Dear all,
Prof Peter Hancock kindly forward me this e-mail about a new BBS-style journal on the
topic of animal sentience. I'm sure it will be of interest to a few on this list.
All the best,
Eoin
From: em.bbs.0.4ac443.098bd961(a)editorialmanager.com
[mailto:em.bbs.0.4ac443.098bd961@editorialmanager.com] On Behalf Of Behavioral and Brain
Sciences
Sent: 26 April 2016 07:37
To: Peter Hancock <p.j.b.hancock(a)stir.ac.uk>
Subject: A message from Stevan Harnad about his new journal
Dear BBS readers,
Some of you may remember me. I founded BBS in
1978<http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/%7Eharnad/Temp/Kata/bbs.editorial.html> and was the
editor till 2002<http://users.ecs.soton.ac.uk/harnad/Temp/bbs.valedict.html>.
After those two busy decades I had not planned to edit a journal again! But when the
Institute for Science and Policy of the Humane Society asked me whether I would agree to
be the editor of a new open access journal on animal sentience, a topic I consider to be
extremely important, both in cognitive science and in ethics, I immediately accepted, and
also proposed to implement BBS-style Open Peer Commentary for the new journal.
Animal
Sentience<http://animalstudiesrepository.org/animsent/> (ASent) has now been
launched and the current editors have kindly agreed to let me do one last BBS mailing to
BBS Associates to ask: If you have interest or expertise in animal thinking, feeling or
well-being, please contact me at harnad@uqam.ca<mailto:harnad@uqam.ca> so I can add
you to my list of potential ASent Commentators (the embryonic counterpart of the BBS
Associate list that I started almost 40 years ago!).
Needless to say, if you have a potential target article on animal sentience on which you
wish to invite Open Peer Commentary in ASent, you are invited to prepare one. ASent can
also consider previously published papers that are particularly appropriate for Commentary
if they are revised and updated for re-publication in ASent.
If you look at the journal
website<http://animalstudiesrepository.org/animsent/> you
will see that Open Peer Commentary in ASent is much like in BBS, except that ASent
Commentaries and Responses appear serially, as they are received, reviewed and accepted,
rather than all in one batch. The author also has the choice of responding one-on-one or
in a batch, and the Commentary can continue for as long as there is still something to
say.
My own inaugural
editorial<http://animalstudiesrepository.org/animsent/vol1/iss1/1/>
describes the mission and remit of ASent (and Open Peer Commentary is invited on the
editorial as well!)
With best wishes,
Stevan Harnad
Editor, Animal
Sentience<http://animalstudiesrepository.org/animsent/editorialboard.htm…
Professor of Psychology, Université du Québec à Montréal<http://crcsc.uqam.ca>
Professor of Web Science, University of
Southampton<http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/people/harnad>