Second Journal of Science/Editorial board/log

1/19/2015 First meeting
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 * Reserve lengthy discussion for your log subpage (either here for MH or here for Mu301)
 * on the parent page to this log is a quick way to talk to me or see what I am working on. Click the letters.  I will beta test this with 65 students in  few hours.-Guy

The name of the journal
Mikael raised legitimate concerns about my hasty choice of a name. Instead of changing names, I propose that we keep the name until the operational details are worked out. Then, initiate a new journal, e.g. Wikiversity Journal of Science. I will retain these pages and this journal for local area students.--Guy vandegrift (discuss • contribs) 13:31, 19 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Copied from my email to Guy: I don't think it needs to be named "First" in order to fulfill its goal of allowing ordinary people to create great journals, as written on its About-page. This name can even discourage creation of additional scientific journals in Wikiversity, because then they would officially be second, at most. Also, other scientific journals that were created before may find it pretentious, and historians may find it incorrect and point at Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society.
 * I'd personally rather have it named "Wikiversity Journal of Science", because it would then fit very well within a common "Wikiversity Journal" category. Alternatively, I'd be okay with "...of Science" added to any of the names suggested at:
 * Talk:Wikiversity_Journal/Future as separate Wikimedia project
 * Yet, I'm not very fond of "Wikipedia Journal" because it's then contradictory to have it hosted in Wikiversity. Anyhow, I think it's important that we are comfortable with the journal name at an early time, because it will be much harder to change later. Mikael Häggström (discuss • contribs) 05:48, 20 January 2016 (UTC)
 * If we do this, I would retain "First Journal of Science" as a non-traditional semi-refereed journal refereed solely my myself, primarily for submissions by students at Wright State Lake Campus, where I work. It would focus on introductory college science courses and would seek contributions from outside our campus from people whose careers don't require refereed submissions.  If (or when) we create a multitude of journals, we want them to fill "niches", and whenever possible not "compete" for the same contributions.  I think articles for introductory college courses is a sufficiently narrow niche. (more comment here
 * Regarding the question of whether this claims to be the first scientific journal, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society was never called the "First Journal of Science". Nevertheless, I concede there is a problem.  I propose to call it Wikiversity:First Journal of Science, is how it is linked on Wikipedia.  Also, with my proposed intent on the introductory or  courses, "First" may refer to the fact that it involves the first college course a student would take on the subject.  I'm not saying it is a good name, just not so bad that I want to undo all the work I have done on it.  If we replace this journal with one of a different name, "First Journal of Science" would not be too inappropriate for a journal devoted to student projects.--Guy vandegrift (discuss • contribs) 01:32, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

I'm not sure that I have a strong preference for the choice of title. In general, I prefer descriptive names. Though it is difficult to describe something that we haven't (yet) fully defined. Another approach would be to pick a name of the form "Scyence: a Wikiversity Journal of Science" (that's just an example, not a suggestion.) --mikeu talk 21:34, 8 February 2016 (UTC)


 * I see three reasons not to be too concerned about names: First, the journal is not yet fully defined, and second, even a fully defined journal can change it's focus.  The next editor after me might want pedagogical papers for teachers.  Finally, not all journals have descriptive names.  Back in the 1980s we routinely published plasma physic papers in Fhysics of Fluids, and the title American Journal of Physics does not tell you that its about physics education at the college level.  But it does no harm to think about a new name.  I am currently toying with "Wikiversity Journal of College Science"...but then, why not ask for a namespace and call it "Wikiversity Journal:College Science".  I have a 3-year GoDaddy domain purchase, and that is about how long it will take to resolve all this.  We have so much to do first, IMHO.--Guy vandegrift (discuss • contribs) 00:29, 9 February 2016 (UTC)
 * The Wikiversity part of the name already implies an educational focus, but I guess it doesn't harm to clarify it further by wording such as of College Science or of Education. Mikael Häggström (discuss • contribs) 08:00, 9 February 2016 (UTC)
 * I had a similar thought: I wanted to excluded pedagogical articles. But we could use "Wikiversity Journal of Science" and reserve "Wikiversity Journal of Science Education" for for a journal that wanted to include pedagogical articles.   "Science" is such a broad topic that is should be understood that any "Journal of Science" targets the non-expert.  BTW: My aversion to pedagogical research comes from a lifetime of dealing with pedagogical experts who are not scientists.  I'm not against them and feel they have much to contribute.  But I have great difficulty understanding  their papers, and for that reason cannot be the editor of a journal that accepts their papers. --Guy vandegrift (discuss • contribs) 11:29, 9 February 2016 (UTC)

How we make decisions
We have two issues: (1) Peer-review refereeing needs to be secret, and (2) a large board will have trouble voting. Two scenarios are described in the subpage /Guy vandegrift/.--Guy vandegrift (discuss • contribs) 01:20, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

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Appendix
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 * Manuscripts can be seen at First Journal of Science/Editors