Hi, Oguzhan, Karel, David, Chris, and All,
A few last thoughts on publishing and dissemination of work by
doctoral students ....
1) US universities requiring publication in ISI indexed journals
The standards at IIT are much like those I've seen everywhere.
--snip--
Publication Requirements
Doctoral candidates are expected to identify the knowledge that
underpins their work (bibliography), to present a cogent review of
the existing literature and issues (research summary), to write a
minimum of two refereed articles in respected academic journals
related to their dissertation and to complete the dissertation prior
to their oral examination. The importance of codifying knowledge
through writing, publishing and presenting in appropriate venues
cannot be overestimated.
Conference presentations are strongly recommended as a way to get
external feedback and validate the work. Articles submitted to
journals and conferences that relate to your dissertation research
carry not only your name but also that of your primary advisor.
--snip--
IIT requires publishing in respected journals. They state that their
list is not comprehensive and many respected journals are not indexed
by ISI.
Artifact is the first journal on the IIT list. Many subscribers to
PhD-Design work with Artifact as editors, editorial board members,
and reviewers. For example, Susan Hagan and Erik Stolterman edited
the current issue on the relation between practice and theory.
Artifact is not indexed by the ISI. As I read the IIT requirements,
the school requires publishing in respected journals. While all ISI
journals meet this standard, many respected journals not indexed. By
emphasizing respect as the criterion, giving a journal outside the
ISI index as the first example, the IIT standard explicitly takes a
position contrary to the Yildiz University requirements.
I'd still like to see a list of US universities that demand ISI
journals rather than respected journals. It's one thing to say that
Yildiz University sets this forth as a requirement. It's another to
say this is based on North American or European practices -- I find
this hard to accept without some clear cases. Even then, I'd want to
know whether this is an outlier or common practice. To my knowledge,
the common standards lie closer to standards at IIT and Middlesex
University.
2) European universities requiring publication in ISI indexed journals
No European universities I know of require publication in ISI indexed
journals. You've asked last year and again this year and so have I.
Every European university I know that requires publishing before
completing the PhD use a standard similar to the IIT standard -- or
an even broader standard such as the standard David Durling
suggested. One of these two standards are the norm at most of the
universities I know in Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, or the UK.
At many universities, however, this is a recommendation and not a
requirement.
The failure to identify even one example of a European university
requiring publication in ISI indexed journals suggests that this is
not a general European standard.
3) Creating an open access journal
Karel van der Waarde's suggestion that we establish journals for the
purpose of meeting administrative requirements irrelevant to research
had me laughing.
These administrative requirements are irrelevant to the purposes for
which most journals exists, however. Karel wrote, "An enormous group
of authors has to put pressure on reviewers and editors because: I
need this publication to start a PhD; I need this publication to
obtain a PhD; I need this publication to support my PhD-viva; I need
this publication for staff evaluations; Our department needs this
publication for an assessment/accreditation."
While he offered the example of launching a journal at Biomed
Central, this won't help doctoral students. The launching process is
strict. Biomed Central has high demands for senior level editorial
experience and strong research publishing credentials for those who
want to launch a journal. Am organization such as this would not
welcome a journal created solely for the purpose of administrative
credentials. The credibility of open access publishing at Biomed
Central rests on the high scientific value of its peer reviewed
journals. Even if they were to permit such a journal, it would not
solve the problem of administrative processing fees. A visit to the
Biomed Central web site will demonstrate the challenge of launching a
serious journal:
http://www.biomedcentral.com/independent/starting
Incidentally, David noted that several posts have discussed the
difference between serious journals and others. Nearly all of the 111
journals that I noted are serious -- people do a reasonable good
faith job at responsible publishing of material they deem worthy on
its own merits to become the literature of the field. Some do it
better than others, but it's real work, and they all invest them time
this requires.
4) Publishing to meet administrative standards
There are several examples of organizations that exist for
administrative markers rather than genuine research publishing. This
includes journal and conference firms that exist primarily to allow
people to meet administrative publishing requirements. Some
conference firms have gone so far in this direction that they hardly
maintain a pretense of scholarship other than a fancy but general
conference title that covers a vast spectrum of any field to maximize
possible submissions by people who are not accepted at the narrow
specialist conferences or the organization-sponsored general research
conferences. These conferences typically have no sponsor organization
and no direct scientific or scholarly community. What they do have is
glorious venues, with events at prime vacation destinations. These
allow researchers to register, get a certificate, present a paper,
and enjoy a week at the beach on the university research account.
One engineering professor with a reasonable scientific reputation in
discovered that he could supplement his academic income substantially
in the conference business. Starting with one or two profitable
conferences a year at tourist destinations in the Balkans, he
expanded to the point that he was recently running 20 or more
conferences every year in exotic locations around the world. He used
some of the profit to hire well known scholars as keynote speakers,
giving each conference the semblance of legitimacy so that presenters
could tell their dean, "Nobel Laureate X is giving the keynote!" or
something like that. I estimated the profits once ... I wish that we
could make a living like that in ordinary teaching and research.
The same thing takes place in publishing. Just this week, I got an
invitation to participate in a publishing venture nicely suited to
solving the problems that Karel lists (start a PhD, obtain a PhD,
support my PhD-viva, pass staff evaluation, pass institutional
assessment and accreditation).
