Transforming Academic Publishing through Institutional Policies

If it is that bad, why don’t academics ditch these profiteering journals, and why hasn’t the market replaced them with ones that better serve the public’s interests? As described brilliantly by an OKHE alumnus, probably because academics need the prestige provided by the journals that were established a century or more ago? Actually, it’s more than prestige because hiring and promotion decisions heavily rely on the impact factor and journal reputation, perpetuating the cycle. Hiring universities also consider your contributions in peer-review and editing in academic journals so the academics end up continuing to work for free for the billion-dollar industry giants, and at the same time they can’t get away from the journals that will lock up their work behind paywalls unless they pay huge amounts of article processing charges.

The next move to target exploitation by the publishing industry would be to reward researchers who put in their time for reviewing and editing, but only for not for profit, open access journals. Currently, it is expected of academics to review and edit as part of the but this is hardly ever accounted for by institutions in a researcher’s professional time spent, nor are they compensated for by the journals, and yet, researchers are judged on their review and editorial work done when the time comes for promotions or job applications. If at least an internal appraisal for a promotion takes into account say the number of reviews done for open access journal submissions, that would go a long way in rewarding researchers and targeting the exploitation of academics by the industry.

Transforming academic publishing requires concerted efforts from academic institutions and funding agencies. By implementing policy changes that emphasize individual merit in evaluating researchers, and promote transparency in funding allocation, we can hopefully overcome the dysfunctions of the current system. These changes will encourage a more equitable and accessible academic publishing landscape, benefitting both researchers, saving universities the millions that they spends every year, and most of all, giving the public what they deserve.

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