Editors, peer reviewers,

authors, publishers:

Who’s who?

Chris Graf

Wiley-Blackwell

chris.graf@wiley.com

+44 1865 476 393

• Editors

• Peer reviewers

• Editorial boards

• Authors (loads on authors)

• Publishers

Editors

Objective Subjective

Good enough?

Editors

• Serve a journal‟s interests

– Which depend on…

• Most encourage enquiries

• Editor‟s word is (nearly) always final

Peer reviewers

Analysis (expand in comments to editor as required)

Rating (higher score=better) 4

(high) 3 2

1

(low)

1. Relevance to practising clinician

2. Originality

3. Validity (hypothesis, study design, methods,

statistics)

4. Conclusion (reasonable? supported by results?)

5. Tables/figures (appropriate? informative?)

6. Writing clear and accurate (title, abstract, text)

7. Please enter your total score here 22

Editorial board

• Advice

• Direction

• Network

• Sometimes peer review

• Sometimes authors

• Sometimes…

Authors (1999)

• 2,500/11,500 responded

• What authors want

– Motivations when authors publish

– Considerations when choosing a journal

Swan A. „What Authors Want‟: the ALPSP research study on the motivations and concerns of

contributors to learned journals. Learned Publishing. 1999;12(3):170-172

Authors (1999): Motivations

0%

5%

10%

15%

20%

25%

30%

35%

40%

45%

50%

Tell peers Career Personal prestige

Funding Financial reward

Authors' first choice Authors' second choice

Swan A. „What Authors Want‟: the ALPSP research study on the motivations and concerns of

contributors to learned journals. Learned Publishing. 1999;12(3):170-172

Authors (1999): Choices

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

Swan A. „What Authors Want‟: the ALPSP research study on the motivations and concerns of

contributors to learned journals. Learned Publishing. 1999;12(3):170-172

Authors (2003): Online

• 1,250 authors

• Views on electronic publishing

– Print more important than online

– Speed through online not a priority

– Peer-review process is the most valued

– Followed by provision of citation-linking

Swan A, Brown S. Authors and electronic publishing: what authors want from the new

technology. Learned Publishing (2003)16,28–33

Authors (2004): Online

• 3,787/107,500 responded

• Views on electronic publishing

– “many aspects of author behaviour are

highly conservative”

Ian Rowlands, Dave Nicholas and Paul Huntington. Scholarly communication in the digital

environment: what do authors want? Learned Publishing (2004)17, 261–273

Authors (2005): Mismatch

• “a big gap between the scholars‟

views on journal publishing…

• … and journal publishers‟ views…

… partly ascribed to a

misunderstanding of the publishing

process”

Nicholas, D., Jamali, M., Hamid, R., Huntington, P. and Rowlands, I. In their very own words:

Authors and scholarly journal publishing. Learned Publishing (2005)18:212–220.

Authors (2006)

• 5,513 authors on issues relating to

the scholarly communication system

Ian Rowlands and Dave Nicholas. The changing scholarly communication landscape: an

international survey of senior researchers Learned Publishing (2006), 19, 31–55

Authors (2006)

Ian Rowlands and Dave Nicholas. The changing scholarly communication landscape: an

international survey of senior researchers Learned Publishing (2006), 19, 31–55

Authors (2006)

Ian Rowlands and Dave Nicholas. The changing scholarly communication landscape: an

international survey of senior researchers Learned Publishing (2006), 19, 31–55

Authors (2008): Quality

• 13 authors, focus groups

• Perceptions of journal quality

• Three most important attributes

– Reputation

– Time to publication

– Readership

John J. Regazzi, Selenay Aytac. Author perceptions of journal quality. Learned Publishing,

(2008)21:225–235

Authors (2008): Quality

John J. Regazzi, Selenay Aytac. Author perceptions of journal quality. Learned Publishing,

(2008)21:225–235

Authors (2010): No change?

• 160 interviewees, 45 institutions

• Needs and practices

– “[scholarly communication habits], which

rely heavily on various forms of peer

review, may override the perceived

„opportunities‟ afforded by new

technologies, including those falling into

the Web 2.0 category”

Harley Diane et al. (2010). Assessing the Future Landscape of Scholarly Communication: An

Exploration of Faculty Values and Needs in Seven Disciplines. UC Berkeley: Center for Studies

in Higher Education. http://escholarship.org/uc/cshe_fsc

Publishers

• Run an editorial business

• May publish under contract, may

publish an “owned” journal

• Line of independence between

publisher and editor

Publishers

• Care about

– Brand, reputation

– Their journal editors, Impact Factor,

authors, readers and readership, ethics

– What they publish, their products

– Money

Publishers

• Spot gaps

– Some research is still hard to publish

– Archives of Drug Information

– Allows pharma to “publish the results of

studies and make freely accessible to

the public the results of research studies

that would otherwise remain unavailable

on-file”

Publishers

• Make things happen

– New author services, e.g. EXPEDITED

– Slides, audio, video, Twitter, YouTube

– Datasets?

– Enhanced Articles

1957

2004

2010

www.justgiving.co.uk/cyclemadagascar