Dear Ken,
Thanks for the very thorough info and discussion; I did not remember seeing this but of course should have searched the archives. On the other hand, maybe it is good to reiterate and update some of this on the list, every 5 years or so... :)
cheers, KH
---
On 28 Aug 2015, at 20:02, Ken Friedman wrote:
> Dear Kari-Hans,
>
> The Design Principles and Practices conference cycle is part of the Common Ground Publishing group of books, journals, and conferences. These have been discussed extensively on this list over the past decade. I last posted on the topic in 2010. You will find my post below. It appears on the list web archive at:
>
> https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?A2=ind1001&L=PHD-DESIGN&P=R1285&1=PHD-DESIGN&9=A&I=-3&J=on&X=C96CD75D8CFFD95668&Y
>
> To answer your main question, I see the conference cycle as problematic. This is a for-profit conference by a profit-making conference organisation that has little to do with the research field or most of the research fields in which they hold conferences. As a result, nearly no one of any stature participates. This makes the presentations meaningless, in the sense that no one will hear your paper whom you wish to reach.
>
> The primary purpose of for-profit conferences is to enable people maintain that they are research active for the purpose of university metrics. The sad fact of such conferences is that universities must pay for the conference fees, travel costs, and accommodations of the people they send to conferences that are hosted only for the purpose of representing to one’s university that a speaker is engaged in research that someone wishes to hear. When a company makes its living from hosting conferences with no connection to the larger discipline, they want to hear every paper that someone will pay to present.
>
> The Design Principles and Practices conference series is linked to the Common Ground journals. There have been two main changes to the journals since my post of 2010. Instead of 17 journals with the same two editors, they now publish 77 (!) journals. Their pitch is a bit more clever than it once was, so they have added new editors and the same two editors no longer edit every Common Ground journal. The single design journal they once published has grown to become a collection of six journals and a yearbook — seven (7!) publications.
>
> Design Principles & Practices Collection
>
> • International Journal of Design Education
> • International Journal of Design in Society
> • International Journal of Designed Objects
> • International Journal of Visual Design
> • International Journal of Design Management and Professional Practice
> • International Journal of Architectonic, Spatial, and Environmental Design
> • Design Principles and Practices: An International Journal, Annual Review
>
> One can become an “associate editor” of these publications simply by engaging in the peer review process. As when I last posted, this means that someone gets three ticks on their metric boxes by 1) submitting a conference paper to the series, 2) sending the same paper to the journal, and 3) reviewing a few other papers for the conference or the journals.
>
> If you visit the web site, you will note that all six journals and the yearbook have the same two editors. Anyone who edits a serious journal knows that it is work enough to edit a single journal. No one can edit six serious journals and a yearbook. But there is a secret to managing the workload — no one actually does the same kind of work editing these journals that we see at most journals. I’ve never heard of a paper being rejected at a Common Ground conference, and all Common Ground conference papers are passed along for journal publication.
>
> http://commongroundpublishing.com/journals/titles
>
> There is another new wrinkle to the Common Ground act. This is the proud proclamation that Common Ground Publishing is now ranked #15 in the list of top-ranked publishers released by the Library of Social Science.
>
> http://researchpark.illinois.edu/news/common-ground-publishing-ranked-number-15-library-social-science’s-annual-list-world’s-top
>
> If you look deeper, you’ll find that the Library of Social Sciences is not a library, and it is not engaged in the social sciences. The Library of Social Science is an exhibitions agency that arranges book fairs and exhibitions at conferences. The publishers it covers on its list are publishers that hire the Library of Social Science to represent their books and journals. This means that publishers pay the Library of Social Science to place their books at a conference book table, and the Library of Social Science uses these fees to buy exhibit space.
>
> Book exhibition agencies perform a useful service, and I support the work they do. I simply don’t think that they belong in the awards business — certainly not giving awards to the companies whose books they are paid to rep.
