harnad@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (S. R. Harnad) (01/20/90)
Proposal to create a moderated Usenet group called
sci.psycoloquy.moderated
An International, Interdisciplinary Forum for Scholarly Communication
---
I have just taken over the editorship of the Bitnet Psychology
Newsletter (earlier called "Psychnet") and would now like to establish
it also as a moderated newsgroup on Usenet. Below is my first editorial
about plans for the group. The only thing that I would add is that the
group is, and will remain, a strictly noncommercial forum for
information exchange among psychologists (and scholars and scientists
from related disciplines). Distributing it regularly to sites through
Usenet seems a more efficient use of the airwaves than an email list,
given that there are about 25,000 academic psychologists in the US,
probably near that number in the rest of the world, and countless
students and other interested disciplines.
I will be moderating the scientific discussion; co-moderating the
group with me will be Perry London, Dean of the Graduate School of
Applied and Professional Psychology at Rutgers University, with the
assistance of Cary Cheriniss, Associate Professor in that School. They
will be handling postings related to clinical psychology. The American
Psychological Association has also agreed to sponsor the list on an
experimental basis for eight months. This will pay a graduate student
for doing weekly updates on the bitnet listerver, where we hope to
build up the email addresses of all psychologists worldwide.
Below is a revised copy of the first editorial, which gives further
information about the list.
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To Bitnet Newsletter (PSYCOLOQUY) Recipients (~1300 individuals and
redistribution sites):
This is just to let you know that this list is about to come under new
editorship. We all owe many thanks to Bob Morecock for having founded
the Bitnet Psychology Newsletter (originally "Psychnet," soon to
undergo yet another name change to PSYCOLOQUY). He has performed a
valuable service to the field of psychology in getting the list started
and sustaining it through its first few years in an era in which this
medium will become inceasingly important in scholarly communication.
There are some rather ambitious plans under consideration for this
list. Academic email networks can be much more than bulletin boards for
meetings, abstracts and notices, as most of them are. They are a
potentially revolutionary medium for disseminating and discussing new
findings and ideas -- "Scholarly Skywriting." The global scope and
lightening pace of intellectual exchanges in this medium are uncannily
well suited to the thought processes of the creative mind -- or so I
believe, at any rate, and this hypothesis will soon be put to the
test.
Along with the notices that will continue to appear, and that you are
encouraged to continue to submit, there will be demo's of skywriting.
At first they will be circulated to the list as a whole. Then they
will only be archived; to continue receiving them you will either have
to request the volumes from listserv or to sign up for special
sublists devoted to the topic under discussion. Occasional summaries
or samples will be sent to the list as a whole from topics whose
discussions endure. [This procedure may be modified for the Usenet
group.]
Anyone can contribute to the scholarly discussion, but the submissions
will be moderated by [Perry London and] me, and we will have to exercise
selectivity where necessary, for reasons of length, relevance, quality
or tone (skywriting discussions must be polite and dispassionate).
In addition, I am actively looking for a list co-editor to handle
contributions bearing on clinical practice and professional matters in
psychology. Someone is under consideration now, but don't hesitate to
send nominations. The individual should be a professional psychologist
with some stature in the field, preferably with editorial or
administrative experience. (Note that this is not a paid position, but
a service we are contributing in order to develop this new medium.)
[Perry London of GSAP has since agreed to do it, with Cary Cheriniss,
but we are still looking for subeditors for the many subspecialties of
psychology and allied fields: perception, cognition, personality/social
psychology, development, operant/classical learning, comparative,
physiological, etc.]
Two more matters for now:
(1) The bitnet list's subscibership is currently about 1300, which is
not small for an email list but microscopic in relation to the size of
the world psychological community. I encourage all subscribers to
recruit new subscribers to the list (feel free to capture and circulate
this text to others by email). The procedure for adding one's name
automatically to the list is to send mail to Listserv@tcsvm.bitnet (or
@finhutc) with
SUB PSYCH Firstname Lastname
on the first text line. To unsubscribe:
UNSUB PSYCH (name not required)
(2) Negotiations are currently underway with some psychological
organizations for some support for maintaining the list. The services
of the editors will continue to be voluntary, but some hired help will
be needed for adding and updating the address file and bundling and
posting accepted material. [APA has since agreed to sponsor
PSYCOLOQUY on a trial basis.]
Your reactions and suggestions are welcome. Looking forward to
a rewarding collaboration,
Stevan Harnad
Department of Psychology
Princeton University
Princeton NJ 08544
--
Stevan Harnad Department of Psychology Princeton University
harnad@clarity.princeton.edu srh@flash.bellcore.com
harnad@elbereth.rutgers.edu harnad@pucc.bitnet (609)-921-7771