political science job rumors

Things may get weird. Trying to fix the problems.

1. John Noname
   Member

   This may be a bit chatty for the "new PSJR" but indulge me. After receiving a rejection from a higher-ranked journal, a coauthor recently suggested that we publish in an online-only journal which focuses on precisely the research we do. Other than being online only, the journal is just as good as any other, peer-reviewed and all of that, and yet, as soon as learned that this journal doesn't come out on paper, I immediately thought to myself "No way in hell. Next he'll be suggesting that we publish in a journal of undergrad research." This seems irrational, but I think a lot of people probably feel the same way.

   So that brings me to my questions. Why do we look down on online-only journals, and why do journals come out on paper at all? Personally, other than flipping (and I mean flipping) through the APSR, I do all my reading online - or via PDFs that I print out from the internet. So, why do journals spend an incredible amount of money to put out the articles on dead trees? Why don't they all just go online?

   Posted 3 years ago #

2. Hamiltonian
   Member

   Can't answer your actual questions but the fact that you and, you believe, others think less of online-only means that the journal is by definition not "just as good as any other" for the purposes of your career.

   Personally I would not publish in an online only journal at this point (at least not with a paper I cared about), not because I think less of them, but because I think many other people think less of them and will think less of the pub as a result.

   Posted 3 years ago #

3. Gustav
   Member

   I'm not 100% sure - but I think this has something to do with it at least... The publishers face some odd financial issues with journals. On one hand, actually printing and shipping the journals is very expensive. But if they stop printing certain journals, it's less clear why somebody would subscribe to their content. It's possible that by not printing the journals, the publisher actually could lose money.

   I suspect things will go primarily online soon - everything will change for us as soon as ISA or APSA makes hard copies "opt-in." So, when you get a membership, you get online access only, and you have to choose to get hard copies. A few years after that, I would guess it will go all online. Naturally, during that transition period, you will probably also see far more content start to appear online. For example, better graphics, datasets, videos of the author talking about the paper, etc. All this will hopefully keep subscriptions directly into the publisher from dropping.

   Posted 3 years ago #

4. IR Geek
   Member

   A couple of answers:

   (1) Have you seen what publishers charge institutions for paper subscriptions? As long as libraries continue to feel compelled to acquire paper copies of journals, the publishers are going to continue to print them and charge a gazillion dollars for them. At some point, libraries are going to stop doing this, and I suspect that's when you'll see more and more journals going exclusively online.

   (2) Printing journals on paper makes publishing in them more meaningful. Prestigious journal pages are costly and a relatively scarce commodity, so we can claim that publishing in an elite journal demonstrates something about the quality of the work. If journals go online, they are no longer constrained by the costs of publication. Will that lead to journals publishing more stuff and, thus, dilute the meaning of publishing in those journals? Maybe. Maybe not. But it's an argument I've heard for why there is some reluctance to go online by some journals.

   Posted 3 years ago #

5. Eight Ball
   Member

   Paper is forever; pixels are not.

   Posted 3 years ago #

6. Hamiltonian
   Member

   The relevant scarcity as far as prestige goes is not paper and ink. It's reviewer time and a scarcity of papers that are "above the bar" for top tier journals. Online only will not alleviate that scarcity. It's like fiat money; APSR/AJPS/JOP etc. are prestigious because we say they are, reviewers expect more from papers in them, etc.

   Posted 3 years ago #

7. khakis
   Member

   It is not about distribution format. It is about archive status, distribution channels, and prestige. The prestige journals in the social sciences still have paper versions primarily because no one is quite sure about about the long-term archive status of the electronic versions (and libraries don't want to be stuck renting an archive from a monopoly supplier that they could otherwise own) and because the generational shift hasn't quite been made on paper in our discipline. New journals can go purely electronic, but then they have several barriers to cross -- convincing authors to buy into a new journal rather than an established journal, getting distribution channels to research libraries and individual scholars, and archiving the journal for the long-term including the ability to migrate seamlessly across technological changes. I think the archival issue will be overcome fairly soon (to the satisfaction of libraries and universities), which will allow the established journals to drop their paper versions. But then the issue that the OP faced will be obvious -- journal quality.

   Posted 3 years ago #

8. Aristotle
   Member

   Mormons store two years worth of food in their basements in anticipation of the apocalypse. We print journals on paper.

   Posted 3 years ago #

9. eo
   Member

   what do Mormons without basements do?

   Posted 3 years ago #

10. Aristotle
    Member

    That's an oxymor(m)on.

    Posted 3 years ago #

11. Barnaby Jones
    .edu verified member

    There are submissions that get three positive reviews but end up rejected because of journal space. Conceivably these are the pieces that would get "published" if the journal was no longer constrained by printing costs.

    It may not be a lot, but at least on the margins there would be an increase in the number of acceptances if printing was no longer an issue.

    Posted 3 years ago #

12. khakis
    Member

    Nobody's talking about the apocalypse. But I have plenty of data and papers that never made the transition off of various forms of computer disks that I no longer have the capability to read. Libraries invested plenty back in the day in microfiche and microfilm, but no one wants to use that anymore. At least they still have the old film and film readers collecting dust, but librarians, university officials, and IT people are very aware of the long-term problem of stable archiving before you toss paper in the trash or go completely paperless from the origin. And how many dead websites are there out there? At least a new paper journal that goes belly-up after three volumes will leave some trace on library shelves, but what happens to the contents of an e-journal that goes defunct?

    And they are equally worried about the economics. If you are upset about the price of some journal subscriptions now, imagine if you went all electronic and the journal provider potentially had in their hands not only the current issue of the journal but all the back-issues also. Removing the inventory from the four walls of the library has cost advantages, but not if Kluwer or Elsevier or whoever decides that they can make your entire holdings of a key journal go away tomorrow if you don't pay 25% more than you paid last year for access to it.

    Posted 3 years ago #

13. Hamiltonian
    Member

    >> There are submissions that get three positive reviews but end up rejected because of journal space. Conceivably these are the pieces that would get "published" if the journal was no longer constrained by printing costs.

    Alternatively the editor may just be honest and say that even though the referees are positive and his/her hands are not tied, s/he doesn't like the paper that much and isn't going to publish it. Not saying the cited example -never- happens, but at least some such cases involve an editor telling a little fib, or rather presenting a red herring.

    If editors & associations though they were consistently turning down top rate papers due to space, they'd get more space from the publisher. Pages are a short run, not long run constraint. A very small fraction of papers written every year are good enough & lucky enough for "top 3" spots. The scarcity of those spots exists because it serves a purpose for the discipline, of signaling & discriminating. It does not exist because of printing & distribution costs. So it will continue to exist even with 0 marginal cost distribution.

    Posted 3 years ago #

14. Anonymous.
    Member

    Paper is forever; pixels are not.

    The Worldwide Guild of Librarians is voting you Funniest Guy Evar at its next Congress.

    Posted 3 years ago #

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