Hi, Another way of looking at this is:
1. there has been an explosion in the numbers of ecologists and fields and subfields 2. ecologists (especially males) have moved to the "smallest possible publishable unit" as a criterion for manuscript submission because of "publish or perish" pressures 3. there has been a corresponding, perhaps even log, growth in manuscripts seeking publication 3. the number of reviewers potentially available per submitted manuscript has increased but probably not at the same rate as #3 4. the number of actually available/willing reviewers per submitted manuscript may even have decreased as reviewing is undervalued in academia and takes away from #2 5. the number of polymath editors is limited, so editors by necessity have limited expertise and must make subjective decisions to avoid overloading their stable of willing reviewers or sub editors 6. "authors (who) have felt their papers have been rejected" make an extraordinarily biased group of respondents if we really want to assess the degree to which editors reject out "of bias rather than merit" 7. Let us accept that editors can not send everything out for review, so their decisions are arbitrary and at least occasionally capricious. So, what is the solution? Maybe more resources, human and otherwise. But resources are scarce and getting scarcer. We pay page charges and access charges for accepted papers but we don't pay anything to submit papers. Would paying a submission fee solve things? Or would we get a price war between journals, undercutting one another and throwing the costs back on the editors and reviewers? Cheers, David On Fri, May 19, 2017 at 7:43 AM, Judith Weis <[email protected]> wrote: > It's an issue that terrestrial work is "ecology" but aquatic work is > specialized "marine ecology" even though 2/3 of the planet is water!! > > Sent from my iPhone > > On May 19, 2017, at 1:39 PM, Edwin Cruz-Rivera <[email protected]> > wrote: > > Dear all, > > I apologize for the cross listing. We are trying to cover as broad a > canvas as possible: > > In the past years, journals have increased the responsibilities of > editors-in-chief to the point that they have become gatekeepers of their > publications. The bottom line is that papers get sent out to peer reviewers > only when editors say so, if they deem the article to be "of broad enough > interest" to their readers. > > > Clearly, there is a spectacular number of problems with this (though we do > not seem to talk about them). For one, systematic bias can be introduced in > a multitude of ways: what terrestrial researchers consider "hot topics" of > "general interest" may not be the same as what freshwater or marine ones > do. I keep glancing at the plant-herbivore interactions literature seeing > how marine papers often cites terrestrial works, but not the other way > around. > > > After talking to several colleagues, it seems that the trend is "I (insert > editors name) don't think this is of general interest but it is really > good, so I recommend you submit your manuscript to this journal of *also > general interest* (open access journal from our publisher that costs you > thousands of dollars to publish in)." This, frankly, seems like a dishonest > practice; if it is good enough for one general ecology journal it should be > for another. Have we exchanged fashion for quality? We want to know your > opinion. > > > We would like to compile data on the frequency of such cases. Our > hypothesis is that the definition of "general interest" or "worthy of peer > review" in ecology is completely arbitrary and we will be designing an > experiment to test this, but we would like to establish a baseline by > asking for cases in which authors have felt their papers have been rejected > out of bias rather than merit. In order to narrow the field, it will be > important to have articles that were published in journals after "broader" > journals rejected them without peer review. > > > Your responses will be kept confidential, > > > Edwin > > ================= > Dr. Edwin Cruz-Rivera > Associate Professor > Department of Biological Sciences > University of the Virgin Islands > #2 John Brewers Bay > St. Thomas 00802 > USVI > Tel: 1-340-693-1235 <(340)%20693-1235> > Fax: 1-340-693-1385 <(340)%20693-1385> > > "It is not the same to hear the devil as to see him coming your way" > (Puerto Rican proverb) > > > > > > -- David Duffy 戴大偉 (Dài Dàwěi) Pacific Cooperative Studies Unit/Makamakaʻāinana Botany University of Hawaii/*Ke Kulanui o Hawaiʻi* 3190 Maile Way Honolulu Hawaii 96822 USA 1-808-956-8218
