Re: 1st International Health Informatics Symposium

As far as I know, when submitting work to a closed system like EasyChair or PrecisionConference, the closed nature of the system means that your submission is *not* a public disclosure, and your work is therefore not publically disclosed until it is accepted for publication and published.  This can be an advantage, since the clock for obtaining a patent does not start until the actual publication.

As to the value of peer review, while I agree with your statement that, "usability science finds facts regarding the actions of end-users", somebody must evaluate whether your experiment/study of end-users was well designed, and whether the conclusions you draw are justified, and whether the questions you ask are interesting.  Having run a conference, I find that peer review does a reasonable job of determining that.

Of course there is a huge area worth discussing about conferences in general, which operate on a model of scarcity and selectivity, drawing an arbitrary line between acceptable and unacceptable papers due to the needs of academics to publish at sufficiently selective conferences.  Surely we can find a better way to attribute credit to valuable work.

Regards,

-Eben Haber


On Apr 2, 2010, at 8:41 AM, Greg Austin wrote:

> Hi Manas,
> 
> Maybe you can enlighten me--just exactly which utility does "Peer  
> Review" serve in the field of usability science? Why would anyone  
> employ Easy Chair's closed access, as opposed to anything else that is  
> open to public review? Why would anyone do that?
> 
> If you are one who patents, trademarks, or copyrights your work, those  
> works are protected equally in a blog as well at a symposium.
> 
> I understand the utility of peer review if we are learning from or  
> teaching our peers; however, under no circumstances is science itself  
> constrained by the opinions of peers--only the topics for which  
> scientists seek are influenced. The facts themselves remain.
> 
> Moreover, usability science finds facts regarding the actions of end- 
> users--not the opinions of peers. The only possible outcome of  
> isolating one's presentation to peers is the risk that continuation of  
> the work is biased by peer pressure.
> 
> I can see no advantages to submitting work in usability science  
> through Easy Chair, a closed access, one that is maintained by those  
> claiming to be our "peers". Therefore, it seems to me that the  
> symposium's mission can be more efficiently directed in a blog.
> 
> Greg
> On Mar 31, 2010, at 10:52 AM, Manas Tungare wrote:
> 
>> Hi Greg,
>> 
>> Looking at the web site for this Symposium,
>> (http://ihi2010.sighi.org/) it appears to me a regular ACM-sponsored
>> conference, like so many others. Easy Chair is quite commonly used by
>> many scientific communities that do not want to, or need to, invest in
>> a custom solution for soliciting and reviewing papers. The corporate
>> sponsorship you speak of usually involves monetary support from
>> companies to pay for the expenses incurred during the conference
>> itself. The sponsorship by PNNL is quite likely with similar
>> arrangements. I have never seen any instance of automatic assignment
>> of copyright or patents to these Corporations and Governments you
>> despise. ("Intellectual Property", to me, is a misleading umbrella
>> term that attempts to group together copyright, trademark and patent
>> law under one roof.)
>> 
>> The only remaining question is about Open Access to publications and
>> philosophical opinions regarding closed publication. Many of us
>> support open publication by retaining copyright and making our works
>> available under liberal licenses, e.g. Creative Commons. Sadly, that's
>> not the case with all conferences yet, though we hope that will soon
>> change.
>> 
>> But even under the current circumstances, you are never denied
>> authorship or credit for your own work by the community or by ACM. On
>> the other hand, submitting to conferences such as this allows peer
>> review and helps disseminate knowledge quicker and with reasonable
>> credibility as compared to posting on a self-hosted blog. ACM also
>> allows authors to post a copy of the paper on their own web site for
>> download (although they still like to retain copyright,
>> unfortunately).
>> 
>> 
>> P.S. I have no affiliation with this conference or with any of the PC
>> members; I just saw your email about it and decided to check out what
>> the issue was.
>> 
>> Regards,
>> Manas.
>> 
>> -- 
>> Manas Tungare, Ph.D.
>> http://manas.tungare.name/
>> 
>> 
>> On Wed, Mar 31, 2010 at 7:50 AM, Greg Austin  
>> <[email protected]> wrote:
>>> Group:
>>> 
>>> A word of caution to those who may be casting their pearls before
>>> swine: The sponsors of the 1st International Health Informatics
>>> Symposium have not presented any guidelines to protect, or even
>>> acknowledge, your work. Please be forewarned: Your work is yours. You
>>> own the fruits of your own labor (as well as your own liabilities),
>>> and you do not need to prove that ownership to entities who may  
>>> have a
>>> vested interest in stealing, undermining, or preventing that  
>>> ownership.
>>> 
>>> If you want to selflessly present your IP and the fruits of your  
>>> labor
>>> to a candid world, for the betterment of science, I would suggest
