The work of a reviewer does not count towards tenure, or any other
reviews; nobody puts "I reviewed articles" on their CV, and reviewing
books counts for very, very little. I don't think any number of book
reviews would equal a peer reviewed journal publication in an academic
job hunt. Therefore, why there may be some expectation that academics
are paid for activities that include review, this cannot be controlled,
and many academics refuse to do reviews, or do it poorly.
Whether the authors are paid is a more complex issue. First, not all
authors published in the US journals are full-time academics at research
position. I don't have numbers to cite, but I'd assume that a
significant minority (20-30%) of articles come from grad students,
scholars holding primarily teaching positions, independent scholars
(including those on the job market), and from places outside US (thus
foreign taxpayers are subsidizing US scholarship; that probably includes
a tiny but sad percentage of people who publish works in publications
they cannot afford to read - the anecdotal scholar from Africa, for
example - or many of my colleagues in Poland, who don't have access to
numerous journals which their library does not subscribe to, and whose
wage of about 10,000 a year makes purchasing journal subscriptions or
even individual articles very difficult).
Now, for the sake of the argument, I will accept that most (but not all)
authors are paid by universities to publish ''somewhere''. The more
prestigious the journal, the better, but there is requirement to publish
behind restrictive paywalls, giving away one's copyright. There is an
increasing number of prestigious open content journals, and publishing
in those is a more ethical thing to do (but I accept the fact that they
are still a minority, and often one may not have an easy choice).
As I mentioned earlier, I also accept the argument that it is good for a
journal to have paid staff. If journals went free, the money the
universities pay for subscriptions could be redirected to the journals,
with a net benefit for the society, particularly the less privileged
groups (scholars at poorer institutions/countries, and people outside
academia, like Wikipedians).
I am not going to discuss whether editors are paid or not as I am
relatively unfamiliar with that. Data would be appreciated.
PS. With regard to your medical analogy, I have one word for you: generics.
(At least, patents last 20 years, scholarly knowledge is copyrighted and
locked for about a century...).
--
Piotr Konieczny
"To be defeated and not submit, is victory; to be victorious and rest on one's
laurels, is defeat." --Józef Pilsudski
On 5/22/2012 11:01 PM, Richard Jensen wrote:
Piotr says "Let me repeat: editors, authors and reviewers are not
paid" That's completely false. They are all paid professional
salaries by their home universities, and the kind of work they do is
counted in terms of getting jobs, promotions, pay raises and tenure.
Furthermore for the authors of the articles published and books being
reviewed, the coverage they get in the journals is a major factor in
their own getting jobs and promotions. That is how the American
system works.
Indiana U sponsors a number of major journals and they are very
pleased indeed with the international recognition this brings.
Why so many highly skilled professionals are required is a matter of
quality control. Th Journal of American history accepts only 20% of
the history books submitted for review, and publishes only 10% of the
articles submitted.
Yes you can buy cheap "natural cures" for what ails you as recommended
by a friend, or you can pay $$$ for prescriptions written by a real MD
and prepared by a real pharmaceutical company. It's the same with
scholarship.
Richard Jensen
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