Academia is rife with the notion of publishing. As academics we spend a good proportion of our time writing papers. Unlike earlier times, when academics had time to think, we are now confronted with an ever-increasing need to publish. Writing papers takes time, and usually time taken out of improving pedagogical quality. Of course not everyone is interested in teaching. Publishing comes in various strains, some more prestigious than others, but the main two are conferences and journals. The latter is a hot-bed of prestige. I mean articles, if accepted can take nearly 2 years to get published from initial submission. Oh, and paper journals are considered by some to be more prestigious then electronic journals. But what many academics obviously don’t realize is that publishing companies are commercial enterprises. As such they take papers, which essentially cost them nothing to create, publish them and sell the journals. Authors generally receive nothing. As such academics are
essentially a conduit for publishers to fill journals.

But does anybody realise this? Probably very few.

Journals work on the principle of peer-review. A nice idea… in principle. But what does peer review really entail? Very few academics really know. Sure, editorial boards are comprised of experienced academics who help ensure a fair review of the work. And in some journals this is the case, but without an open reviewing platform, how do we know who reviews papers? From experience, some papers I have seen rejected from journals were clearly reviewed by graduate students with little experience in the topic area. Sometimes it seems as though the paper has not even been properly read. Especially when reviewers make comments like “this is nothing original”, when comparable papers on the topic = 1.

Conferences I fear, are not much better. Conferences are a multi-million $ industry, and although better at releasing cutting-edge research, the largest conferences also tend to suffer from reviewer apathy. Sometimes a good paper doesn’t have to be bleeding edge. Truly, how many published papers are truly innovative and new? Some of the work produced is of a descriptive nature, some of the work is topical. Sometimes they don’t get accepted. That’s ok. Sometimes work is too controversial to be published. Sometimes reviewers say that the work lacks “experimental results” (yeah try and cram more into the 4 page prescribed limit!). Sometimes it is just too well written. It’s a shame that we think so little of research that judge its merits by the quantity of material published. It’s a shame that some consider research into pedagogy of a lesser kind. It’s a pity we don’t open conferences to the discussion of controversial topics. It’s a pity some academics couldn’t be more open minded.

Publish or perish? Nah, it’s just a vortex of nonsense.