academic publishing
TRANSCRIPT
Inside Academic Publishing,and How it is Changing
Reflections on 30 Yearsas a Journal Editor
David AlexanderUniversity College London
To begin with,a little
personal history
Editor-in-Chief, Int. Journal of Disaster Risk ReductionFormerly, Co-Editor, DisastersCurrent editorial board memberships:-• Planet@Risk• Disaster Prevention and Management• Environmental Management• Geomorphology• Journal of Geography and Natural Disasters• Journal of Seismology and Earthquake Engineering• Integrated Disaster Risk Management Journal• ICPEM Alert• Jàmbá: Journal of Disaster Risk Studies• PLoS Currents - Disasters• Journal of Natural Resources Policy ResearchPast editorial board memberships:-• Natural Hazards• Natural Hazards and Earth System ScienceSpringer Series in Environmental Management (ex-Editor)
Editor-in-Chief1985-2001
54 Volumes, 4,215 Articles, 1977-2013
Flatiron Building (1905)175 Fifth Avenue NYCOur editorial office
Julius SpringerBerlin, 1842
Springer (+Kluwer,+Wolters) is nowowned by EQTInvestments Inc.and Governmentof SingaporeInvestment Corp.
Co-Editor,2002-2015
Editor-in-Chief2011-present
Special issuesBeijing
ProductionChennai
OxfordManagement
IrelandIT and training
AmsterdamCo-ordination
Rhodes W.Fairbridge1914-2006
Encyclopedias of Earth Sciences, 1950s-present:-• Dowden, Hutchinson & Ross• Hutchinson Ross• Van Nostrand Reinhold
(Thompson, Wiley)• Reinhold• [D. Reidel Company]• Chapman & Hall (Routledge, Taylor & Francis)• Kluwer Academic Publishers• Springer-Verlag• Springer Science
Academic publishing as acommodity and investment
UCL Press (1993)Chapman & HallTaylor & FrancisKluwerRoutledgeCRC Press...possibly others
Currently£67.13 new,£1.66 used!
Now,the trends
The big academic publishers:
• some international professionaland learned societies (e.g. ASCE)
• Cambridge University Press• Oxford University Press• Reed Elsevier• Springer Science+Business Media• Wiley-Blackwell• Taylor & Francis• Sage
Academic publishing has bulimia!
About 70 per cent of academicpublishing is for personnel reasons:• getting a job• keeping a job• getting promoted
The field has becomeintensely competitive.
The big problems with academic papers, when they are not good, are:-• unoriginality• repetitiveness• mediocrity• plagiarism.
0
100
200
300
400
500
600
Papers published in Natural Hazards and NHESS
Natural Hazards Natural Hazard and Earth System Sciences
Papers published in Natural Hazardsand NHESS, 1988-2013
1990s:Average 45
2013:Total 815plus 265 in press
― Natural Hazards― Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences
1988 2013
450
An 18-fold increasein 13 years
2014: 769
Paper ordigital?
• page budget
• size, price, frequency relationship
• cost of colour printing
• declining print subscriber base
• partly uncontrollable delaysin publication of articles.
Paper publication is limited by:-
• unlimited page budget
• standardised cost and access pay-walls
• rapid publication(e.g. "open container" model)
• ability to link different media
• www.articleofthefuture.com.
Digital publication:-
"We believe the publisher adds relativelylittle value to the publishing process...
We are simply observing that if the processreally were as complex, costly and value-added as the publishers protest that it is,
40% margins wouldn't be available."
Academic publishing unmasked
Deutsche Bank, 2005
What Ranieri has done was simply to respond to Boschi'sappeal in Science. Science did not accept Ranieri's
eloquent response and asked him to shorten it, which he did but [they] eventually rejected as if Science "do notwant to go into the issue anymore" ― which is incredible!
Lalliana Mualchin,International Seismic Safety Organization
• open access is NOT free- someone has to pay
• there are differentmodels of who does pay
• ability-to-pay discriminationexists in all models
• commercial publishersoperate via commercial logic.
Open access versus the pay-wall
Bibliometry is fundamentallymeaningless, harmful and unnecessary
Bibliometry
The peer-review process
Basic review judgement categories:-
A typical verdict: one 'accept', one'reject' and one 'revise' or 'rewrite.'
Conclusion: academic judgements are personal - there is no fundamental objective truth about most articles.
• Accept• Revise• Rewrite• Reject
Your editor'sperspective
Editor's pitfalls
• plagiarism, intellectualproperty theft, dishonesty
• authors' and reviewer's egotism
• academics don't understandhow publishing works
• can't find reviewers
• reviewers decline to help, ormore likely fail to respond.
• quarterly, by volume, not issue• started publishing in August 2012• 13 volumes published, 14th in progress• 54 articles published (9 per issue)• 830 submissions, 330 in 2015• 62% rejection rate
• ave. 2.86 invitations to get one review• record: 34 invitations for two reviews.
Conclusions
• excessive number of journals
• excessive specialisationand duplication of journals
• excessive publication rates
• personnel issues motivate many(most?) journal paper submissions.
Crises in academic publishing
• excessive cost of journals...?
Future trends are unpredictablebecause present trends are unsustainable.
Now let's discuss it!