Where are the ethics in academic publishing?

Ronald Barnett offers suggestions on how to conduct journal reviews with integrity

十二月 1, 2018
Weigh up

Given the centrality of journal publication in university performance these days, naively, one might have expected that sound publishing procedures had evolved and that they were generally recognised. Nothing could be further from the truth. The criteria by which submitted papers are assessed are generally opaque, reviewers are given no guidance on how to go about their task and the procedures are rarely spelled out.

As a result, submitting a paper to a journal has a black-box aspect – the paper goes off into a void. One has no idea as to when one might hear back from the journal. And when a response is forthcoming, the procedure can veer all over the place.

There is a paradox here. It is now standard practice for any research-oriented university to have an ethics committee to which research proposals are submitted. However, there is something of an ethical vacuum when it comes to the editing and reviewing of papers for journal publication.

Here are just some of the practices I have observed over several decades, shown especially to me by younger or newer researchers:

  • You haven’t written War and Peace – reviewers identify issues that would require a book (or two) properly to address
  • Let’s go in a new direction – reviewers are changed mid-stream, and identify quite different issues
  • You haven’t written the paper that I would have written – issues being posed that are tangential to the paper submitted or even looking to a quite different paper
  • You haven’t referred to my work (and I have my own impact factors to think about) self-explanatory
  • I am very clevera review consisting of five pages of critical comment
  • Not what we are used toreviewers asking that diagrams be removed because they are not in keeping with a journal’s genre (and then publishing the weakened paper)
  • Homage to our god(s)a request that a certain scholar appear in the bibliography (the scholar being a totem in the journal’s subdiscipline)
  • My decision is final major revisions and minor revisions are made, and then the paper is rejected, without an opportunity to address any outstanding blemishes.

Journal editors have difficult tasks these days; their journals are often deluged with paper submissions, and it is often difficult to find reviewers. Furthermore, academic life is tough now, and in submitting papers to journals, academics need a degree of personal resilience to withstand the necessary rigours of publication.

All this is true. It is, however, incumbent on journal editors and their boards to ensure that the review process is conducted with integrity.

There are several issues here. The system is idiosyncratic and full of uncertainty.

It also contains undue risk. In many fields, there is a limited number of academics at work and their positions and writing styles can be identified. Authors place themselves at some personal risk, not least when there is a clash of approaches.

Third, the system is wasteful of time and effort, especially that of younger or newer academics, who may have large teaching commitments.

The system imposes undue emotional burdens. With its not-infrequent destructive reviews, the system exerts unnecessary stress, especially on newer researchers struggling to be published.

The system lacks a proper ethical base with a collective sense of standards, in which there is due regard for the integrity of the system and for fair treatment of authors.

How should we proceed? Here are six suggestions: First, could we not move towards an ethic of “do no harm”? For instance, reviewers could be reminded that they should offer constructive comments and convey a positive tone, whenever possible.

Second, while the principle of anonymity of reviewers is strong, so too is that of transparency. I suggest that there should be an opt-out policy. A reviewer’s name would appear unless she or he wishes it to be withheld.

Third, editors should provide reviewers with clear guidance on the matters to which reviewers should attend. Fourth, editorial boards should keep these matters under continual review, and each should have a definite policy on, and a set of protocols, regulating its own processes.

Fifth, editors might adopt the practice – which I have come across – in which authors are invited to comment on the review process that they have just experienced by responding to a questionnaire.

And finally, the large publishers of journals might collaborate in evolving a collective set of standards to which their own journals at least would be signed up.

These steps will not remove the excesses of academic preciousness, editorial authoritarianism and procedural ambiguity, but they may help to mitigate the present haphazard situation.

Ronald Barnett is emeritus professor of higher education at UCL Institute of Education. His latest book is The Ecological University: A Feasible Utopia.

请先注册再继续

为何要注册?

  • 注册是免费的,而且十分便捷
  • 注册成功后,您每月可免费阅读3篇文章
  • 订阅我们的邮件
注册
Please 登录 or 注册 to read this article.

Reader's comments (2)

At the International Feminist Journal of Politics -https://www.ifjpglobal.org/ we already do a lot of what is being suggested (and more/better) - have a substantial FAQ section on the 'what and how' of submitting and will shortly be adding a 'guide to good reviewing'. So already setting very high standards!
I would like to share my horror story here, which as I hear is not that rare. As a junior academic, working towards their tenure, I submitted a paper to a very reputable journal. I waited 11 months to receive the review. In the meantime I contacted the editor two or three times. They treated it as nagging and suggested that if I didn't like the process, I could always withdraw my manuscript. (unfortunately, I did not as my University pressures highly on the so-called A-class journal publication. ) After 11 months the decision came: substantial review and resubmit, for which I was given 1 month only, in the middle of a teaching semester. I begged for longer period. After all I got 3 months. I redid my paper fundamentally according to reviwers' suggestions. I resubmitted. I waited another 6 months for review - final decision... rejection. The editor changed and the reviwers also changed. I felt like I was treated really bad. Major depression resulted. I do not want to share the name of the journal here as these guys are like mafia but I will gladly warn you against publishing with them if you contact me in person. This is just one aspect of publishing with the so-called reputable journals. This is only the top of an iceberg though. When it comes to contract renewal or promotion no one cares though. Sabstantaited academics seating on the the panel simply tick the boxes off. I hear about a lot of depression among postgraduate students. How about doing some research and writing about young, aspiring academics? Please contact me at: chris@hkbu.edu.hk