Disseminating scholarly output: the case for eliminating the exclusivity of journal submissions

American Journal of Economics and Sociology, The, July, 1994 by Michael Szenberg

I

Introduction

SCHOLARLY JOURNALS are the mainstays of scientific communication, and publication in them by academicians is the primary route to promotion, tenure, salary increases, recognition and mobility. The scrutiny and assessment of the publication process is therefore of vital concern to the scientific community. This paper will examine what, in my view, is currently the most vexatious problem that arises out of the interdependent, complex, and unequal relationship between scholar and journal editor: that of exclusive review.

Scholarly journals prohibit multiple submissions. Notes Economics of Education Review, "Manuscripts will not be considered for publication if they are concurrently under review by another journal," or Journal of Economic Studies, "It is a condition of submission that the article is not concurrently being considered by another journal."

Journal editors have taken the position that submission of an article to more than one journal at a time is an ethical impropriety, a position I intend to show rests more on expediency and publisher convenience than on moral considerations. Some communication officials further claim that multiple submissions are "ethically unacceptable by virtually all scholars."(1) Beth Luey notes that some journal editors view multiple submission as so serious a sin that they report it to the chairperson of the author's department.(2) Reasons advanced for this stance include the wasting of time and money through duplication of effort on the part of referees and editorial staff,(3) the need to adhere to rules promulgated by editors, and the unnecessary complication of copyright privileges should a manuscript be accepted by two or more journals.

In the 1960s, Derek Price, an eminent student of the scientific community, estimated that the number of scientists and scientific papers in all fields and in all countries doubles about every ten years.(4) In the world of academia, particularly in the liberal arts divisions, employment is, regrettably, no longer a growth industry. Nevertheless, journal submissions continue to increase. With it, we see a proliferation of new journals and the printing of larger issues.(5)

However, the opportunities for publication simply cannot keep pace with the volume of submissions by potential contributors. Publish or perish propositions(6) are nothing new, but one should also note that rejection rates in the social sciences differ markedly from those in the physical areas. In the social sciences, the average rejection rate is about 80 percent; in the natural science areas, it hovers around 25 percent.(7)

As a result of a burgeoning college-age population in the 1960s, academic employment opportunities greatly increased, and it was possible to advance the standard that "each faculty member should be allowed to decide for himself whether he wishes to be judged on the basis of his publications, his teaching, or both."(8) Since the 1980s, however, liberal arts colleges have undergone a retrenchment in terms of employment and finances, and faculty standards have been tightened accordingly.

Under the new standards, outstanding teacher performance is no longer a sufficient condition for granting tenure or even promotion. Thus, publication in refereed journals has become the most significant stumbling block for individual scientists seeking advancement.(9)

This issue was addressed at the 1992 Convention of the American Economic Association (AEA) in a session entitled, "Publishing in Economics Journals: Selection Criteria, Refereeing, Processes and Procedures." I was one of four editors on the panel.(10) The purpose of the session was to familiarize young economists with publishing strategies in learned journals. A question and answer period followed the editors' presentations.

The most important criticism leveled against the journal system--expressed not only with frustration and anxiety but also with acrimony and anger--is that it occasions unreasonable and unconscionable delays. The scientist, then, is concerned not only with the quantity of intellectual production published but also with the speed of publication.(11)

Journals, an invention of the 17th century, were launched to speed up the publication process because the most acceptable way until then, to publish new research findings through printed books, was time-consuming. This publication process is ironic because in today's world of printing and publishing, the processing time from submission of an acceptable article through its publication in a scientific journal takes nearly two years, due to the length of time taken to review manuscripts,(12) the large backlog of papers submitted for review, the frequency of publication, and the average number of printed pages both per issue and per article. (For a book, the publishing process takes about a year.)

For over two decades, observers of the publishing scene have probed the bottlenecks in the editorial process that cause delays. Despite suggestions to reform the process by, for example, increasing the secretarial pool, expanding the number of referees, compensating referees, expending additional resources, or extracting a promise from referees to return reviewed manuscripts within two weeks, the situation has not changed.(13)