Ecolog: As the subject of journal survival arises, and there has been recent interest in the broader subject of publication, I thought Buzz Holling's introductory essay upon the inauguration of the on-line journal CONSERVATION ECOLOGY (now ECOLOGY AND SOCIETY) in 1997 might be of interest. He covers just about every issue discussed on Ecolog with respect to publication in recent months. I don't know if this will be of any help to TIEE or not . . .
WT Copyright © 1997 by The Resilience Alliance* Holling, C. S. 1997. The inaugural issue of Conservation Ecology. Conservation Ecology [online]1(1): 1. Available from the Internet. URL: http://www.consecol.org/vol1/iss1/art1/ -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Editorial The Inaugural Issue of Conservation Ecology C. S. Holling, Editor-in-Chief1 INTRODUCTION: TIMES OF CHANGE For a time, I thought Conservation Ecology, by one criterion, would be the best but least read journal in the world. Our rejection rate for the first half-dozen submitted manuscripts was 100%. Now, a high rate of rejection is much treasured by science journals as testament to the rigor of their content -- but 100%? Some of our rejections were clearly appropriate, but others seemed to reflect a very different assessment of novelty than my own. I began to suspect that our double-blind review, combined with the traditional review procedure, was a revealing experiment. Insightful, but nontraditional, papers were being rejected outright because their novelty was so unfamiliar that it was simply unrecognized or was ignored as being irrelevant. Some papers were written by well-known authors, but that fact was hidden in the double-blind review process so that reviewers would have no second thoughts. This experiment reinforced my sense, and that of others, that, early in a major transition in ecology, traditional peer review procedures could sometimes squeeze out novelty, synthesis, and well-grounded speculation in the laudable effort to eliminate truly bad papers. This is not a critique of the double-blind review, which levels the playing field for both new and established scholars. It is potentially a critique of routine review procedures in ecology and sister fields, in which the culture is changing. Penalties that traditional review procedures impose on innovation in disciplines undergoing change are not unique to ecology. They are felt elsewhere. For example, Buzz Brock, a well-known mathematical economist, recently despaired over the reaction of economist reviewers to his often novel, nontraditional manuscripts. His experiences, he claims, have the quality of a nightmare triggered by an experience in Zimbabwe, where he watched hyenas ripping apart the carcass of an impala hanging in a tree. His nightmare turned the impala into one of his manuscripts and the hyenas into red-eyed reviewers. Because the dream and its relevance were so appropriate, I commissioned a cartoonist friend and colleague to capture the image, dramatizing the point (see Fig. 1). Economics and ecology perhaps have more than passing similarities. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fig. 1. Buzz Brock's nightmare of the way his manuscripts are treated in the review process. [[To see all of Holling's work and the cartoon, go to http://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol1/iss1/art1/ ]] Conservation Ecology is a new journal covering a new application of science, using a new medium. It requires novelty and experiment. The question for a review procedure is how to encourage and publish papers that are novel, synthetic, and interdisciplinary; that combine theory and practice; and that contain grounded speculation, while also being able to identify and eliminate junk. There are no rules, only the application of wise judgment by editors and reviewers. Fortunately, our initial 100% rejection rate did not persist. An insightful editor correctly diagnosed the earlier negative reviews of one paper as a consequence of misinterpreted purpose: not traditional research, but interdisciplinary communication and insight. Other papers were perceptively handled by informed editors and reviewers already well launched in the particular innovative stream of science represented by the paper being reviewed. Increasingly, editors and reviewers used wisdom and judgment in helping authors and me to define iteratively the kind and style of papers for Conservation Ecology. This experience further reinforces the sense that our science, scholarship, policy, and practice are very much in transformation. It is a transformation launched by recent developments in the Ecological Society of America, namely its Sustainable Biosphere Initiative and its pioneering journal Ecological Applications, and nurtured by the newly established National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis. As a consequence, signals are mixed. Because we do not know what the future holds for a field in transformation, Conservation Ecology will encourage some boldness and experimentation. Reviewers of submitted papers are asked to be particularly sympathetic to novelty and grounded speculation, even at the price of weakening traditional criteria for precision in method and analysis. We prefer approximate answers to the right questions, not precise answers to the wrong questions. A field of scholarship and practice in transition must stimulate a variety of low-cost, loosely controlled experiments in communication and information flow. The internet is an admirable way to do just that. What helps this communication will persist; what fails will not. As one such experiment, we encourage readers, authors, editors, and reviewers to respond to each article as they see fit. Include reactions to the paper, brief reviews of relevant readings, and suggestions for novel extensions to theory or practice. Any message will be accepted as long as it is under 250 words, is relevant to the topic, and does not offend common rules of courtesy.
