Editors of academic philosophy journals whose content is largely behind paywalls may be interested in applying to a new program from MIT Press that will “cover the expenses of transitioning a journal to open access model for a three-year term, provide the Press’s full suite of publishing services, and support the development of a sustainable funding model for the future.” Dubbed “shift+Open”, the program is intended for journals that have been publishing for at least three years using a subscription model. There are no other restrictions on eligibility, so the fact that your journal is currently produced by another publisher is not an obstacle to applying, and journals based anywhere in the world are welcome to apply. The aim is to convert journals to “diamond”-level open access, that is, no fees for authors to submit or publish their work and no fees for readers to access content. They note: “we anticipate publishing only in a digital format but will consider submissions that have a print component.” The project is funded by the Arcadia Fund. You can learn more about shift+Open here.
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What should our norms be regarding the publishing of philosophical work created with the help of large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT or other forms of artificial intelligence? In a recent article, the editors of Nature put forward their position, which they think is likely to be adopted by other journals: First, no LLM tool will be accepted as a credited author on a research paper. That is because any attribution of authorship carries with it accountability for the work, and AI tools cannot take such responsibility. Second, researchers using LLM tools should document this use in the methods or acknowledgements sections. If a paper does not include these sections, the introduction or another appropriate section can be used to document the use of the LLM. A few comments about these: a. It makes sense to not ban use of the technology. Doing so would be ineffective, would incentivize hiding its use, and would stand in opposition to the development of new effective and ethical uses of the technology in research. b. The requirement to document how the LLMs were used in the research and writing is reasonable but vague.
December 2022 saw the publication of the first two issues of the Journal of the History of Women Philosophers and Scientists (JHWP). JHWP “is the world’s first journal dedicated to restoring and discussing the history of the texts written by and about women philosophers. The Journal of the History of Women Philosophers and Scientists seeks to integrate women’s intellectual heritage into the canon of philosophy, the humanities, and the natural and social sciences… The time period investigated by articles in the Journal of the History of Women Philosophers and Scientists ranges from 2200 BCE to the 20th century CE in both the Western and non-Western world.” Its founders and editors are Ruth Edith Hagengruber (Paderborn) and Mary Ellen Waithe (Cleveland State, emerita).