The Ethics of Academic Journals: What Is An Animal Advocate To Do?
Academic journals have traditionally been a key avenue for disseminating knowledge across a plethora of disciplines, and are often regarded as a (or the) “gold standard” for containing reliable and authoritative research and data. Indeed, the Faunalytics Library is packed full of summaries of peer-reviewed journal articles — alongside non-peer-reviewed sources. Many advocates turn to our Library specifically because of our concentration on peer-reviewed works.
However, it’s important to note that academic publishing is an industry, one that can be fraught with ethical dilemmas and systemic issues that animal advocates and researchers must be aware of as they engage with articles. This blog post delves into the complexities of academic publishing, focusing on the peer review process, financial dynamics, and journal quality, with the aim of providing advocates with a deeper understanding of the academic publishing landscape, and offering practical recommendations for scholars and advocates striving to maintain integrity and transparency in their work.
The Peer Review Process
In its ideal form, the peer review process is supposed to ensure that journals publish high-quality research pertinent to their scope. When researchers submit their manuscripts to journals, the editorial team selects volunteer experts, known as reviewers, to evaluate the work. These reviewers, chosen based on their expertise in a given field, critically assess the manuscript to determine if it should be published as-is, with minor or major revisions, or rejected altogether. The reviewers ask questions to illuminate gaps in the research, or provide suggestions for improvement. If revisions are recommended, the authors then have the opportunity to make changes and answer reviewer questions. This takes time, energy, and care to do properly.
Ostensibly, the peer review process ensures the integrity and relevance of published research. However, it’s worth noting that there is not a single version of this process; several types of peer review exist, each with distinct advantages and drawbacks.
Single-blind review: Reviewers know the authors’ identities, but the authors do not know who the reviewers are. This method aims to prevent authors from influencing reviewers but can introduce bias as reviewers may form opinions based on the authors’ reputations or affiliations.
Double-blind review: Neither the authors nor the reviewers know each other’s identities. This method attempts to eliminate bias by ensuring anonymity on both sides, promoting impartiality in the review process.
Open review: Both authors and reviewers are aware of each other’s identities. This newer, evolving concept encourages transparency and accountability but may also lead to bias and conflicts, particularly if the reviewers and authors have prior knowledge of each other’s work or professional relationships.
No peer review process is immune to biases, conflicts of interest, and lack of expertise, which can compromise their integrity. High-quality journals strive to match reviewers with appropriate expertise to submissions and minimize conflicts of interest, but human bias remains a persistent issue. Single-blind and open review processes, in particular, can allow reviewers to make assumptions about authors’ ethnicity, nationality, and gender identity, influencing their impartiality.
Additionally, the peer review system is increasingly burdensome for academics who are already pushed to the brink of burnout by higher workloads and job demands. Someone who acts as a reviewer may dedicate a significant number of hours annually to the task, leading to burnout and reduced quality of reviews. As part of this cycle, journal editors frequently struggle to secure reviewers, often having to approach multiple individuals before finding someone who may even be willing to review a manuscript. Furthermore, reviewers are generally volunteers, and there is ongoing debate over compensating them; while some argue that payment could introduce new problems, others believe it is only fair to compensate experts for their labor.
The Financial Dynamics of Academic Publishing
The financial model of a given academic journal significantly influences its operations and ethical considerations. Traditional subscription-based journals require readers or their institutions to pay for access to content. In contrast, open-access journals make articles freely available to the public, but may shift the financial burden to authors through publication fees. In 2020, for the first time, the number of open-access articles surpassed those published in traditional paywall journals, indicating a substantial shift in the industry.
It’s often argued that open-access journals are helping to democratize access to knowledge, allowing other researchers and the general public to benefit from freely available research. However, the fees charged to authors to get their work published can be prohibitively high. For instance, PLoS charges between $800 and $6,300 for article publication, depending on the author institution’s partnership status. While fee waivers or reductions are available for those who cannot afford the charges, any of these costs can still pose significant barriers for many researchers, and create a dynamic where those with surplus funds will be those who have the easiest access to publishing.
Public Funding, Private Profits
The academic publishing industry is big business, and like many multi-billion dollar sectors, it is subject to a considerable amount of concentration. The market as a whole is dominated by five large publishers that publish thousands of journals among them: Elsevier, Black & Wiley, Taylor & Francis, Springer Nature and SAGE. These publishers control more than 50% of the market; Elsevier alone is responsible for 16% of the total market and more than 3,000 academic journals.
The industry also happens to be highly profitable, with major publishers like Elsevier reporting profit margins around 40%. This profitability raises ethical concerns, especially considering that much of the research is publicly funded. In 2023, the top six publishers in the industry yielded over $10 billion in revenue, prompting scrutiny over their business practices as well as an antitrust lawsuit.
The unique nature of academic publishing further complicates these ethical issues. Researchers, often funded by public institutions, conduct the research and write the articles without direct compensation from the publishers. Reviewers, too, volunteer their time and expertise without monetary reward. Despite this, publishers charge significant fees for access to and publication of research, leading to questions about the fairness and sustainability of this model.
U.S. policies have begun to address these ethical concerns. The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) has issued directives recommending that government-funded research be made available as soon as feasible. This move aims to enhance research transparency and accessibility, ensuring that the public can access the findings they have indirectly funded through taxes.
