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Dear Don, and all, Thank you all for the valuable discussions (that regretfully I have not been contributing to) so far. In a recent conference experience (Asian Conference on Arts and Humanities) I came across with a system where authors review each other. It might sound obsolete in a conference system where attendance fees can easily compensate editorial work. Is is also naive to suggest such a co-operative system for journalism? I agree that service to the community should be taken as part of the university work. Provided this, an open access journalism, where the accepted authors contribute to the reviewing and other editorial works, sounds very “right” for me. Rather than paying for publishing or accessing the papers, as in a business model, but working for each other and transforming the whole structure into a “service” model other than “business”, how does that “dream” sound to you? Regards, Umut Asst. Prof. Dr. Umut Burcu Yurtsever Interactive Media Design | Yildiz Technical University | Istanbul | Turkey 2 Ara 2017 Cmt, saat 18:53 tarihinde Don Norman <[log in to unmask]> şunu yazdı: > Changing the subject line because this is now about editorships in general, > not about one journal or company. > > > A few hundred years ago, I did considerable work for journals: I was Editor > of Cognitive Science and Associate editor of numerous others, all of which > had significant workloads. (I still seem to be on more editorial boards > than i can enumerate.) > > I was never paid. And the University did not reduce my workload. > -- > One of my colleagues (and mentor) was Editor of Psychological Review > (Psychology's most prestigious journal) at the same time I was editor of > Cognitive Science. He received some payment, which allowed him to hire a > secretary to help. At that time, Psych Review had more submissions than Cog > Sci, but also Psych rev had a large subscription base, it was published by > the American Psychological Association -- a non-profit. Cog Sci was young, > so it had a small subscription base, and it was published by a commercial > publisher (Ablex-- which no longer exists). In other words, APA had a lot > more money than Ablex/Cog Sci. > > We all assumed that Journal editorship was a worthwhile activity, both as > service to the professional community (and also because it helped get > promotions). > > (As a side note: for most authors of books, the amount of income from the > book is tiny, but it pays back the author by increased promotions, both in > magnitude and in the rate of promotion). > > > == > Today things are different. Many academic editors need to be paid. > However, the other half of the story is that Journals are in financial > trouble. The commercially published ones have raised their rates to > extravagant amounts. The others have to skimp, not just in what they can > afford to pay academic editors, but even in their professional staff: there > are fewer editors and proofreaders in the editorial offices of journals. > Some journals are subsidized by societies or by universities. > > I just met with the UCSD Head Librarian who said that eventually, she > thinks only the libraries will purchase journals. Everyone else will read > them free. Print journals are becoming obsolete. > > However, the major cost of a journal is editorial: refereeing, keeping > track of the articles and reviews, requesting revisions, etc. Then there is > typesetting (even for electronic journals) -- although many book publishers > no require the authors to submit final copy. Many conference proceedings > (which is some fields have completely replaced Journals (e.g., computer > science, human-computer interaction, etc.) require camera-ready > submissions. And the compilation of all accepted papers onto a Memory > Stick is paid for by conference fees. > > Take a look at PLOS (Public Library of Science). https://www.plos.org/ > > These are truly excellent, high-quality journals. Is PLOS the future of > publishing? How do they get enough money to survive? They charge authors > (paper acceptance is completely separate from payment. If authors cannot > afford to pay, they provide mechanisms to help. Ther payment is NOT to > guarantee acceptance: it is to defray editorial costs. They say: > > https://www.plos.org/publication-fees > Publication Fees > PLOS publication fees are fixed and independent of article page length. If > you need assistance, there are many resources and initiatives available. > PLOS offsets publication expenses – including those of peer review > management, journal production and online hosting and archiving – by > charging a publication fee, also known as an Article Processing Charge > (APC), to authors, institutions or funders for each article published. > > > > --- > > THIS IS A DESIGN PROBLEM > > What is the future of scholarly publication? How can we assure quality > standards? (Double-blind peer review is today's standard, but peer review > has many, many problems.) > > And what of the academics stuck with the extremely high workload of being > an unpaid (or even if paid, a very poorly paid) editor. > > There have been numerous conferences, workshops, and white papers devoted > to this topic. > > Nobody has the answer. So far, the major ways are: > > > - Large organizations use their dues to pay for publication of their > journals > - Large conference use admission fees to pay for electronic publication > of papers (and in many fields, journals have mostly disappeared) (Note > that > although conferences are highly refereed, the end quality of the papers > is > inferior to those in journals, primarily because they do not go through > several cycles of critiques and revision.) > - Journals are increasingly asking authors to pay for publication -- the > America Institute of Physics has done this for decades. (In other > words, > very highly-regarded journals do this: see > http://www.scitation.org/about > ) > - I have published in one of their journals (JASA: Journal of the > Acoustical Society of America). Here is their payment statement: > http://asa.scitation.org/jas/authors/charges > http://asa.scitation.org/jas/authors/charges > > > what is the answer for a relatively small and poor field like Design? > > Unclear. Physicists and engineers and most sciences are relatively > wealthy: research grant proposals almost always contain a line item on the > budget for publication charges. Most designers do not have this source of > income. Similarly, our academic societies are poor. (Our professional > societies have a lot more money, but they do not publish (or even > understand) academic papers. > > Don > > > ----------------------------------------------------------------- > PhD-Design mailing list <[log in to unmask]> > Discussion of PhD studies and related research in Design > Subscribe or Unsubscribe at https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/phd-design > ----------------------------------------------------------------- > ----------------------------------------------------------------- PhD-Design mailing list <[log in to unmask]> Discussion of PhD studies and related research in Design Subscribe or Unsubscribe at https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/phd-design -----------------------------------------------------------------