Global South authors face many challenges which can reduce their chances of publication success. Journal and publishing staff should become more aware of these challenges. There are many practical steps that journals can take to support Global South authors.
Peer review is the modus operandi of the scholarly publishing industry, with a purpose of increasing the quality and integrity of published content. There are multiple workflows for peer review, but double-anonymous peer review (DAPR) has been shown in numerous studies (examples here, here, here) to increase integrity by reducing bias. DAPR is the common peer-review workflow in the humanities and social sciences, beginning in the field of Sociology in 1955; it is used in many other fields as well. However, single-anonymous peer review (SAPR) is the most common workflow. Other models of peer review include triple anonymous, open peer review, post publication, and others (a more complete list with definitions is included in a nice graphic here).
Accessible content benefits everyone. Web accessibility conversations should start at the beginning of the design process. Include people with disabilities in all policy and process discussions.
Introversion and extroversion are personality characteristics that exist on a continuum, with ambiversion falling in the middle. Introverts bring unique strengths to leadership positions.
Feeling the pressure at work? You’re not alone. Many of us struggle to balance workplace expectations with our own well-being. In today's post from ORIGINal Thoughts, author Randy Townsend MPS suggests that rather than let frustration take over, it’s time to Ctrl+Alt+Delete your stress.
Journals should prepare publicly available guidelines on the handling of special issues. Such documentation will spell out how a journal will control for ethicality and protect the validity of the peer review process.
Instructions can be a valuable resource, particularly if you pay attention to them. Whether you’re trying to replicate a mouthwatering recipe, assemble a holiday toy, or just use that new ‘thing’ that you’ve received, your goals are to do it quickly, do it right, and produce something valued and useful.
Since 2009 when the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) instituted the “Publish Ahead of Print” model, the ASCE Journals have been steadily moving to a new publishing model—article-based publishing, or “Issues in Progress.” In this model, instead of placing articles online in a “Just Released” section of the ASCE Library, articles are placed in “open” issues. Essentially this means that at any given time, an issue is “open” online where articles are placed until the issue closes and the next issue is opened. This allows authors to now have both the DOI and the volume and issue number of their article as soon as it is placed online. This is a big step forward for a society publisher, but how did we get here and what were the pain points of the various publishing models employed over the years?
Some of the most rewarding experiences in my career by far have been the close relationships I’ve established with journal editors over the years. I have found that the longer I’ve been in this business, the more these relationships have turned into partnerships—and in some cases—friendships.