Various federal agencies, such as the Department of Energy, require that funded research be accessible through databases like the Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI). These policies reflect a growing recognition of the importance of open access in promoting the dissemination of scientific knowledge and fostering innovation.
Quality, Quantity, And Predatory Publishing
The mechanics of academic publishing outlined above — as surprising as they may be — are in some ways a best-case scenario, as they assume that everyone involved is acting with good intentions, in the interest of building knowledge, even if they take different approaches to arrive at a similar goal.
In this best case scenario, several indicators are commonly used to assess the quality of academic journals:
Journal Impact Factor (IF): Published by Clarivate Analytics, Impact Factor measures the average number of citations received by articles in a journal within a specific year. While widely used, IF has limitations and should not be the sole criterion for judging the merit of individual research papers. The San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA) recommends evaluating articles based on their own merits rather than journal-level metrics.
Time to Publication: The duration between manuscript submission and publication can indicate the thoroughness of the peer review process. A very short turnaround time may suggest a weak or superficial review process, often seen in predatory journals.
Indexing: Inclusion in reputable databases and indexing services can signify a journal’s credibility and reach.
If everything is working as it should, these criteria can help properly assess the quality and impact of a journal or an article.
Increasingly, however, there is recognition of “predatory publishing.” Predatory publishers pose a significant threat to the integrity of academic publishing by prioritizing profit over quality, often promising rapid publication times at the expense of thorough peer review. They may do x / y / z to ensure quicker publication, and publish more or less whatever is sent to them.
These journals are characterized by misleading information, deviation from best editorial practices, lack of transparency, and aggressive solicitation of submissions. Key red flags include unverifiable impact factors, unusually short times between submission and publication, and unsolicited emails to researchers, particularly those outside the journal’s typical scope. These practices can result in the dissemination of flawed, unreliable, and straight-up incorrect or fabricated data, damaging the credibility of academic research more broadly.
Unfortunately, the distinction between predatory and non-predatory publishers is not always clear-cut. For example, some reputable publishers may charge exorbitant fees while maintaining high-quality content, whereas some disreputable journals exploit the pay-to-publish model to maximize profits, accepting subpar research to increase their revenue.
To avoid predatory journals, researchers can refer to guidelines and checklists from reputable institutions. For example, Idaho State University and Old Dominion University offer resources to help evaluate the trustworthiness of journals. Additionally, scholars themselves are taking up this crucial topic and publishing their research in academic journals, a poetic full-circle moment in a rather tumultuous landscape.
Additional Issues Facing Academic Journals
The above mechanics are part and parcel of the “industrialization” of academic publishing, but they are not the only factors affecting the quality of academic journals. Others include:
The Replication Crisis: The replication crisis, wherein many scientific studies cannot be reproduced, poses a significant challenge to the credibility of academic research. This is compounded by the “publish or perish” culture in academia, which pressures researchers to prioritize quantity over quality. Researchers have been aware of this issue for some time now, and while it remains a persistent issue, some commentators see signs for optimism — including a higher rate of retractions, perhaps brought on by awareness of the issue. The emphasis on publishing novel and positive results often leads to the neglect of replication studies and negative findings, skewing the scientific literature.
Bias Against Negative Results: Journals’ bias against publishing negative or null results further distorts the scientific record. This practice means that many scientific “dead ends” remain unpublished, creating a skewed understanding of research findings. The preference for positive results can lead to publication bias, where only studies with significant findings are published, while equally important studies with non-significant results are overlooked.
Large Language Models (LLMs): The advent of large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT introduces new ethical and practical challenges for academic publishing. There is already evidence that LLMs are being used to generate research papers, and that such papers are slipping through the cracks of the peer-review process. Journals must develop policies regarding the use of LLMs in writing and reviewing research papers to maintain integrity and prevent potential misuse. These policies should address issues such as transparency in the use of LLMs, authorship attribution, and the potential for bias in machine-generated text.
What’s An Animal Advocate To Do?
Despite their flaws, academic journals continue to play a vital role in shaping scientific and scholarly inquiry. For animal advocates, understanding the complexities of the journal industry is essential for being able to assess the quality of research, and to help the movement continue down a path of science-backed advocacy. The system has clear room for improvement, and some recent movements towards transparency and ethical publishing practices offer hope for a more equitable and reliable dissemination of knowledge.
Scholars and advocates should demand greater transparency in the publishing process and support ethical open-access initiatives. While open access has the potential to democratize knowledge, it must be implemented with caution to avoid exorbitant publication fees and compromised research quality. Advocates can push for policies that promote fair and transparent open-access models, ensuring that research is accessible without sacrificing quality.
Critical engagement with published research is crucial for maintaining scientific integrity. Scholars and advocates should actively scrutinize methodologies, highlight flawed research, and advocate for higher standards in academic publishing. This proactive approach can help identify and correct errors, promote best practices, and foster a culture of transparency and accountability in research.
By understanding the ethical and systemic challenges of academic publishing, animal advocates can better navigate the landscape, ensuring their work is built on a foundation of reliable and transparent research. This understanding is crucial for making informed, impactful contributions to the field of animal advocacy, and to actually improving our impact in meaningful ways.
This blog was co-written with Madelyn Dunning. Madelyn is a social scientist interested in research-informed policy and passionate about animal well-being. In her free time, she enjoys reading, cooking, and enjoying nature in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States.
The post The Ethics of Academic Journals: What Is An Animal Advocate To Do? appeared first on Faunalytics.
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