Academic publishing in the modern era (original) (raw)
Related papers
2017
Since the Second World War, academic publishing practices have had to cope with enormous changes in the scale of the research enterprise, in the culture and management of higher education, and in the ecosystem of scholarly publishers. The pace of change has been particularly rapid in the last twenty-five years, thanks to digital technologies. This has also been a time of growing divergence between the different roles of academic publishing: as a means of disseminating validated knowledge, as a form of symbolic capital for academic career progression, and as a profitable business enterprise. This briefing paper aims to provide a historical perspective that can inform the debates about what the future of academic publishing should look like. We argue that current policy regarding open access publishing, and many of the other proposals for the reform of academic publishing, have been too focused on the opportunities and financial challenges of the most recent changes in digital communi...
Academic publishing demystified
2008
This paper acknowledges that writing and publishing is or should be an integral part of the life of any academic. The aim of this paper is, therefore, to assist junior academics to get their manuscripts published in refereed journals. The paper attempts to demystify academic publishing by explaining the responsibilities of the editor, the peer review process and the decisions made by the editor on the manuscript. While the ideas proffered in this paper mainly relate to The DYKE: A journal of the Midlands State University, they can also apply to most journals.
Scholarly communications, predatory publishers and publish or perish culture in the 2020s
Library Hi Tech News, 2020
This first Data Deluge Column of the new decade focusses on converging forces which were a growing presence during the previous decade and are likely to increase in importance during this decade. These forces are open science, managing the growing glut of electronic information of which the data deluge is a part and predatory publishing. Much has been written recently on the topic of predatory publishers and predatory elements in scholarly communications. Journal database searches as well as general internet searching quickly confirm this. In fact, narrowing a search to articles published in 2019 alone still produces an overwhelming number of results. These results include not only academic journal articles but also letters to the editor, opinion pieces, news articles, blog posts, YouTube videos, copious social media comments and other examples of practically every form of electronic communication in existence. Certain opinion pieces and letters published in 2017 and 2018 were the focus of much of that discussion. For example, Sorokowski et al. (2017) reported on an investigation of predatory journals. This investigation was a sting that tested the reaction of suspect journals to the submission of an application by unqualified sham academic to become a journal editor.
What is the future of academic publishing?
Ra Revista De Arquitectura, 2012
The Chronicle of Higher Education is a weekly newspaper that gathers news and academic information throughout the United States, job opportunities for university majors, and a section devoted to art and ideas. It is published in Washington D.C. It has around 64,000 subscribers and over 315,000 readers. Its daily digital version adds to the paper issue, among other things, discussion forums and several tools directed to the academia. It has over 1,9 million monthly single visits. 'What is the Future of Academic Publishing?' is the title of a recent article in its digital version, part of a series-Digital Challenges to Academic Publishing-with a total of four interviews (to date) to different editors from the editorial world. It collects an interesting conversation with the publishing director of the MIT Press regarding the question. The interviewer begins querying about the fact that some personalities throughout the U.S. encourage researchers to publish their academic works in on-line media-such as blogs-without the need for a later publication on traditional media such as a book or a printed magazine. The reply, not easy, is perhaps mild but realistic, and could be summoned to economical aspects. As a matter of fact, if we think that publishing previously in the digital realm will imply diminishing the possible audience (instead of increasing it) the costs of producing a book, or a magazine, are unaffordable during the first two years, which is the time the publishing world foresees to retrieve investment. Although, in spite of the lack of studies providing facts-that academic publishers can't risk with their own publications-and above the incidental examples in one sense or another, it is not clear that publishing a paper in 'non classical' means can help or harm the later printed or 'classical' version. We must obviously believe the backdrop statement, which implies that the academic book or magazine, above any other means, must always generate benefits, or at least not generate losses. Regardless of these issues, truth is that in a broad sense, the media has evolved radically in the last years and research in the fields of architectural history, critique, and theory are no exception. It is not necessary to expand on this issue, it is clear that the communication possibilities have multiplied. It can be said that these can generate a transfer of mere uncritical information and doubtful contents. Further more, we don't have to look back too far to realize that the same methods of academic research are far from the ones only ten years ago. If the rather easy access to databases, libraries, academic deposits, magazines, files or any sort of digital contents provide any researcher with an almost unlimited flow of information, furthermore "internet has set the stage for anyone to become an author being his own publisher".
On "predatory" publishing: A reply to Maistry
Journal of Education, 2019
I reply to an article in this issue of Journal of Education by Suriamurthee Moonsamy Maistry entitled, "(Re)Counting the High Cost of Predatory Publishing and the Effect of a Neoliberal Performativity Culture." In his article, Maistry confessed his "wrong-doing" in having published articles in predatory journals. He argued that he alone is to blame for his "trangressions" because academia is necessarily a critical space that demands astuteness and constant vigilance, which he failed to uphold. Through showing remorse, he hopes to restore his academic reputation, which he believes has been eroded. In my response, I address four matters: the struggle to be an ethical researcher in the neoliberal university, the contested nature of predatory publishing, peer review as a practice fraught with difficulties, and the invocation of an immanent ethics in becoming ethical. Instead of focusing only on issues of moral decline (Beall, 2012) and moral failings (Maistry, 2019), I suggest that in a digital age we should use the opportunities that open-access publishing provides for democratising academic publishing and making it as affordable to as many people as possible. This requires, as Willinsky and Alperin (2011) argued, treating the ethical domain as a realm of positive action where one goes out of one's way to help others instead of focusing on issues such as exam cheating and research fudging-in this instance, "predatory" publishing.
Academic Publishing – An Annotated Inventory of Challenges and Chosen Pathways
Social Science Research Network, 2023
Context and Purpose: The increased focus of higher education institutions on research andlatelyon societal challenges and real-world problems, the importance of academic rankings for financing and international competitions and the research and publication oriented professional advancement criteria transformed academics into publishing hunters. The world of academic publishing is wild and dangerous, due to the massification of research. Aims and objectives are often confounded with means, quantity and quality (already difficult to assess) don't always walk together, stakeholders have conflicting interests, the old linear models of publishing are replaced with intricate looped and interconnected ones, leading to academics publishing more and achieving lessespecially from a societal perspective. The aim of the present study is to summarize the main challenges of the publishing process, together with the pathways chosen by academics to overcome these difficulties. Design/methodology: A meta-analysis of recent studies on academic publishing was performed, together with a nethnographic exploratory approach on publishing patterns in economics and business; informal talks with academics from business and economics fields from several Eastern EU higher education institutions were used, as well. Findings: The inventory of challenges includes individual factors (personality and individual morale, goals, knowledge and status, preferences and habits), institutional factors (university and strategy level), social structures and infrastructural level factors (open access, technological disruptive innovations, new social contract for research, preprints), as well as professional culture type of factors (peer-review issues and various biases, alternative research assessment methods, predatory journals, predatory informal rules). Several pathways chosen by academics were observed, leading to hypotheses formulation for future research. Limitations: The study is exploratory, based on a conventional sample of academics for the empirical part and has an emic, potentially subjective approach. Originality/value: The study touches a delicate and controversial subjectacademic publishingand brings together both positive and negative aspects for existent pathways, offering a ground for future research.
Challenges to scholarly publishing
Publishing Research Quarterly, 2001
Threats to professional and scholarly publishers abound since publishing is at a strategic inflection point. The inability of users to identity quality information, the advent of new technologies and services, and the fact that users want a variety of experiences all threaten your well-being. However, focusing on marketing, editorial, reputation, and by partnering effectively, publishers can avail themselves of the marketing opportunities presented, ironically enough, by the very threats themselves.