyna]

Hi,

I can't agree more with you :)

On Tue, Jul 24, 2018 at 11:53 AM, Suchith Anand <
suchith.an...@nottingham.ac.uk> wrote:

> Dear colleagues,
>
>
>
> I have prepared a draft letter with my ideas/suggestions .I am just a
> volunteer and I feel sad that  that I have to raise this issue through an
> open letter.  But if I remain silent on this , I will be indirectly
> supporting the degrading of  independent peer review frameworks  for
> Scholarly publications of Scientific Associations.
>
>
> It is the fundamental duty of all Officers of Scientific
> Associations/Organisations  to always take steps to guard and protect
> independent peer review frameworks  for Scholarly publications of
> Scientific Associations. I am hopeful and confident that that they all will
> do this for the future.
>
>
> I am not a native English speaker, so please help refine this  letter
> correctly. I want us to look at the future not focus on mistakes made in
> past . Some mistakes have been made and I understand that this is
> corrected. We are all human , so we all make mistakes  . So let us not
> focus on past mistakes but look at ideas on how we can strengthen the
> independent peer review frameworks  for Scholarly publications of
> Scientific Associations in the future.
>
>
> The International Cartographic Association (ICA) is my organisation for
> which  I have volunteered for the last 15 years and continuing . I have
> great respect for everyone in this great global community . The SDG book is
> a community effort (not any individual’s book project) . I have requested
> from the start (as soon as I came to know) for openness and transparency in
> decision making for selecting the publisher. esp. as this book is on UN SDG
> . I understand that ICA has now corrected the mistake . Everyone makes
> mistakes and it takes courage to acknowledge and correct the mistakes
> .Compassion and forgiveness are important values .  I am very grateful
> that ICA has listened to my concerns and rectified this . So I don’t have
> any issues with ICA or any colleagues in ICA. We might have difference in
> opinions on some issues and having free and open discussions is in my
> humble opinion the best way to learn each others perspectives and find best
> solutions to move forward.
>
>
>
> Please send any updates/modifications needed to the draft by 30th July
> 2018. I am on family holidays ( with no internet ) in first week of August,
> so I will aim to send this before I go on holidays.
>
>
>
> ===
>
>
>
> *Draft of Open Letter on the importance to protecting independent peer
> review frameworks  **for Scholarly publications of Scientific
> Associations*
>
>
> Scholarly publications (edited books, journals etc) from scientific
> associations/organisations has  credibility and reputation because of
> strong independent peer review frameworks . We are very fortunate in the
> Geospatial domain to have many reputed Scientific Associations and
> organisations (ICA, IGU, ISPRS, IEEE-GRSS, IAG etc) who have over many
> decades provided strong leadership in advancement of geo science.
>
>
> In times of fake news, science is usually one of those areas that can give
> us orientation and we can rely on.  Independent peer review frameworks  for
> Scholarly publications is among the foundations of good science. However,
> this is  obviously at risk now.   If a professional association takes  agrees
> to publish scholarly publications (edited books etc)  through a GIS
> vendor’s press then there is potential issues with independent peer review
> and ensuring scientific quality. It is only natural that any GIS vendor
> publication press to have vested interests in promoting their products and
> agenda. It also makes it easy for the vendor to get endorsement for their
> products from scientific and professional organisations using this route. 
> Independent
> peer review is the fundamental aspect of science and we need to ensure all
> steps to protect this.
>
>
> We are also now seeing a very disturbing trend with  some vendors even
> starting to trademark “ science” for marketing/sales of their  products
> and   “science” is being misused for vendor marketing/sales! . I have
> raised this issue through an open letter [1] .  Science is not a
> commodity to be marketed or sold by any vendor owners! I am very sad and
> disappointed to see this degrading of science happening. Scientific
> organisations should not endorse any specific vendor products etc as
> “Science” and take strong moral stand against  marketing of products as
> “Science’ by any vendor owners!
>
>
>
> I am a volunteer for the ICA for the last 15 years and always done my best
> in my small way to support ICA . Around one year back, i*n the light of
> the **International Map Year (IMY)* *, the *The
> International Cartographic Association (ICA) started an excellent
> initiative *for  highlighting the value of cartography by “mapping”

[OSGeo-Discuss] Draft of Open Letter on the importance to protecting independent peer review frameworks for Scholarly publications of Scientific Associations

[Suchith Anand]

Dear colleagues,



I have prepared a draft letter with my ideas/suggestions .I am just a volunteer 
and I feel sad that  that I have to raise this issue through an open letter.  
But if I remain silent on this , I will be indirectly supporting the degrading 
of  independent peer review frameworks  for Scholarly publications of 
Scientific Associations.


