"Please, how can we know the unknowable?", the Professor asked the Air around his desk.

"The answer to your question is unthinkable", replied the Stone on his desk, "but I have the answer!"

"You do?!" asked the Professor with excitement.

The Stone remained silent.

The Professor kept the Stone on his desk for many years, hoping that it would speak once again.

After he died, the Stone rolled itself off the desk onto the floor. The next inhabitant of the office gave it a kick down the corridor, and it has since taken up residence on the loose lid of a toilet cistern.

Occasionally, a visitor to that toilet seems to hear the following words, coming from nowhere:

"Stay still, relax. It will come to you!"

And the answer does come.

Author's note: Knowing anything has to do with context, and knowing enough about a subject to let the mind work, while we stop our conscious thinking; PJM, Osaka, 12.1.2012

Bogus restaurant ratings in Japan!

A new scandal was reported on national TV last night (see also the Japan Times, 7th Jan. 2012). Too many stars for some restaurants! "Fake reviews found on eatery guide".

Some restaurants have been paying shady companies to post fake high rankings.

Conclusion: Check your sources. Look for inconsistencies. Trust your own eyes, tongue, and stomach. Cook your own food.

So what are the perils for authors and readers seeking journals they can trust? It is not hard to find perils. Try looking around the Internet with this phrase as your search string:

"Academic publishing scams"

This is not just about authors faking authorship. It is also about fake or insincere publishers demanding fees that are not actually used to support the publication, or for costs that do not really exist.

Anything can be published for a price, but who gains? Anything can be published for free too, almost, so why pay?

Publishing in an unsupported journal, with no-one making effort to gather support, will bring no prestige to the author, and not much income to the publisher either.

There is quicksand in the information swamp.

A good general rule is to follow well-lit and frequently-used paths. Try publishing in journals that you enjoy reading, and that others enjoy too.

Maybe a nice, easy-to-use journal ranking system can guide us? With stars!

Welcome, welcome! We have many seats today!

Would you like a window seat Sir? Madam?

We have a large menu, please read it! But we only have one dish we can serve today. It is very popular, I assure you!

Today I had lunch with a professional illustrator who had two related stories to tell...

The first story was about providing illustrations for a childrens' book being made using historical research on how people lived in the past. Illustrating such a book is not a simple task. But it seems that the writer did not want to comment on theillustrations until they were complete, as if anillustration is like writing, a product that can easily be revised at any stage.

The problem here was a lack of communication about the process of producing the book. And to make matters worse, there will be no independent or professional picture editor to check all the details of reproduction of the paintings provided.

A mediator might have been useful, to help make sure that both sides communicated everything that needed to be communicated about the project, at each stage.

The second story was about a local government worker who had been given the task of compiling a list of artists in his region, for a public website. The website itself may not be so useful, but the person who compiled the list has become known as a networking expert, helping artists meet potential collaborators working in diverse media.

Social networks on the internet have become huge and diffuse , so it is hard for people to spend all the time needed to find, consider and select really suitable working partners.

As a result, discovery agents are much needed, even if the title is not commonly recognised.

Their role is to help people make initial connections, or to be 'match makers'. Match-making sometimes requires serious mediation. This is also something that agents can do to help people in social networks.

The online social networks use various approaches to narrow down the choices, by allowing interest-groups to be formed inside each network, or by using the computers to automatically offer choices for possible contact. These approaches are not keeping up with the flood of information washing over us. In fact the choices add to our confusion in the information tsunami .

Agents can be like people who lead others to higher ground - if they know the territory well enough. They need to be specialists and should have constant contact with people who might eventually like to work with each other. My friend wished to emphasize this point especially. I think she has experienced too many half-satisfactory working relationships.

Being a specialist agent is expensive in time, and potentially expensive in fees or commissions.

Not all people involved with publishing can afford to pay for personalised, expert discovery, negotiation, and mediation, when looking for work partners.

Editing companies that employ a pool of essentially freelance editors are really acting as discovery agents and mediators. If they handle enough volume of work, they can reduce the fees or commissions to an acceptable level. Book publishing agents also exist... their hope is to at least occasionally find a new, top-selling author for a publisher, and to profit from a commission or a share in royalties, or both. There are many pricing methods for this kind of work.

Perhaps social networks can also be used by agents offer affordable, personalised networking services . Agents can also manage online profiles for others ... a role that requires a lot of trust and professional care.

Services for authors, artists, editors and translators could involve small teams composed of discovery agents, negotiators or brokers, and relationship mediators.

Each team, or a company with many independent teams, could set up a subscription system for authors, publishers, editors, artists, and translators. In this way, costs could be averaged over time, and across the entire community involved, and could be discounted for members when specific help is needed to find working partners.

One role of the Research Cooperative is to provide an environment in which individual agents, teams, or companies can:

(a) emerge from among our members,

(b) develop their own business plan, or volunteer plan, and offer specialised services,

(c) meet people and learn about their needs or skills, as preparation for their work as agents.

