Publication is one of the core tasks in the professional lives of academics, whether it as editors, authors, or readers. In the current atmosphere of impact factors and high stakes funding, publication is imperative for our survival as teachers and researchers. It is both an intellectual concern, and also hands-on practical work. Surviving “in times of change” clearly applies to publishing over last decade, since the ACE conference series first began. However, how does one not only survive, but thrive, amidst the uncertainties and ever mounting pressures? If ethics are the “moral principles that govern a person's behaviour or the conducting of an activity,” (Oxford Dictionaries) then a re-examination of the ethics of publishing, particularly in an era of open-access and a plethora of social networking sites for researchers to share their work, should help to lead us towards better relationships amongst all concerned: researchers, writers, editors, publishers, librarians, tenure and hiring committees, the humble reader, and even the students in our charge.
The panel will address the ethical implications of a range of issues in publication including:
- the increasing demand by funding bodies for findings to be reported via open access;
- the dilemma of authors paying for open access publication if this is not funded by institutions or funding bodies;
- the impact factor push and publishing in ‘lower ranked’ as opposed to ‘higher ranked’ journals;
- the dilemma of publishing in conference proceedings versus journal articles;
- repeating data across articles;
- supporting early career academics to publish versus attracting high ranking journal articles;
- multiple submissions;
- submitting unchanged papers rejected from other journals;
- new models of peer review and how they address older ethical conflicts but potentially create new ones (e.g., pre-prints and post-publication peer review);
- motivations to research and publish: who really benefits?
This will be a wide-ranging and deep dive into the questions facing the world of academic publishing.