It is the fundamental duty of all Officers of Scientific 
Associations/Organisations  to always take steps to guard and protect 
independent peer review frameworks  for Scholarly publications of Scientific 
Associations. I am hopeful and confident that that they all will do this for 
the future.


I am not a native English speaker, so please help refine this  letter 
correctly. I want us to look at the future not focus on mistakes made in past . 
Some mistakes have been made and I understand that this is corrected. We are 
all human , so we all make mistakes  . So let us not focus on past mistakes but 
look at ideas on how we can strengthen the independent peer review frameworks  
for Scholarly publications of Scientific Associations in the future.


The International Cartographic Association (ICA) is my organisation for which  
I have volunteered for the last 15 years and continuing . I have great respect 
for everyone in this great global community . The SDG book is a community 
effort (not any individual’s book project) . I have requested from the start 
(as soon as I came to know) for openness and transparency in decision making 
for selecting the publisher. esp. as this book is on UN SDG . I understand that 
ICA has now corrected the mistake . Everyone makes mistakes and it takes 
courage to acknowledge and correct the mistakes .Compassion and forgiveness are 
important values .  I am very grateful that ICA has listened to my concerns and 
rectified this . So I don’t have any issues with ICA or any colleagues in ICA. 
We might have difference in opinions on some issues and having free and open 
discussions is in my humble opinion the best way to learn each others 
perspectives and find best solutions to move forward.



Please send any updates/modifications needed to the draft by 30th July 2018. I 
am on family holidays ( with no internet ) in first week of August, so I will 
aim to send this before I go on holidays.



===



Draft of Open Letter on the importance to protecting independent peer review 
frameworks  for Scholarly publications of Scientific Associations


Scholarly publications (edited books, journals etc) from scientific 
associations/organisations has  credibility and reputation because of strong 
independent peer review frameworks . We are very fortunate in the Geospatial 
domain to have many reputed Scientific Associations and organisations (ICA, 
IGU, ISPRS, IEEE-GRSS, IAG etc) who have over many decades provided strong 
leadership in advancement of geo science.


In times of fake news, science is usually one of those areas that can give us 
orientation and we can rely on.  Independent peer review frameworks  for 
Scholarly publications is among the foundations of good science. However, this 
is  obviously at risk now.   If a professional association takes  agrees to 
publish scholarly publications (edited books etc)  through a GIS vendor’s press 
then there is potential issues with independent peer review and ensuring 
scientific quality. It is only natural that any GIS vendor publication press to 
have vested interests in promoting their products and  agenda. It also makes it 
easy for the vendor to get endorsement for their  products from scientific and 
professional organisations using this route. Independent peer review is the 
fundamental aspect of science and we need to ensure all steps to protect this.


We are also now seeing a very disturbing trend with  some vendors even starting 
to trademark “ science” for marketing/sales of their  products and   “science” 
is being misused for vendor marketing/sales! . I have raised this issue through 
an open letter [1] .  Science is not a commodity to be marketed or sold by any 
vendor owners! I am very sad and disappointed to see this degrading of science 
happening. Scientific organisations should not endorse any specific vendor 
products etc as “Science” and take strong moral stand against  marketing of 
products as “Science’ by any vendor owners!



I am a volunteer for the ICA for the last 15 years and always done my best in 
my small way to support ICA . Around one year back, in the light of the 
International Map Year (IMY), the The International 
Cartographic Association (ICA) started an excellent initiative for  
highlighting the value of cartography by “mapping” the UN sustainable 
development goals. Building upon this, 
The ICA community started work on a book on UN SDG Mapping  building upon the 
posters of the various commissions on this [2]. This is a great community