[Air-L] FWD: Call 4 Papers Special Issue Ephemera: The Political Economy of Academic Journal Publishing

[Yann Bona]

Some might be willing to contribute ;)

PS: Btw, a great link to 11 (Mis)Leading Open Access Myths;
http://www.biomedcentral.com/openaccess/inquiry/myths/

PPS: Apologies for cross-posting



De:
"Boehm, Steffen"
<steffen at ESSEX.AC.UK>
Asunto:
Call for Papers: THE POLITICAL
ECONOMY OF ACADEMIC JOURNAL
PUBLISHING
Para:
EPHEMERA at JISCMAIL.AC.UK

Dear All, 

Please find below a call for papers for a special issue of the open
access journal ephemera on the Political Economy of Academic Journal
Publishing (deadline November 1, 2008). If you are aware of colleagues
with a particular interest in this topic please could you forward this
call for papers to them. 

Best regards, 

Craig Prichard and Steffen Böhm

The Political Economy of Academic Journal Publishing
 
Call for Papers & Proposal for a Special Issue of ephemera: theory &
politics in organization (www.ephemeraweb.org) to be edited by

Craig Prichard & Steffen Böhm 


‘Publish or perish’, that famous diktat, is without doubt the central,
pervasive and unassailable logic governing most academic work in the
current period. The central figure, the one around which this decree
currently revolves, is, of course, the academic journal article. While
the book and perhaps the lecture remain important in some locations, the
journal article has become the core currency and the very measure by
which academic jobs, careers, reputations and identities are made and
traded.

Yet despite all the hours congealed into ‘the article’, and the years
spent perfecting the craft of writing for journal publications, many of
us know very little about the industry that surrounds our work and to
which we contribute so much. Of course, we may recall certain events:
Some will have noted the sale, for nearly US$1 billion, of Blackwell’s
875-strong journal collection to US company Wiley in late 2006. Others
will be aware that they can now, if they so wish, purchase their already
published papers as individual downloads on Amazon.com. There will be
some for whom internet-based open access journals (such as ephemera) or
online repositories are now the natural home of their written academic
work. There may be others whom have confronted the crisis that surrounds
journal subscription pricing and are seeing the demise of library
journal collections in their university libraries. And there may be a
few among us who recognize those journals and publishers that feature in
Ted Bergstrom’s hall of shame for the most expensive journals currently
published (http://www.journalprices.com). But for all those that
recognize such events and processes there are many more for whom such
events have ‘taken a while to get our attention’, as Ron Kirby, the
University of California mathematician who led the editorial revolt
against Reed Elsevier’s pricing strategy at the journal Topography, said
recently. 

This special issue is an invitation to begin to change that. It is a
call for contributions that directly and critically explore the
dynamics, problems, tensions, and issues that surround the political
economy of academic journal publishing. Part of this is an invitation to
explore alternative ways of organizing the production of academic work,
particularly the theory, politics and organization of open access
publishing, which is, perhaps, the most promising initiative to
challenge corporate forms of journal publishing today. This exploration
of alternatives is an acknowledgement that the writer and academic
author could be regarded, at various moments, as agent, challenger and
also victim of hegemonic regimes. We invite inter-disciplinary
contributions from around the world and particularly welcome submissions
from countries of the Global South, which have seen particular growth of
open access publishing initiatives. 

Possible topics include (this is not an exhaustive list):

- Political economy of open access publishing

- Academic publishing and the knowledge society

- How to organize an open access journal?

- Political economy of corporate and university press publishing

- The place of journal publishing in the overall apparatus of academic
publishing

- Historical perspectives of academic journal publishing

- The hegemony of UK/US publishing & referencing and its global economy 

- Issues of censorship in the process of publishing

- Issues of inclusion/exclusion in journal publishing

- Academic publishing in the Global South

- Desires and identities connected to journal publishing

- The public sphere and journal publishing: Who do we really reach?

- The role of journal publishing in the setup and maintenance of
professions and disciplines 

- Cases of open access publishing

- The organisation of open access repositories

- Case histories of open access repositories

- Copyright vs Copyleft

- Publishing and language: the hegemony of English

- Intellectual property and the impact on academic publishing

- What is a journal’s ‘impact’ and how to measure it?

- The specific role of ephemera: theory & politics in organization in
the world of journal publishing and potential ‘alternative impact factor
measurements’

- Academic evaluation and performance measurement systems (such as the
RAE in the UK) 

- Publishing outside academia

Full papers should be submitted to the special issue editors via email
by 1 November  2008. Papers should be between 5000 and 9000 words;
multimedia work is welcome. All submissions should follow ephemera’s
submission guidelines: http://www.ephemeraweb.org/journal/submit.htm.
All relevant submissions will undergo a double blind review process. The
special issue is scheduled to be published in late 2009. 


Special issue editors:
 

Craig Prichard 
Tari Whakahaere Kaipakihi , 
Te Kunenga Ki Purehuroa
Pouaka Motuhake 11-222
Papaioea, Aotearoa
Department of Management 214
Massey University, Private Bag 11-222
Palmerston North, New Zealand
Phone: +64 (0) 6 356-9099 ext. 2244 

Email: c.prichard at massey.ac.nz 

Steffen Böhm
School of Accounting, Finance and Management
University of Essex
Wivenhoe Park
Colchester CO4 3SQ UK
Phone: +44 (0) 1206 87 3843
Email: steffen at essex.ac.uk


-- 
Yann Bona Beauvois
Departament de Psicologia Social
Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB)
yannbona at molekulab.net
http://psicologiasocial.uab.es/fic/en/user/yannbona