>
> https://www.libraryofsocialscience.com
>
> http://www.libraryofsocialscience.com/exhibits/
>
> There is no other ranking list of book publishers that would list Common Ground as #15 among the world’s 3,000 or so serious scientific and scholarly publishers or the 30,000 or so serious journals. If you want to see the competition for yourself, use the Norwegian database of scientific journals, series and publishers. For single titles or publishers, use the simple search. If you want to browse the full list of 1,000+ pages, use the advanced search or set parameters for different search criteria. This site is available in English as well as Norwegian for those who do not read the Scandinavian languages. (If you search for Design Principles and Practices, you will see that no one among Norwegian universities bothers to publish or present at this venue.)
>
> https://dbh.nsd.uib.no/publiseringskanaler/Forside
>
> Others may have different views. As a keynote speaker at the first of these conferences and a former advisor, I present my views based on experience and on careful inspection of the way this organisation operates.
>
> Study the information for yourself. I’ve put links to the relevant web sites in this post to enable you to reach your own conclusion.
>
> To be clear, I support all serious journal publishers, for profit and not-for profit, paywall and open access, as long as they do the work that a research field expects of a serious journal publisher.
>
> I do not support for-profit conferences unless they have a solid reason for functioning under the umbrella of a profit-making organisation. It has been my observation that not-for-profit organisations, scholarly and scientific organisations, and academic institutions do the real work of serious conferences. It is tough enough to run a serious conference at break-even. Anyone who needs to make a conference turn a profit is going to be thinking of something other than value to the field.
>
> Yours,
>
> Ken
>
> Ken Friedman, PhD, DSc (hc), FDRS | Chair Professor of Design Innovation Studies | College of Design and Innovation | Tongji University | Shanghai, China ||| University Distinguished Professor | Centre for Design Innovation | Swinburne University of Technology | Melbourne, Australia
>
> --
>
> Posted to the PhD-Design List on January 4, 2010
>
> —snip—
>
> Dear Colleagues,
>
> Every year around this time, a flurry of notes goes back and forth
> about the Common Ground conference cycle and the Common Ground journals.
> Each year, the same information goes around with people reporting mixed
> experiences and raising the same questions.
>
> This is a quick note to support what others have said. First off, I
> want to say that I have no problem with the fact that Common Ground is a
> profit-making enterprise. Such for-profit companies as Elsevier, Berg,
> and Routledge publish leading journals in all fields.
>
> In my experience, the same cannot be said of conference cycles.
> Associations sponsor nearly all-serious conferences. The reason for this
> is that an academic or scientific association of expert volunteers
> provides the peer review services and long-term engagement required for
> a serious conference cycle. Without this support, a top-notch conference
> is difficult to imagine.
>
> The experiences that people have at Common Ground conferences suggest a
> far more random process. There is no significant continuity. As many
> have noted, one always risks an occasional flat conference even with the
> best of will and the deepest engagement. Even so, the standard process
> delivers a reasonable conference more often than not. In contrast, a
> process in which advisers are not engaged at all and organizers are
> mostly engaged in business management is hardly a recipe for
> development. This is especially problematic when none of the advisers
> review or participate.
>
> It would be different if conference participants included a broad
> spectrum of leading scholars, but this is not the case when the
> conference participants and journal authors are people that generally do
> not appear in other venues and all reviewing is done by the same group
> of inexperienced people submitting the papers.
>
> Chris’s description is quite right and I support his views. I was at
> the London conference as a keynote. So was Fil Salustri, and like Fil, I
> found the event delightful. Much of this had to do with the energetic
> and savvy work that Daria Loi put in as organizer. Daria was until last
> year editor of the journal, but she withdrew over the fact that even as
> editor, she had no real involvement. I had the same problem as an
> adviser. I resigned from the journal advisory board. They kept my name
> on the board long after I resigned. (The web site does not currently
> list journal advisers, so I don’t know if I’m still an adviser.) I
> do know that many of the former journal advisers are listed as
> conference advisers. I wonder whether any of them has any real
> engagement with the conference cycle.
>
> The journal maintains two problematic practices that seem to ensure
> question able quality.