This is why we have forums for agent offers and requests .

The framework exists. Our members can use this framework to explore some of the possibilities suggested above. Please do!

Usage of our network is contantly being analysed by Google, and the results are sent to me without revealing personal data.

Recently it became possible for me to look at the flow of new and returning visitors through different areas of the site. There is very nice flow chart that can be explored in many interesting ways.

For example it is possible to see how visitors from different geographical regions or different languages use the network.

There is a striking result.

Most visitors go first to a profile page. This is true regardless of what kind of visitor they are - new or returning, from the USA, or India or elsewhere, from English or other language regions. What brings people to our network mostly is an interest in other people.

So, please use your profile page to clearly let people know what you want them to know, if they find your page. Give all the information you think will be useful for the kind of people you would like to have contact with. Avoid giving information that will attract people you do not want to meet!

December 18th, 2011

Until now, I have managed a 'Co-op news' page under the Chat menu. This has not been effective or visible for members.

Recently, Ning made it possible for me, as network administrator, to designate my own blog postings as 'Top news' in the 'recent activity' area, which is located on our top page below the main forums.

You may be looking at this area now., or you may see the blog posting in the 'Blog posts' column that shows posts by all active members of our network.

Below are 'Co-op news' items from all of 2011. If our beta testing of the 'Top news' feature is successful, I will suspend the Co-op news and use blog posting to convey occasional news about our network.

Top page has been reorganised

December 2nd, 2011

Our network mission statement has been placed in a wide panel at top of the page. This made it possible to bring the new member photos closer to the top, and to add a side panel giving hints on how to explore the network. When I greet new members with a personal message, I often ask them to start by exploring the network. There is a lot to find here now, for anyone who is seriously interested in research communication.

Our printed network brochure has been translated into Japanese, and Editage is now preparing the layout and proofs. When printed copies are available, we can start sending them to institutions and individuals around Japan.

Our host Ning.com has raised the price for hosting our network

June 23rd, 2011

From July 20th, the annual cost for our Ning Plus hosting subscription will be $239.90. This is just a few dollars more than previously, and is not too much. Ning services have improved a lot in the last 12 months.

Since opening a donation panel on our top page, several months ago, we have received zero donations. The network creator and chief administrator will continue to cover our running costs.

Compounding disasters and a possible role for the Research Cooperative

April 3rd, 2011

This network is largely maintained from a desk in Japan. Fortunately, the Osaka-Kyoto region was not directly affected by the earthquake and tsunami on 11th March, 2011 (the Tohoku Disaster), but longer-term effects are expected. ( Tohoku is the wider region in northern Japan where the series of earthquakes and tsunami began on 11th March ). The energy industry in Japan an elsewhere has been selling a legal drug that leads to an ever increasing demand for more of the same drug. Instead of investing in energy use reduction, the push has been to develop ever more reasons for people to consume electricity and justify the existence of the nuclear power plants. This makes short-term economic sense (for a consumption-led model of human development), but now we face a long-term reduction in energy supplies, withdrawal symptoms, and large areas of unusable farmland in a part of Japan where rural industries dominated.

The compounding effects of earthquake, tsunami and nuclear contamination are only just beginning to reveal themselves.

The hope of many in Japan is that we can learn from this and change the way we live. If there are not long-term consequences for the whole country, then those who were directly affected will have good reason to complain. Leadership for change in the aims of social and economic development is unlikely to come from entrenched political organisations. There are many NPOs and NGOs in Japan that will continue to work creatively to support the communities affected, and to promote more active discussion of how the country can respond in the long-term. In all of this there are many lessons to be learned for people around the world, and there is a real need for outside researchers to look at what is happening in Japan. Our network can help by hosting communication support projects where participants (members of our network) are able to offer support for research, translation, editing, and publishing efforts related to the Tohoku Disaster.

Please join our project " Volunteers for Communication: Japan Focus Group " or contact me (Peter Matthews, email researchcooperative at gmail.com) to discuss this further.

A short holiday

March 9th, 2011

Last month I traveled to New Zealand with my family and had a short island holiday far from computers and the internet. As hoped, the network continued to operate well enough in my absence, though many new members had to wait several days before their memberships were approved. While I rested, our contact in Ghana, Tulasi Mathias, worked hard to draw in new members, and we now have a good core of members from across Ghana. Having such local support makes a huge difference to how well we can develop our network in different countries. We definitely need volunteer supporters in many locations, and any offers with help to promote the network are welcome. Please contact me (Dr Peter Matthews) with this address: researchcooperative at gmail dot com.

Network development and promotion

January 30th, 2011

This month I have been working on the following:

1. Negotiation with a French-English translator to introduce more network content in French.

2. Negotiation with a media studies student in Ghana about ways to promote the network in Ghana.

3. Negotiation with a respondent to our recent publicity in the Japan Times (who may be able to help with translation of network content into Japanese and German).

