A commenter alerted me to the fact that our spirited and informative discussion of journal editorial practices several months ago had caught the attention of The Time Higher Education Supplement (the current issue), which is on-line here (you have to sign-up for 14 days free access if you are not a subscriber). An excerpt:
Young philosophers have threatened to boycott certain academic journals, some of which take three years to respond to papers submitted, in a protest against bad practice.
In a development that could be repeated in other disciplines, a number of internet discussion groups have named and shamed what they believe are badly run and unethical publications.
They argue that the journals blight careers and perpetuate cronyism among established academics. Some groups have called for boycotts of the worst offenders....
The Leiter Report, an international philosophy discussion group hosted by Brian Leiter of the University of Texas, lists dozens of "horror stories".
One academic said that a journal held on to one of his papers for three years - making him wait 21 months for feedback after initially recommending that he revise and resubmit his work.
"It seems almost comically absurd to me now that I think about how long that is."
The convention in philosophy is that academics must not submit the same paper to different journals simultaneously, so long delays can put careers on hold.
Simon Prosser, a teaching fellow at St Andrews University, said the delays had a big impact in the UK.
"Given the pressure that UK departments are placed under by the research assessment exercise, it seems quite plausible that hiring for permanent posts could be affected by whether or not the candidate is likely to have four items in print," he said....
Pea Soup, an internet discussion forum for "philosophy, ethics and academia", has published a seven-point proposal to improve practices. One recommendation is publishing statistics on the time between the receipt of scripts and the final publications.
David Sobel, chair of the department of philosophy at Bowling Green State University in the US, wants to take the protest further. He said: "I think we should seek to get a number of philosophers to sign a statement saying that we will... boycott journals that do not comply with a list of demands within a specified time frame.
"I quite seriously urge that we take to the metaphorical streets. I urge that we not merely make a good case for change but find plausible ways to effect the warranted change."
Since I'm hosting an "international philosophy discussion group," I had better get some more international philosophy discussions going!
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