As a new comer to this forum, perhaps I am allowed to express my surprise at the submission, refereeing, and publishing customs in disciplines other than my own (economics) and at some of the "solutions" being proposed here. Some questions/comments in random order:
1. what is the point of publishing in journals with high acceptance rates? As a 100% acceptance rate is equivalent to vanity publishing, surely any journal where the majority of submissions are published is not worth submitting to. 2. in my discipline, editors and especially referees for top journals both screen effectively (btw, top journals in economics reject 80-90% of submissions) and add value to submissions. The problem is that the pool of good editors and referees is definitely over-fished and as a result in the last few years a bad situation (long refereeing lags) has become worse with the time span from submission to first reports extending to many months (even years!). 3. the suggestion ventilated by someone on the forum that papers posted on the web could somehow be refereed by well-disposed readers, in economics is simply preposterous; 4. I fail to comprehend the huge fuss being made regarding the alleged advantage of preprints allowing authors to circumvent the restriction on dissemination imposed by copyright law. All that is required is that authors retain copyright of their own work and allow reproductions for all non-commercial uses (e.g. classroom use, etc.). 5. My main objection to the largely spurious debate on gate-keeping and toll-gating is that it does not address the practical problem faced by all researchers (certainly in economics and very likely in many other, if not all, disciplines): the stranglehold on the academic journal market by a handful (if not fewer) of commercial publishers whose extortionately-priced journals are often the only reputable home for specialist papers. 6. Members of this forum may be interested in the ELSSS project (ELectronic Society for the Social Sciences - a non-profit-making organisation), aimed at providing vigorous competition to the big commercial publishers on a whole range of journals (details are available at http://www.elsss.org.uk/survey ). Since its launch on November 13th 2000, ELSSS has been extremely successful in attracting support from some of the biggest name in economics (with about 1,000 positive responses so far), extensive press coverage (including full articles in The Wall Street Journal, The Independent, The Scotsman, THES, etc.), and support from Libraries Associations both in the UK and in the US. Even though far less expensive than their commercially-produced counterparts, the proposed ELSSS journals aim at generating sufficient revenues to provide adequate rewards to editors, referees, and authors. It is only by challenging the status quo in academic publishing that the academic community can start the long process that will eventually lead to some of the scenarios being discussed in this forum. 7. At the risk of being provocative, it seems to me that colleagues in other disciplines ought to analyse more seriously the academic journal market place before launching into debates about the ideal system for the production and diffusion of quality-controlled, peer-reviewed research material. Manfredi La Manna Dr Manfredi M.A. La Manna Reader in Economics Department of Economics University of St Andrews tel: +44 1334 462434 fax: +44 1334 462444 mobile: 07712 649094 http://www.elsss.org.uk