The Open Research Society is now circulating an invitation in design
research circles seeking scholars to serve on its journal editorial
boards. They are sending these out with invitations to publish in
their journals, including invitations to submit to journals that do
not yet have editors. I suggest that colleagues ignore any such
invitation, but I pass this on here information value.
The Open Research Society has all the earmarks of the schemes that
people cook up to provide journals and conferences for work that
cannot make an appearance elsewhere. One easily recognized
characteristic is launching an entire publishing company rather than
a specific journal. The web site is located at:
http://www.open-knowledge-society.org/
Launching a serious new journal is typically a two or three year
project. Organizing an editorial group, preparing the first issues,
getting systems in order all take time. So does attracting solid
submissions, establishing good review panels, and creating
comprehensive quality mechanisms.
This outfit plans to launch 100 new journals now and 350 new journals
over the next year. To launch 100 new journals is like saying, "We're
going to build a journal division bigger than the MIT Press journal
division over the next few months -- at an equally high quality
standard." The idea of building 350 new journals in a year is beyond
credibility. It took Taylor and Francis two centuries to become that
big. A fine company like Berg has only 16 journals and some of the 16
not yet launched. It takes Berg two or three years for every launch.
The Open Research Society cannot achieve the launch schedule they
have announced with any kind of quality.
None of these journals has an editorial board yet. They are inviting
volunteers. Some of these journals don't even have an editor! Anyone
who has ever launched a successful journal knows that a journal
begins with an editor and an editorial team. This team creates the
vision and program that leads to high quality content, impact, and
success.
This may involve deeper problems than poor quality, though. In my
experience, such schemes have one of two purposes, sometimes both.
Some serve as money mills for the publishing organization and its
controlling group. Even a supposedly non-profit organization such as
the Open Research Society can be quite lucrative for those who run it
when the managers of a non-profit organization pay themselves high
salaries and excellent benefits. Even if fraud is not involved here,
the journals may still serve as paper mills, churning out
publications for scholars desperate to increase their publishing
metrics.
These kinds of ventures seem to tempt some early career researchers.
They may also tempt those who are desperate for publishing credits.
They do not fool the ministries that evaluate publications, though,
and they rarely impress the people who decide on tenure and
promotion, so publishing in these venues can have negative results.
In my view it is better _not_ to publish an article than to publish
it in a journal from an outfit like the Open Research Society. I do
not state that the Open Research Society involves fraud. I have no
way to know. I do state that this cannot be a serious publishing
venture as it is now structured. The aspirations they state on their
web site are benevolent enough, but attempting to launch 100 journals
at a go with all-volunteer editorial boards rather than teams of
experienced editors will not fulfill the stated aspirations.
Launching 350 journals in a single year with all-volunteer boards is
a recipe for poor quality and low impact. Some universities and
faculties specifically exclude such publishers from publishing
statistics. My faculty is one of these.
5) Do we need more journals? And should ISI carry more design journals?
As it is, I don't think we need more journals. This was true a decade
ago, but not today. Current journal struggle to attract enough good
contributions.
Should ISI index more design journals? Possibly. But that is another issue.
Nevertheless, there is a serious and relevant middle ground between
publishing only in ISI journals and publishing with outfits like the
Open Research Society. There are more than enough serious research
journals and book series from respected firms such as the MIT Press,
Taylor and Francis, Berg, Blackwell, Elsevier, University of Chicago
Press, University of California Press, Oxford University Press -- and
more. There are also such independent research journals as the
International Journal of Design.
6) Doctoral students and dissemination
David noted many good venues for dissemination. Conferences remain
among the best, for many reasons. As Chris notes, "conferences
provide an almost perfect arena for students to learn their trade.
They have a higher chance of acceptance and tentative or interim
findings are likely to be acceptable, they get to meet their
community, see their peers in action and have real immediate feedback
on their work and they have their first foot on the publishing ladder
with papers that are citable and accessible. In some subject
communities a paper in a leading conference may be as good for your
standing as a journal paper and journal editors will often attend
conferences to spot new talent."
I'll echo those last two points. A presentation at a pivotal
conference can help to orient a field, and it will attract real
attention. Journal editors often locate potential authors at
conferences. I have done so often. This works for all of us, not just
doctoral students -- several of my conference papers have moved on to
an after-life in journal articles and book chapter following a well
received presentation. Even my extremely rigorous dog agrees that
this is a good way for professors to publish, much as it is for PhD
students. It doesn't work for dogs, though -- most conference hotels
won't let them register for meals, and a dog won't present if he
can't eat.
Yours,
Ken
--
Oguzhan Ozcan wrote:
For instance Illinois Institute of Technology, Institute of Design
requires conference papers and high quality 2 journal published
article before submission of PhD. Of course There are no written word
for ISI journal. Unfortunately I know almost all articles in ISI.
You can see it their application form. page 17.
http://trex.id.iit.edu/grad/phd_handbook.pdf
There are several more. But I think It is not relevant to talk name
based in the list I guess.
I was agree that this is hard. But my earliest argument is not proof
this. My question was which EU Schools using this rule ...
My argument was (Because it is hard THERE IS NO ENOUGH DESIGN
RESEARCH JOURNAL IN ISI INDEX.) at April 2007
--
Ken Friedman
Professor
Dean, Swinburne Design
Swinburne University of Technology
Melbourne, Australia
+61 3 92.14.68.69 Tlf Swinburne
+61 404 830 462 Mobile
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