4. Retooling the network main menu.

5. Revision of the Research Cooperative brochure for reprinting by Editage, our sponsor in practical matters.

6. Discussion with the Ning help desk about the sudden failure of our 'Simple' search functions in early January. The help desk has told me that this problem has been seen in many networks hosted by Ning, and they are pressing for attention from Ning engineers. Meanwhile, the advanced profile search and Google search pages can still be used. It is good that we can use Google as an alternative system for our network. The Ning system is in many ways superior, when it works.

7. Establishing a page for the Co-op Press Centre and Archive (previous Co-op News can be reached through this page).

8. Today I created a country page for Aotearoa NZ, and invited all Co-op members known to be based in NZ to join. Any Co-op member can join any of our country pages , according to his or her geographic and work interests.

See news archive for all years

Here is a site to like: see the Australian and New Zealand Society of Indexers (ANZSI)

The people who know how to organise information have a well-organised website.

They are also conscious of the need to encourage people to learn about indexing - they have an educational role, aiming to "provide training and other resources to all Australians and New Zealanders involved in indexing".

For publishers based in Australia and New Zealand, there are probably good reasons to look for local experts who can imagine what local readers might look for or be interested to find in an Australian or New Zealand publication.

Of course not all local publications are aimed at only local audiences, and indexers anywhere in the world may be fully able to understand and index texts that have no geographical bias.

The ANZSI website kindly provides links to Indexing Societies worldwide .

I wonder if they are all working on a global index to all information? What would that look like?

Website content designers think that Google is acting as a global index, and certainly people are using Google (and other search engines presumably) to search long strings of words - keyword phrases. But creating a global index independent of Google would be an interesting challenge I think. It could be something between the ever-lasting Dewey Classification of subjects used by libraries, and the ever-changing (and invisible) Google index.

Perhaps a visible global index could be called the:

Indexer's Global Index of Information, for Popular Use (IGIIPOPU).

(Sorry, for readers who recognise the musical reference here, I have indeed been in Japan too long).

Here's a mouthful of verbiage to chew on:

"Facultative symbiosis and social network ecology"

Indigestible maybe, but seriously, I am thinking that our NPO network, The Research Cooperative , can benefit from closer or stronger relationships with:

(1) commercial language-service companies (which often have their own internal networks of editors and translators), and

(2) internet job agency networks (where many editors, translators, and other communication professionals hang up their tiles in search of lucrative short-term or long-term work).

Our network is a minnow compared to many of the established networks that provide information on job opportunities or that offer a broad range of professional services. We cannot compete - but do we need to?

Our advantage is that we have an open and informal structure. We can be seen as part of the free-economy movement - where not all work or benefit has to be compensated for with money.

This is possible because our orientation as a network is not commercial. We can welcome all people involved in research communication, including those without financial support, experienced volunteers, and people who lack experience but are seeking experience. We are smaller as a network, but our potential range of interactions is larger, in so far as they involve efforts in research-based communication. For many interactions between our members, money may be needed, but not for all.

The connections can be shown like this:

Companies -$$- Agencies

\ fs / fs

The Research Cooperative

$$ = An interaction that requires money. This is not part of the free economy.

fs = Facultative symbiosis: each side helps the other, if and when they wish, and money is not needed for the interaction. We can survive independently, so the symbiosis is not obligatory. The 'free economy' provides a service for the cash economy, and vice versa.

(Of course the cash economy and the free economy do need each other - in a larger view - and can barely function without each other).

The Research Cooperative can be an open starting point for people who may eventually migrate to companies and agencies.

We can also be a destination where the people employed by companies or using agencies can offer volunteer or special services, separate from their professional paid work at companies or agencies.

By being involved with the Research Cooperative, companies, agencies, and the people who work with them may gain experiences, opportunities, and connections that benefit their efforts in the cash economy. For this reason, companies and agencies might eventually be willing to be financial sponsors for the relatively small costs of operating an NPO network.

Hah! Now I have been caught by the threads of my own argument. The free economy is not entirely free after all. Social network ecology is a tangle.

One of the main challenges in operating the Research Cooperative network is stimulating our members to invite their own friends and colleagues to also join.

The world is currently flooded with invitations to join all kinds of online initiatives. A good approach may be to focus efforts in a different direction every month, so that members can more easily find a special reason to help in this way.

My idea is to have a monthly challenge to invite new members from different areas of the global community of people involved in research communication. The first 12 month sequence could be something like this:

1. Editors and proofreaders

2. Social science researchers

3. Translators

4. Natural science researchers

5. Illustrators and others involved in visual presentation of research

6. Mathematical and physical science researchers

7. Publishers and the managing editors of journals

8. Medical and health science researchers

9. Conference organisers

10. Engineering and technical science researchers

11. IT specialists involved in research communication, website design etc.

12. Graduate research students