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PHD-DESIGN  December 2017

PHD-DESIGN December 2017

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Subject:

Re: Would you like to be the new Editor of Design and Culture?

From:

Ken Friedman <[log in to unmask]>

Reply-To:

PhD-Design - This list is for discussion of PhD studies and related research in Design <[log in to unmask]>

Date:

Sat, 2 Dec 2017 12:29:51 +0100

Content-Type:

text/plain

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text/plain (45 lines)

Friends,

Before responding to some of the notes in this thread, I want to point to the outstanding achievements of the journal Design and Culture. Now in its 9th year, Design and Culture is the journal of the Design Studies Forum. Prof. Elizabeth Guffey of the State University of New York at Purchase is the founding-editor-in-chief. Over the past decade, she guided the journal from idea to fulfillment. The call for a new editor-in-chief means that Prof. Guffey is leaving the role — she has made this journal a significant and important journal in our field.  

The editorial concept of scholarly and scientific publishing involves service to the field. For the past several centuries, editorial work has involved a commitment without salary from the publishing firm. The salary for this work is normally understood to be part of our professorial pay — and many universities allocate time within the paid academic position for work in any of the senior editorial roles. To speak of “pro bono” work suggests that editing a journal lies outside the research work that attends our jobs.

The problem today is that we find ourselves in a world where many researchers lack full-time jobs. An increasing number of people who might once have had regular university jobs now work at part-time jobs in several universities. They are paid for teaching, but they are not paid to engage in research or service. For these people, the old formula “two days teaching, two days research, one day service” no longer applies. Worse yet, many of the people who have full-time jobs find themselves doing more than full-time work. This leaves little time for research, and very little time for service to the field — especially in the context of a metric-based university culture that counts research publications without counting the work that an editor does to help others publish their research.  

To understand the problems that are now involved in any editorial role, one must place the position of all academic staff members in the context of today’s university. 

While many journals remain what they were several decades ago, universities have changed dramatically over the past twenty or thirty years. As a result, the nature of university employment has changed significantly. 

Professorial roles once focused on research and teaching. Today, many universities are encumbered by an ever-increasing administrative burden. The proportion of administrators to academics in many universities is increasing, and the increasingly large percentage of administrators now creates more administrative work. These administers send a cascade of work downwards to the members of staff who are now required to undertake many forms of administrative activity and reporting.

A massive literature examines the consequences of these changes. I’ll simply say here that these changes do not easily accommodate the work and responsibilities of editorship *unless* one has sympathetic and research-focused leaders at the departmental and faculty level, with university leaders willing to fund these kinds of roles.  

Then, we see a second problem with respect to the journal publishers and the nature of the senior editor roles. At a time of major technological change, few journal publishing companies understand how to adapt their business models to the current reality of university life.

The increased pressure on younger staff to publish means an ever-greater flow of articles to journals. The massification of doctoral education and the shrinking resource base for research training means that fewer of the people who write the ever-greater number of articles have the skills required for writing research articles. As a result, editors must do far more work than ever before. This includes managing the flow of articles. It often means helping the authors of promising articles get their articles to publishing standard. And it also includes managing the administrative work of the journal itself.

The question each of us faces in daily life is what sort of contribution we want to make to the knowledge of the field and to our colleagues. 

There is no point condemning Taylor & Francis — the publisher of Design and Culture — for not offering a salary. Publishers have always assumed that universities pay editorial salaries when they pay professors. While this may no longer be the case, examining the current situation and its consequences for editorial work requires serious investigation and a serious range of proposed solutions. 

In the meantime, Design and Culture is a great journal — and this role is a great opportunity for the right person.

Editing a journal is too much work for designers in private practice, and it is not likely to be suitable for people without full-time jobs. If, however, you are a scholar in design studies with strong editorial skills, nothing could be a greater challenge or a greater benefit to our field than this. For the right person, this position is a wonderful situation. Needless to say, that person will want to make sure that a department chair and a dean allocate academic time within the normal working week on the principle that it benefits their university to have the editor of Design and Culture on their staff.         

My hat is off to Elizabeth Guffey. The work she has done to make this journal what it is makes it a venture that most department heads or deans should want to support.

Warm wishes,
 
Ken

Ken Friedman | Editor-in-Chief | 设计 She Ji. The Journal of Design, Economics, and Innovation | Published by Tongji University in Cooperation with Elsevier | URL: http://www.journals.elsevier.com/she-ji-the-journal-of-design-economics-and-innovation/

Chair Professor of Design Innovation Studies | College of Design and Innovation | Tongji University | Shanghai, China ||| Email [log in to unmask] | Academia http://swinburne.academia.edu/KenFriedman | D&I http://tjdi.tongji.edu.cn 


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