iMechanica - Journal Club: Response/Feedback requested - Comments

Cannot link to iMechLab

Henry Tan — Sat, 14 Apr 2007 12:01:15 -0400

I missed these discussions and am trying to catch-up.

Seems that I cannot access the iMechLab. Is it closed?

Re: Journal Club

Qingda Yang — Wed, 13 Dec 2006 11:49:02 -0500

I like the idea very much! A suggestion if it is not yet too late:

Maybe this will put extra burden on the topic coordinator -- after one or two months of highly intellectual discussion on the topic, if the editor/coordinator can summarize the discussions in the form of a publishable paper form and submit to a journal in the form of review paper or communication, WITH imechanica and the participants rightfully cited/acknowledged.

This could serve at least two purposes: 1)increase the visibility of imechanica; and 2)benefit the society of the chosen topic.

Not sure if there is any legal issues though ...

J Club names

MichelleLOyen — Wed, 13 Dec 2006 03:56:08 -0500

I think since the term "moderator" is already used for a specific context in iMech, it should not be used here but it does have sort of the right context. Thus I support "discussion leader" for those in charge of the topic for a specific month and "facilitator" for the overall lead.

RE:

Kilho Eom — Tue, 12 Dec 2006 19:04:10 -0500

Hello, Prof Suo.

I agree with you that we are not in the same boat to journal. If the term "Editor" and "Guest Editor" is confusing people, then it might be much better to use other terminology for indicating the role of "Captain" and "Host". I would prefer "Chair" and "Moderator" to "Captain" and "Host". But I am very fine with any name for that as long as their role is kept in mind. I am very looking forward to 1st issue of jClub.

Kilho

Thank you for bringing up this extra dimension

Zhigang Suo — Tue, 12 Dec 2006 09:29:08 -0500

John: Thank you very much for bringing this extra dimension. That is, what is important to people who will do the work - mostly young mechanicians. We'll let them decide what is the best title for them.

comment on names

John E. Dolbow — Tue, 12 Dec 2006 09:22:48 -0500

Zhigang,

I agree - it's definitely meant to be for discussion of existing works, not to publish new ones.

I don't think the titles are important to the functioning of jClub, so long as people understand what the roles are.

However, I do think that for young people - it might be best if the title is one that is recognized by our colleagues. Ostensibly they may place this item somewhere on their resume/CV. So I think Editor and Guest Editor (even though it is not a journal - I realize that) work quite well.

Otherwise, I am open to Chair or Director for the annual position (Pradeep's) and Co-Chair or Moderator for the monthly position (Michelle's).

I agree...

Pradeep Sharma — Tue, 12 Dec 2006 09:00:06 -0500

Zhigang,

I agree; our role is not that of a journal editor and your analogy to a "book club" is quite apt. As long as the J-club functions as a discussion group I certainly don't care what our roles are called. I cannot think of anything clever at this point but no doubt our readers will give us enough feedback that we should be able to evolve it as we go along. Among the many roles of the "captain/editor...", one that I see to be important is that he/she, at the end of the yearly term initiate a dedicated discussion on lessons learned from the past year and guidelines for the incoming "captain" to consider.

Journal Club is a discussion club, not a journal

Zhigang Suo — Tue, 12 Dec 2006 08:46:14 -0500

Dear Kilho and John:

If I understand Pradeep's original proposal, the Journal Club is a discussion club, not a journal.

According to Ravi, 6000+ papers are published in journals every year on some aspects of mechanics. Using a loose analogy, we might say that papers have become commodities like optical fibers and potatoes. They are indispensable part of our lives, but they are in great abundance, or put it not so subtly, dirt cheap. It seems to be a poor investment of iMechanicians's time, which is the most scarce resource now, to run yet another journal.

If the Journal Club is not a journal, then it seems that we should avoid the trappings of a journal. If Michelle's function is to articulate a theme, select a very short list of papers, and motivate discussions, she does more than just being a guest editor. She will probably be more like a leader in a book club, or a host of a discussion group. To me, her service is far more interesting and valuable and creative than a guest editor of a journal.

Similarly, if Pradeep's function is to guide the development and maintain smooth operation of this discussion group, by selecting the hosts and making up procedures on the fly, his function is quite different from an editor of a journal. OK, I suppose we can call the leader of a book club the Editor of the club.

Here I'm not arguing for the names like Host and Captain, but I do argue that we should avoid becoming yet another journal, or anything like a journal. To add values to the users, the Journal Club will probably function more like an offline journal club, by bringing people together to discuss an interesting theme, using a few illuminating papers as a means to the end.

What would an offline journal club or a book club or any discussion club call people like Michelle and Pradeep?

Host, Discussion Leader, Moderator...
Captain, Chair, President, Manager...