>>> publishing your information online--away from the sole control of
>>> corporations that maintain every incentive to steal your work and
>>> claim that "they had already been working on such an idea".
>>> 
>>> I you want the entire world to bear witness to your healthcare IP for
>>> the betterment of mankind, I suggest opening up a discussion blog  
>>> that
>>> can be accessed by the public--without Corporate Government  
>>> censorship.
>>> 
>>> I'll be the first to post.
>>> 
>>> Any good free blogs you can recommend?
>>> 
>>> Greg
>>> On Mar 18, 2010, at 1:39 PM, Greg Austin wrote:
>>> 
>>>> Umit:
>>>> 
>>>> Thank you for your prompt reply.
>>>> 
>>>> I am willing to submit this information for the purpose of
>>>> academics, and am even willing to teach and guide those who are
>>>> interested in the process I have discovered through its suggested
>>>> steps. However, I am neither a Principle Investigator, nor have I
>>>> been paid directly as an entitled instructor; instead, I am an
>>>> entrepreneur, an experienced clinician, usability analyst, and an
>>>> ECMA script interface designer. Therefore, I would get no marketable
>>>> rewards for describing my Intellectual Property, since I am not paid
>>>> to educate others while continuing my research.
>>>> 
>>>> Nevertheless, information must be exchanged.
>>>> 
>>>> Further, I maintain that true science itself does not care about my
>>>> credentials, or lack of them. I am confident that I can lead others
>>>> through the scientific steps necessary to create a world-class user-
>>>> centered healthcare informatics project. However, I again need to
>>>> know--what's in this for me?
>>>> 
>>>> Thank you for your time.
>>>> 
>>>> Greg
>>>> 
>>>> On Mar 18, 2010, at 11:44 AM, Umit V. Catalyurek wrote:
>>>> 
>>>>> Dear Greg Austin -- thanks for your interest to our conference. I
>>>>> don't think I'm in the position to give you legal advise but IMHO
>>>>> (baring in mind that I'm an academician whose first priority is
>>>>> publish and never filed a patent in my life :), if you have IP
>>>>> concerns, I think right approach is to file a patent before
>>>>> disclosing it (including submitting for a peer review for any
>>>>> conference/journal). FYI I'm cc'ying PC Co-Chairs and Honorary  
>>>>> Chair.
>>>>> 
>>>>> Thanks,
>>>>> Umit
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>> On Mar 18, 2010, at 12:56 PM, Greg Austin wrote:
>>>>> 
>>>>>> Hi Umit Catalyurek:
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Thank you for providing the opportunity to submit information
>>>>>> regarding healthcare informatics development  to the 1st
>>>>>> International Health Informatics Symposium.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> As a BayCHI member, an independent researcher and inventor, I am
>>>>>> interested in submitting a paper and prototypic example of the
>>>>>> careMerge user-centered healthcare informatics guidelines.
>>>>>> Revealing these guidelines may generally benefit the field of
>>>>>> healthcare, since I have already discovered many great facts
>>>>>> regarding user-centered design of healthcare informatics as the
>>>>>> science is applied to the actual practice of healthcare.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> However, I must question my own motivation to reveal this
>>>>>> intellectual property. I must be certain that if I reveal the
>>>>>> method and rationale behind the careMerge method of user-centered
>>>>>> design that this will indeed benefit humankind, and will not
>>>>>> merely be hoarded to the benefit of very few individuals through
>>>>>> their pre-established corporations designed to own the work of
>>>>>> others.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> This concern is not unfounded, since the fact that papers
>>>>>> submitted by willing participants that are intended to be revealed
>>>>>> to the public are to be received through the EasyChair secure
>>>>>> website; the fact that a secure website is being employed to
>>>>>> receive these papers indicates a level of control over IP not that
>>>>>> of the participants ourselves. If we participants submit papers
>>>>>> revealing our IP to an opaque secure website that is scrutinized
>>>>>> by corporations with everything to gain by claiming these
>>>>>> properties as their own, how can we be assured that this
>>>>>> information submitted will be properly screened, credited to those
>>>>>> who have done the work, and employed for the betterment of  
>>>>>> humanity?
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Again, thank you for the opportunity, and your anticipated
>>>>>> response to my concerns over submitting IP to the symposium.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Greg Austin
>>>>>> [email protected]
>>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> Greg Austin
>>>> [email protected]
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>> 
>>> Greg Austin
>>> [email protected]
>>> _______________________________________________
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>>> 
> 
> Greg Austin
> [email protected]
> _______________________________________________
> This is the BayCHI Discussions mailing list, [email protected]
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_______________________________________________
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