Dear Gavin;
I hope you will find some way in your study to address the question
of quality for journals that are not refereed. To pose refereed
journals as a top criteria for excellence in a field is to adopt an
overly reductive position. Design Issues, one of the major journals
in our field is not refereed and I know that in some instances the
editor of Design Studies has the sole discrection to accept articles.
In fact, I am not sure which design studies journals are refereed. I
notice that your questionnaire identifies the questionnaire filler
outers by how many refereed publications they have. This too seems to
be rather reductive as there are leading figures in the design
studies field with many publications but few in refereed journals. To
imagine that design research is equivalent to a field of science or
engineering is not productive. Unfortunately more than one national
research council has adopted overly reductive criteria for judging
excellence. I hope you can push back in the Australian case.
Best,
Victor Margolin
Co-editor, Design Issues
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Victor Margolin
Professor Emeritus of Design History
Department of Art History
University of Illinois at Chicago
935 W. Harrison St.
Chicago, IL 60607-7039
Tel. 1-312-583-0608
Fax 1-312-413-2460
website: www.uic.edu/~victor
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