Themes

Publication

What is this about?

Publication can be defined as the act of making information or stories available to people in a printed or electronic form. A lot has changed since the publication of the first academic journal in 1665.

At present, we can distinguish three ages of the academic journal:

Text communication
Electronic communication
Video communication

These three ages have had a big impact on academic publication. Digital publication for example, led to the rise of Open Acces publication which made the reach of people very broad^[1]. Nowadays, 'good publication' is considerd to be peer reviewed publication. The popularity of a journal and its impact factor also play a role in the consideration of how good a scientific article is. However, it has been shown that articles which have been rejected by popular journals with a high impact factor generally have more citations when eventually published elsewhere^[2]. Academic publishing is an entire process on its own and what composes 'good publication' is not straightforward.

Why is this important?

Although it is nearly impossible to define 'good academic punblishing', scientific gatekeeping must always be pursued^[3].

For whom is this important?

Early career researchersEditorsJournal editorsJournal publishersPhD Students

What are the best practices?

Nowadays, ‘good publication’ is considered to be peer reviewed publication. Since 1830 peer review became fully systematic and operational and is considered essential for academic publishing in present times.
Journal editors are responsible for the publication process. Their standards are defined in guidelines of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) which were founded in 1997.

The Embassy editorial team, Elsa Amin contributed to this theme. Latest contribution was Dec 04, 2020

Other information

Virtues & Values

↑ Fyfe, A., Coate, K., Curry, S., Lawson, S., Moxham, N., & Røstvik, C. M. (2017). Untangling academic publishing: A history of the relationship between commercial interests, academic prestige and the circulation of research.
↑ Siler, K., Lee, K., & Bero, L. (2015). Measuring the effectiveness of scientific gatekeeping. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 112(2), 360-365.
↑ Peters, M. A., Jandrić, P., Irwin, R., Locke, K., Devine, N., Heraud, R., ... & Jackson, L. (2016). Towards a philosophy of academic publishing. ''Educational Philosophy and Theory'', ''48''(14), 1401-1425.

[1] Fyfe, A., Coate, K., Curry, S., Lawson, S., Moxham, N., & Røstvik, C. M. (2017). Untangling academic publishing: A history of the relationship between commercial interests, academic prestige and the circulation of research.

[2] Siler, K., Lee, K., & Bero, L. (2015). Measuring the effectiveness of scientific gatekeeping. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 112(2), 360-365.

[3] Peters, M. A., Jandrić, P., Irwin, R., Locke, K., Devine, N., Heraud, R., ... & Jackson, L. (2016). Towards a philosophy of academic publishing. ''Educational Philosophy and Theory'', ''48''(14), 1401-1425.

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