[Air-l] Trouble with journals

[Douglas Eyman]

Jeremy Hunsinger wrote:

At the risk of entering what appears to be the beginnings of a serious 
difference of opinions, I wanted to comment on one point that Jeremy makes:

> yes, and then you go on....  but I think you mistake the purpose of  
> the editorial board.  the editorial board is not the review board at  
> all.  the editorial board exists to generate submissions, and quality  
> content, not to review texts.


I think this is dependent upon the journal. I know our editorial board 
serves as the reviewers who ensure quality content, and not as 
generators of submissions (we do sometimes publish works produced by our 
editorial board of course, and in that case they do generate quality 
content). But for relatively visible journals, there is no lack of 
submissions (although the quality does vary).

In other words, local conditions and disciplinary needs tend to dictate 
the actual work of journal production (this includes whether graduate 
students are funded for the work and how peer-review is carried out). So 
both understandings of what an editorial board is and does are likely 
correct, but in different contexts.

(On a side note, related to funding and opportunities for graduate 
students, Kairos was started by graduate students and has slowly shifted 
to being run primarily by folks who are no longer graduate 
students--albeit engaged in a wide variety of work, not just 
tenure-track faculty--and we are now working to once again provide more 
opportunities to graduate students to join our team in different roles).

[snip]

> My understand of it is from the basis of paid labor and volunteer  
> labor.  I have to say paid labor is much preferred.

Okay I lied -- I want to comment on this part too. Yes, paid labor is 
preferred, but the economics of production (particularly in academia) 
would need to significantly change to make this work on a large scale. 
Most of the knowledge produced by scholars is certainly labor but it is 
often unpaid (in direct monetary form). However, particularly in 
academia, social capital can be accrued through volunteer labor, and 
sometimes that is a better incentive than money by itself (this is not 
to say that money isn't an incentive of course -- I do work-for-hire 
stuff for publishers when I can, but I also do a lot of my work for 
Kairos--unpaid/volunteer work--because it leads to greater value for me 
as a member of a particular field).
> 
> It is likely true that if aoir starts a virtual journal, it will gain  
> slightly less respect than first monday, but should it start a print  
> journal, it would likely garner more respect than that esteemed  
> publication.   The thing is though that only print journals get into  
> isi, and while scopus and other second tier ranking systems exist,  
> they don't command the same respect.  paper is king, why?

This is an excellent question. At an educational technology conference 
where the journal editors were concerned with figuring out how to get 
their journals in to ISI so they'd have an impact factor, I suggested 
that they come up with alternate forms of judging impact and work to 
make those accepted in their fields, rather than trying to buy into a 
system that is already stacked against them (these were mostly print 
journals).

In terms of the scenario you list above, *I* would view an AoIR journal 
in print or virtual as having value based on what it publishes and how 
that work is used (and I mean this very broadly -- not just in terms of 
formal citation). If the journal is good, I wouldn't see it as more or 
less respect-worthy than First Monday because in a way, that would be 
comparing apples and oranges and because there is no reason each 
couldn't be equally respected. The task at hand, then, becomes, how do 
we get *institutions* to understand value in this broader sense?

Doug