Re: DOAJ update

[Eric Hellman <eric@openly.com>]

Joe presupposes that his solution would in fact result in a more reliable
database. This is a possibility, but it is not necessarily so.

My company, Openly Informatics, collects and maintains information similar
to that provided by DOAJ for about 60 providers and almost 600 different
products. We charge our customers a hefty sum for access to the data, and
they happily pay for the quality assurance.

> From that perspective, I can fairly say that DOAJ does a excellent job in
a very difficult problem space. Open-access titles span a great range of
situations and fields of endeavor. Business models for e-journals are
multiplying, leading to a very complex cataloguing environment. We are a
"user" of DOAJ as well, and the DOAJ staff are more responsive to our
"feedback" than a large fraction of the for-profit providers that we
interact with.

Speaking as a businessman, I do not think that Joe's suggested business
model for DOAJ would maximize return on investment.

Eric

At 9:46 PM -0400 4/3/05, Joseph Esposito wrote:
> This is a solvable problem.  We read that DOAJ relies on "feedback from
> users."  The implication here is that users are unreliable in providing
> such feedback.  The solution is to hire someone to do the job and to
> charge users for the increased reliability.  If not enough users sign on,
> then it is reasonable to conclude that the DOAJ is not a sufficiently
> valuable service for its constituency to reorder the priority of its
> expenditures.  This radical innovation would increase the overall
> efficiency of scholarly communications and reduce inforrmation glut.
>
> Joe Esposito