Comments on: Online Volunteers: Knowledge Managers in Nonprofits

By: Ismael Peña-López

Ismael Peña-López — Wed, 25 Apr 2007 11:35:14 +0000

Hearty thanks for your compliments :))) And yes, it is quite surprising that the journal is not Open Access published. Indeed, there has been some debate around the issue and Michael Gilbert himself - one of the editors - has explained his reasons not to publish under an OA license, all of them related with economical sustainability. Some reactions can be read here: * How do we do make change if we keep doing things the same way? * Information wants to be free, but it also needs to be sustainable * Using Information Technology for Social Change? Insert Coins Here My opinion is that yes, the journal should be OA, but I also empathize with Michael Gilbert reasons. The status quo is not that bad so far: we authors retain our rights on our work (this does not always happen), so, as I have done, we can go and publish postprints in our sites or other repositories.

By: Eduard

Eduard — Wed, 25 Apr 2007 09:52:08 +0000

I read your paper with great interest. There is little literature on this subject, so your classification is very interesting. I think the first type of volunteers (type I, online advocacy) are not really volunteers in the full sense of the term, but it’s true that most websites consider them as volunteers. I agree with you that in these last years, online volunteering has been promoted in an individual point of view. I hope the next phase of V2V will take a first step towards the creation of real virtual communities for online development projects (type IV, volunteer teams for online projects).

Good work and thanks for sharing your research findings and your full paper! I noticed that the new journal is not open to the public. In my opinion a journal of “IT in Social Change” should be open to make the content available to a much wider audience, particularly in developing countries where people will not have access because the rates.

Edu.