Any more ideas?

And Michelle and Pradeep: At this point, you probably care more about how to make the Journal Club absolutly fabulous and valuable than what you will be called. As the founding Host (a placeholder) and the founding Captain (another placeholder), however, would you be willing to tell us what you wish to be called, for the fun of it, and for the record? If your wishes are not too extravagant, we fellow iMechnicians might as well honor your wishes. Why not? Founding the Club is your idea.

RE: About names

Kilho Eom — Tue, 12 Dec 2006 02:06:36 -0500

1. It is fine with JClub, but if there is better title, then we may think about it.

2. Instead of "Host", I think, we may say "Guest Editor" for a given issue.

3. Instead of "Captain", we may use "Editor" for JClub.

JClub manager powered by collected wisdom

Teng Li — Mon, 11 Dec 2006 17:33:48 -0500

I agree with Sukumar's suggestion. The manager for the following month can initiate an entry in the last week of the present month, to publicize the JClub theme of the coming month and solicit papers of interest from fellow iMechanicians. This way, the manager can make choice from a larger pool and will also be powered by collected wisdom.

changed Captain to Editor

John E. Dolbow — Mon, 11 Dec 2006 17:15:42 -0500

I suggest the term "Editor" instead of "Captain", and have made this change.

No good deed is left unpunished, Dr. Oyen!

Zhigang Suo — Mon, 11 Dec 2006 17:13:21 -0500

Dear Michellel: Following the suggestion in Pradeep's recent comments, I took the liberty to volunteer you as the host of the Founding theme of the month. Check this out. Please let Pradeep know if you have enough time to bring out the first issue.

Let's evolve operating notes of the Journal Club

Zhigang Suo — Mon, 11 Dec 2006 17:08:48 -0500

I've just started a forum topic called Operating Notes of the Journal Club. You are all welcome to help to write this document.

Benefits of J-club

MichelleLOyen — Mon, 11 Dec 2006 17:05:35 -0500

Rui raises some fair concerns and I thought, as a passionate advocate of the J-club as a mechanism for promoting cross-disciplinary dialog, that it was worth commenting.

I had the opportunity to participate in a molecular biology J-club a number of years ago, and while I doubt that many of the papers we read were earth-shattering or even particularly memorable, the experience of learning to read and interpret the literature of different topics was invaluable. Someone working in a specified field will inevitably come across the "classic papers" on that topic, but the opportunity to cross boundaries brings the opportunity for revolutionary, instead of evolutionary, breakthroughs in mechanics.

That said, the best thing that can happen for the J-club here is for a variety of mechanicians--united by the common bond of mechanics but working in a wide range of subtopics--to participate in the club to make it a success.

Journal club

N. Sukumar — Mon, 11 Dec 2006 14:53:43 -0500

A suggestion/thought. If the topic of the month is known a week or more in advance (viz. by the 3rd week of Dec for the Jan 2007 issue), then would it be beneficial if high-quality papers that are deemed suitable for the issue are brought to the attention (by anyone on iMechanica) of the managers via e-mail? I thought this might ease the job of the managers since they can not be expected to cover all possible journals/articles within the specialized topic. This would just provide them with more information; the final decision on the inclusion/exclusion of any paper in the issue would be with the managers.

Journal Club: Response/Feedback requested

Pradeep Sharma — Sat, 16 Sep 2006 15:45:40 -0400

Hello everyone,

I had previously posted this entry on the AMD blog and perhaps it worthwhile to post it again on this forum. I would like to solicit feedback and comments on an idea to further enhance the role and utility of iMechanica.

This inspiration comes from Bell labs and the physics community.....

They started a journal club (year 2003). Each month ONLY 2-3 already published recent journal papers are reviewed and commentary posted in the form of a newsletter. Since only 2-3 papers are reviewed, the selection is much more stringent and careful. The contribution is regular and periodic (monthly). Hence, this newsletter is taken seriously by physicists.

In our case, this can be done within iMechanica. I suspect we could achieve the same kind of interest if we restrict "notable" papers to 1-3 per month and make it a regular monthly feature. In principle anyone could submit a commentary but the blog moderators will select the top 2-3.

The operational rules are open for discussion. Briefly though, I am thinking on the lines of rotating 1-2 moderators with a term of say 2 months. The moderator will receive commentaries on recently published papers RELATED to mechanics area. The moderator will highlight 1-3 notable commentaries in the journal club newsletter. A key requirement must be that the commentaries/paper highlighted are related to mechanics in some form or the other. The concept of rotating moderator is to provide breadth and prevent bias of any one individual. Rotation of journal club moderators will also keep the "work-load" well distributed.

Please leave your comments below. Thank you.