Reputation Factor in Economic Publishing | Open Knowledge Foundation Blog

“'The big problem in economics is that it really matters in which journals you publish, so the reputation factor is a big hindrance in getting open access journals up and going'. Can the accepted norms of scholarly publishing be successfully challenged? This quotation is a line from the correspondence about writing this blogpost for the OKFN. The invitation came to write for the Open Economics Working Group, hence the focus on economics, but in reality the same situation pertains across pretty much any scholarly discipline you can mention. From the funding bodies down through faculty departments and academic librarians to individual researchers, an enormous worldwide system of research measurement has grown up that conflates the quality of research output with the publications in which it appears. Journals that receive a Thomson ISI ranking and high impact factors are perceived as the holy grail and, as is being witnessed currently in the UK during the Research Excellence Framework (REF) process, these carry tremendous weight when it comes to research fund awards.  Earlier this year, I attended a meeting with a Head of School at a Russell Group university, in response to an email that I had sent with information about Social Sciences Directory, the ‘gold’ open access publication that I was then in the first weeks of setting up. Buoyed by their acceptance to meet, I was optimistic that there would be interest and support for the idea of breaking the shackles of existing ranked journals and their subscription paywall barriers. I believed then – and still believe now – that if one or two senior university administrators had the courage to say, “We don’t care about the rankings. We will support alternative publishing solutions as a matter of principle”, then it would create a snowball effect and expedite the break up of the current monopolistic, archaic system. However, I was rapidly disabused. The faculty in the meeting listened politely and then stated categorically that they would never consider publishing in a start up venture such as Social Sciences Directorybecause of the requirements of the REF. The gist of it was, 'We know subscription journals are restrictive and expensive, but that is what is required and we are not going to rock the boat' ...  So, after all this, do I believe that the “big hindrance” of reputation can be overcome? Yes, but only through planning and mandate. Here is what I believe should happen:  [1] The sheer number of journals is overwhelming and, in actuality, at odds with modern user behaviour which generally accesses content online and uses a keyword search to find information. Who needs journals? What you want is a large collection of articles that are well indexed and easily searchable, and freely available... [2] Ensure quality control of peer review by setting guidelines and adhering to them. [3] De-couple the link between publishing and tenure & department funding... [4]  University administrators need to take the bold decision to change, to pick an end date as a ‘cut off’ after which they will publicly state that they are switching to new policies in support of OA. This will allow funds to be freed up and used to pay for institutional memberships, article processing fees, institutional repositories – whatever the choice may be. Editors, authors and reviewers will be encouraged to offer their services elsewhere, which will in turn rapidly build the reputation of new publications..."