eJournals for academics

Academic publishing is an unnecessary burden on taxpayers in the age of the web, according to Oliver Hartwich, a research fellow at the right wing Centre for Independent Studies.
Writing in the Australian, Hartwich argued that many text journals were written and produced at Australian taxpayer expense, delivered to publishers, who then sold them to a very limited audience indeed. He might of added that the audience usually included the academics own libraries, which then bought the high price journals so that the academics fee paying students could have access to their ideas. Academics should publish online, he said.
I agree.
The refereed, online journal,eJournalist,which we produce, celebrates its tenth anniversary next year. It has an international board and if you check the sitemeter, a modest but widespread audience. Its connected to the Directory of Open Access Journals which references more than 4,000 journals.

Going online in China

Journalism educators need to think beyond the classroom to serve students facing internet driven cultural change. The first wave of change, online interactivity, is already breaking on once dominant newspaper groups. The second wave, Asia centred communications, has begun to challenge western dominance of international news and culture.

This year I took a group of QUT journalism students to China for a month, to work on its English language newspapers and publish online. Their project, which included research, internships, publication and reflection, aimed to create deeper and more nuanced learning than might be possible in conventional class groups.

You can access the report on this project by going to http://http://www.ejournalist.com.au/ejournalist_chinatrip.php. It includes examples of student work, photographs, opinions, links to published items and the Facebook page which held it all together.