>
> First, everyone that reviews an article is listed as an “associate
> editor” for the volume in which they review. To confuse ad hoc
> reviewing of articles taken from the conference with editorial activity
> as an associate editor is questionable. It is difficult to manage a
> serious, engaged editorial group with a dozen or so editors and
> advisers. To manage or properly work with over 200 “associate
> editors” in a serious way is impossible. This suggests that
> something is amiss in the editorial model.
>
> Second, conference participants are encouraged to publish conference
> papers as journal articles, without the cycle of enrichment,
> improvement, peer review, and editorial engagement that distinguishes a
> conference paper from a journal article.
>
> This process underwrites a business model that may be quite successful
> in financial terms, but it does not meet the generally accepted
> standards for academic publishing. It succeeds financially for an
> obvious reason. For a single conference fee, a participant gets three
> ticks for the metrics. First, participants harvest a conference
> presentation, usually in a city that merits a visit in its own right for
> museums and fine dining. Second, they get a journal article. Third, if
> they have done the work of reviewing, they are acknowledged as
> “associate editors,” along with 200 or so colleagues from around
> the world.
>
> The Common Ground web site advertises the journal as “peer-reviewed,
> supported by rigorous processes of criterion-referenced article ranking
> and qualitative commentary, ensuring that only intellectual work of the
> greatest substance and highest significance is published.” The
> editorial and publishing process does not support these claims.
>
> According to the Common Ground web site, the company -- and this is a
> privately held, for-profit company -- manages conferences and journals
> in 17 fields: arts, books, climate change, design, diversity, global
> studies, humanities, learning, management, museums, social sciences (all
> of them!), science in society, sport and society, sustainability,
> technology (the entire range of issues!), ubiquitous learning,
> universities.
>
> All 17 journals have the same two editors. The editors own the company.
> Some journals have a third editor. Anyone who edits a journal would find
> it hard to imagine editing 17 journals – let alone 17 journals in 17
> different fields.
>
> The same situation applies to the conferences. The conferences are
> booked at venues with an academic patina, often at distinguished
> universities. But the universities are conference venues renting
> facilities to Common Ground – the universities are not conference
> sponsors, nor do they play an active role in Common Ground.
>
> I’m of two minds on the Common Ground conferences and journals. I
> agree with the need for new models of academic publishing and new models
> for conferences. I am skeptical of the many companies claiming to offer
> these new models across dozens of fields and disciplines without the
> engagement or expertise needed to make new models work.
>
> When Common Ground first contacted me through Daria Loi, I felt that
> the idea of a new publishing model and a new conference model was worth
> exploring. Chris Rust was one of the original advisers. At the time of
> the first Design Principles and Practices conference in London, Chris
> withdrew for many of the reasons stated in his note. I remained on the
> board due to Daria’s involvement and my respect for Daria. At that
> time, however, I raised some of these questions, and the Common Ground
> organizers wrote a reasoned and responsible letter promising significant
> improvements and changes. These changes have not been made.
>
> The editors of the Common Ground journals wrote a fascinating
> theoretical article this year in a serious journal describing their
> views and their critique of academic publishing. If the Common Ground
> journals and conferences reflected the issues and concerns of the
> article, I’d have greater confidence and I would have remained
> involved.
>
> As it is, I feel the advisers to these conferences and journals do
> little to advance the field. If Common Ground were to pursue a model of
> engaged scholarship that genuinely lives up to the promises and claims
> on the Common Ground Publishing web site, I’d have been happy to
> remain involved.
>
> As it is, I am a skeptic, and I’d encourage people to think twice
> before participating in a Common Ground conference. I’m even more
> skeptical about the journals. The journal ranking study we undertook
> last year suggested that the Journal of Design Principles and Practices
> has little or no impact in the field. Authors should think twice before
> submitting an article to a journal with no impact. With the few hours
> that most of us have for writing, it is important to choose a journal
> where be of value to the field. We now have two dozen design research
> journals that range from good to outstanding. They are all actively
> seeking articles. Given the opportunities available to publish in solid
> journals that have broad readership, there is no point choosing a target
> journal with no impact.
>
> My two cents.
>
> Ken
>
> —snip—
>
> --
>
>
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