Journalology #1: two neologisms

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Introducing Journalology

“Journalology” is a neologism coined by Stephen Lock, who edited the BMJ from 1975 to 1991. He used the term to mean research into editorial processes.

In 1990, Jane Smith, another BMJ editor, wrote an article entitled “Journalology — or what editors do”. For the purposes of this newsletter, I am interpreting the word ‘journalology’ in its broadest and most literal sense as “the study of journals”, but “what editors do” works well too. Other people, such as David Moher’s group, use Lock’s narrower definition.

It’s worth noting that between 2007 and 2015 Matt Hodgkinson wrote a blog called Journalology on the Blogspot platform. Hopefully Matt won’t mind too much that I’ve also co-opted the word.

I spent 7 years working as an editor at The Lancet group and 14 years working as publisher of the Nature journals, managing editorial teams. This is a slighly unusual career history. I’m sure that at times my editorial colleagues thought I was too commercial; some people from the business side certainly thought I was too editorial. But my experiences give me a useful perspective on both ‘church’ and ‘state’ in scholarly journal publishing: (1) the need for editorial rigour and scientific excellence; (2) the requirement to create a financially sustainable scholarly ecosystem.

There are many blogs and newsletters for scholarly publishers (The Scholarly Kitchen and The Brief (which I contribute to) are both well worth reading), but relatively few resources for journal editors. This newsletter is firmly aimed at editors, although I’m sure I’ll touch on publishing aspects of our industry to help editors better understand the commercial environment that they’re operating in.

I plan to use quotations regularly in this newsletter because I want to showcase interesting articles and give the authors of those articles a voice. So, it seems appropriate to start off by quoting Stephen Lock from his 1989 article “Journalology”: are the quotes needed?.

Next, I believe that increasingly editors will have to remember their political role, with a small “p”, and that justice and their explanations will have to be seen to be fair. Within 30 years anonymity, I’m sure, will disappear from all parts of the journal and its operations, and there will be much fuller explanations and instructions to authors and particularly including peer reviewers’ reports.

ALPSP and the SDGs

The annual meeting of the Association Of Learned and Professional Society Publishers (ALPSP) is taking place in Manchester next week. I was on the organising committee and helped to put together two sessions on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Throughout the past week I’ve posted a series of articles on LinkedIn to try to convince editors and publishers that it’s important for their journals to engage with the underlying challenges framed by the SDGs. You can read the introductory post here, which links through to the following daily posts:

Did the Millennium Development Goals make a difference to global society?
How did journals cover the MDGs?
The Lancet and the MDGs: a case study
Why are the Sustainable Development Goals important for publishers?
What resources are available for editors and publishers? (will publish on Monday)
How can editors contribute to the SDGs? (will publish on Tuesday)
How can publishers measure the impact they’ve had? (will publish on Wednesday)

EASE and ABEC

ALPSP is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year and the European Association of Science Editors (EASE) is turning 40. To mark the occasion, EASE launched its new website in February. Earlier this year EASE announced three new regional chapters in Korea (January), Brazil (May) and India (July).

In that regard, I will be presenting to the Brazilian Association of Science Editors (ABEC Brasil) at their annual conference next month on how journal editors can engage with the SDGs.

The meaning of impact

The tagline for this newsletter is “learn how to create impactful journals”, so my eye was immediately drawn to an editorial published in Nature Cancer a few weeks ago entitled “The meaning of impact”. The first half of the editorial describes the well-known problems with impact factors, before defining what impact really means for a journal.

But we are more interested in the impact that goes beyond scientometrics — that hard-to-measure impact that opens novel lines of enquiry and picks up old ones in new and exciting ways, connects disciplines in a meaningful manner, fosters translation and change in practice, and aids career development and collaboration. We are in it for the long-term impact that is not necessarily reflected in time-defined mathematical calculations but is recognizable in the body of a journal’s publications, the quality of its science, the rigor and fairness of its editorial and peer-review practices, the integrity and scholarship of its editorial staff, and the spirit of community it inspires through its pages. We are in it for the long haul.

Well said, Alexia and team.

Speaking truth to power

Journals have a role in speaking powerful scientific truths, but they also have an important function in speaking truth to power. An editorial in The Lancet took Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the Director General of the World Health Organisation (WHO), to task at the start of his second term in office.

WHO’s functioning, if not its very purpose, is under increasing scrutiny from politicians, who are hostile towards international institutions. These are challenges of governance as much as technical ability. Power has been increasingly centralised around the Director-General’s office under Tedros’ leadership. This strategy might be advantageous in a crisis that demands a commander-in-control. But a lack of depth in wider leadership leaves shortcomings in the organisation. WHO needs people of high calibre in programmatic leadership positions… In its wider leadership, the WHO of today suffers a knowledge and expertise vacuum, with a heavy reliance on external experts and management consultants. Tedros would be wise to think about how leadership and responsibility is devolved to other dimensions and domains of his team.

No doubt, there will be many health emergencies across the world in the next 5 years. But Tedros should start his second term by tackling weaknesses at home.

It takes a brave editor to stand up to figureheads of international organisations. However, only brave editors create truly valuable and impactful journals.

Advisors not referees

In an interview, Jim Olds — who was head of the Biological Sciences Directorate at the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) between 2014-2018 — suggests that peer review (of grants) should be advisory:

I believe in the NSF model, where peer review is advisory. It’s a healthy mid-way point between DARPA and NIH. In my opinion that middle model allows for high risk, high pay-off science to be funded, while at the same time staying grounded in the views of the community. I’d also like to call out (in a positive way) the diversity of NSF advisory peer review—many more junior folks and much more reflective of the population’s diverse makeup.

I don’t particularly like the word “referee” to describe a peer reviewer. Advisor is much better. The buck stops with the editor; the peer reviewers are there to advise the editor and to help them to make a good decision on a paper (or grant).

And of course the best way to get good advice is to seek input from a diverse range of experts.

As an aside, the 9th International Congress on Peer Review and Scientific Publication is being held in Chicago next week and the program looks excellent. I would have liked to have been there, but the lure of rainy Manchester was just too strong...

Nominative determinism

I have long been fascinated by the concept of nominative determinism, a(nother) neologism coined by New Scientist to describe individuals who take up a line of work suggested by their surnames. I wrote about nominative determinism nearly two decades ago here. It’s not nice to make fun of people’s names, but I’ve been dealing with sniggers when I introduce myself as Dr Butcher for quite a while now, so I feel it’s not unreasonable to showcase that the American Association for Anatomy has named Jason Organ as Editor Of the Journal Anatomical Sciences Education.

And finally…

Thank you for joining me right at the start of this journey. I hope you will find these newsletters to be informative, provocative, (yes, I prefer to use an Oxford comma) and ever so slightly entertaining. Although newsletters are by definition a ‘broadcast’, please do feed back if you have the time and inclination. I’d love to hear from you.

Until next week,

James

Journalology