1. How does gender influence the academic publishing process?
Gender and diversity issues are taking center stage and there is growing awareness of the under representation of women as authors, editors and peer reviewers in academic publishing. In their post in the BioMed Central Blog, Dr Dina Balabanova and Jamie Lundine discuss their particular interests in this area and what they would like to see change in the future.
The blog post says (quote): They will call for action on gender inequity in publishing as a step towards addressing broader issues. Specifically, they see an opportunity for editors, journals and publishers to actively tackle systemic gender inequity. They can do this through collecting and providing the necessary gender and diversity indicators and developing concrete gender equity plans, for example focusing on authors of invited content, peer reviewers and editors. Unconscious bias training should be available for editors, as well as peer reviewers and even authors. Using a gender equity plan, that integrates data collection, training and on-going monitoring, journal editors can give greater visibility to women, to authors from LMICs and to those from historically disadvantaged backgrounds............(Unquote)
The full entry can be read Here.
2. Journals censorship is not bowdlerisation
The statement on censorship recently published by the Association of University Presses deserves wide support. It affirms opposition to "all restrictions imposed on the dissemination of [scholarly] work" and raises important questions about censorship in China and the changing nature of researching and publishing. Objections to the suppression of 'sensitive' articles should not be based on outmoded claims about consumption, notes Michel Hockx, in his post in the Times Higher Education Blog.
The blog post says (quote): One of the association's objections is that providing access to some articles of a particular journal edition and not others amounts to "bowdlerisation of a curated collection of scholarship" and "a disfigurement of the scholarly record". But while what happened was shocking, to make such claims is to live in the past. In truth, we all disfigure journal issues all the time. They demand access to tools that enable them to select the content they want and ignore the rest. As the association recognises in its statement, digital access is available at an increasingly "granular" level. To put it simply: most scholars and students these days find their reading material by searching through large online collections of articles and book chapters, such as JSTOR. In the case of journal articles in particular, it is now almost unheard of for researchers to read journals by the issue. Although it certainly matters to know where an article was published – not least when it comes to tenure and promotion decisions – the journal name functions more as a recognised trademark, providing assurance that the article in question has undergone rigorous peer review............(Unquote)
The full entry can be read Here.
3. Peer Review's Psychological Potholes
How can we steer the review process onto smoother pavement and get more and better reviews with less ire? Stop treating review submission like a credit card application, notes George Helffrich, in his post in the Eos Blog.
The blog post says (quote): Reviewers freely donate their time to advance science, to the benefit of their community and of society at large. But getting a reviewer is hard because their time is precious. A reviewer is easily deterred and will quickly carp or quit at any impediment to a smooth review process. With the emergence of commercial platforms to manage the manuscript-handling process from submission to decision, reviewing is becoming commoditised. By this, most manuscript-handling platforms require reviewers to open an account with them to submit a review. Usually, the platforms demand that the reviewer enter some information prior to accessing the manuscript and providing the review. There is, in fact, no need for this because the review request and response already established a communication link and a reviewer identity............(Unquote)
The full entry can be read Here.
4. Is Copyright Piracy Morally Wrong or Merely Illegal? The Malum Prohibitum/Malum in Se Conundrum
Is copyright infringement malum prohibitum (wrong only because it's prohibited) or malum in se (morally wrong in and of itself)? Interestingly, scholcomm commentators and legal reference materials often characterise it as the former–while both statute and case law treat it like the latter, classifying it as "property theft" and regularly awarding its victims both statutory and punitive damages, discusses Rick Anderson, in his post in the Scholarly Kitchen Blog.
The blog post says (quote): In the case of copyright infringement specifically, American case law and statute are both pretty clear: the law itself explicitly characterises copyright piracy as property theft, and courts have repeatedly treated it as such in their findings and decisions, regularly awarding significant statutory and punitive damages in copyright piracy cases. The court is not going to award anyone damages in cases of jaywalking, or building a house without a license, or hunting out of season. It's in the nature of mala prohibita crimes that they generally don’t create victims. And yet the law very clearly treats copyright infringement as a crime that does create victims, who are often eligible for damages - thus separating it cleanly from just about every other entry in any popular list of mala prohibita. And in fact, this has been the case since the earliest days of copyright law: the 1710 Statute of Anne, on which modern copyright law is built, was enacted with an eye to the protection of "Authors or Proprietors of… Books and Writings" whose work was being printed and published without their permission "to their very great Detriment, and too often to the Ruin of them and their Families." The law does not regard copyright infringement as a victimless crime, and never has............(Unquote)
The full entry can be read Here.
5. Random audits could shift the incentive for researchers from quantity to quality
The drive to publish papers has created a hyper-competitive research environment in which researchers who take care to produce relatively few high-quality papers are out-competed by those who cut corners so their bibliometrics look good. Adrian Barnett, in his post in the LSE Impact of Social Sciences Blog, suggests one way to push back against the pressure to "publish or perish" is to randomly audit a small proportion of researchers and take time to assess their research in detail.
The blog post says (quote): Many researchers react with horror to the idea of random audits and raise valid concerns about who the auditors would be and the power they would wield. It would likely be stressful to be audited, but if the audits achieved their aim of taking a deep look at quality then researchers who used care, imagination, and dedication should have nothing to fear. To examine the potential of random audits we used an existing simulation of the research world where simple Darwinian principles showed how paper numbers quickly trump quality when researchers are rewarded based purely on their numbers. They added random audits that were able to spot researchers producing poor-quality work and remove them. Importantly the audits also improved behaviour in the wider research community, because researchers whose colleagues were audited were prompted to produce fewer papers of a higher quality............(Unquote)
The full entry can be read Here.
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