Agradecimientos

[Red esCTS]

Querdixs compañerxs,

Queríamos dar os las gracias por haber participado al primer encuentro conjunto de la Red EsCTS y de la red portuguesa de CTS. Nos ha dado mucha ilusión ver os a todxs, sobre todo a lxs que se han animado a participar por primera vez. Ha sido una gran oportunidad para compartir trabajo, inquietudes, ilusiones, propuestas y, ciertamente, sueños.

Queremos seguir juntxs, queremos que la Red sea cada dia más de todxs nosotrxs, y por os pedimos que os animéis a inscribirxs en el googlegroups de la Red, enviando un correo de solicitud de inscripción a Vincenz...@gmail.com. Al mismo tiempo, queremos que cada unx pueda publicar entradas y compartir información, proyectos y reflexiones en el sito web de la Red: https://redescts.wordpress.com. A tal proposito, xs pido que todxs lxs que quieran y tengan un account wordpress, contacten con Tomás (tomassanc...@gmail.com) y le pidan acceso como “author” al blog de la Red. Eso les permitirá publicar y animar el sitio web, y de paso, la Red misma. Pronto en la web de la Red, vamos a publicar fotos, documentos y materiales del encuentro, así que no se lo pierdan!

Finalmente, queremos agradecer el trabajo de organización de todo el equipo local, y sobre todo de Ana Delicado y de Luis Junqueira. Su esfuerzo gratuito y voluntario ha hecho que fuera posible este fantástico encuentro y que podamos seguir avanzando juntxs. Dicho esto, os damos las gracias otra vez y nos damos cita para el año que viene, que todo apunta a que sea en Valencia, juntos con los historiadores de la ciencia y de la medicina, en el instituto Piñero.

Obrigados

El equipo organizador

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Equipo de la Red esCTS

> Lista de correo. https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/redescts

> Blog. http://redescts.wordpress.com

> Twitter. https://twitter.com/@redcts

[Ana Maria Delgado Aleman]

Gracias a todxs por este encuentro!

Siento haber estado un poco ausente y corriendo todo el tiempo, es la situación que tengo ahora. 

Como ya se discutió durante el encuentro, hay gente a la que le parece interesante explorar la idea de un posible journal. Yo coordiné un poco esa discusión y me puse en contacto con varios editores, entre ellos Paolo Magaudda de Tecnoscienza que estuvo con nosotras por Skype, Antti Silvast (Science and Technology Studies -EASST Journal) y Tomas Moe Skjøsvold (Nordic Journal of Science and Technology Studies). Antti y Tomas prefirieron compartir sus experiencias por email. Aquí os hago un Cut&Paste por si alguien quiere continuar esa discusión.  

Que tengáis buen verano!

Ana

Hi Ana and Sara

Many apologies for the delay. Here are my answers, hoping they are helpful.

Can I add a few "disclaimers" please: 

- these are my own opinions, not endorsed or representative of the journal or its editorial board

- while you can mention the journal, and you can mention my name, can you give an overview of my responses rather than quote me? I am putting some things quite honestly below and while it would not certainly offend - or even surprise - anybody, I think it is better to be direct than go around some of the issues if you are thinking about founding a journal. So my intention is telling how things are rather than a public communication. 

Sorry for the non-edited text but I wrote everything I could think of here. 

Best, Antti

What is needed in order to launch a journal? (people, infrastructures, etc…)

 

In terms of people, depending on the size and regularity of the journal, there are number of roles to fullfill. You may need any of the following:

1. A coordinating editor that manages all of the work of below and the publishing schedule of the journal.
2. A number of regular editors that take on papers and find referees for them, coordinating the referee process. The coordinating editor will also handle this task normally.
3. Guest editors that take on special issues having proposed them, managed by one regular editor (from group 2).
4. A copy editor that will see finished papers in terms of their technical corrections.
5. A layout editor that puts the layout in order to the final PDF if you have one.
6. A web manager for maintaining your system.
7. An assistant editor that may take on some or all tasks of 4 and 6.

 

Some of the works are traditionally voluntary and non-paid-for, especially 1, 2, and 3, at least in Europe. In the States I know there are coordinating editors that are paid for. However, in many cases and that of S&TS presumably editors take these tasks for the sake of academic service to profession and some merit.

 

The tasks in 4, 6, 7 almost certainly benefit from paying a small, regular compensation because they can take on a routine, mundane character and they take up a lot of time and energy without meriting anything much academically.

 

You will probably need to pay in order to get a professional-looking layout of the articles. Some friend may do it pro bono but much more likely, you should find a publishing expert that will take on this type of job for a price perhaps for some academic interest. Again, layout is skilled and a time-consuming task so it is fair to pay something for it.

 

Infrastructure is another matter that directly relates to these tasks. I don’t know much about publishing an in-print journal. Our journal is purely electronic albeit it used to appear in paper (with financial support from the Finnish state). Electronically you will need some publishing system, minimally a website. There are some quite different options for attaining this:

• Go for a commercial publisher such as Elsevier etc. The issue is that they can have high costs and do not seem to take on journals that do not want to become their “members”.
• Go for the main open, free option: Open Journal Systems (OJS). This is what we use. It is cumbersome in many respects but that does not differ from any publishing platform I have heard about, including the commercial ones. I think the main issue is that it is made with very technical premise and sometimes less considerations for the “user”. I think this is inevitably because the creators of this system are probably not editors themselves. But after using it for a few years, we seem to be getting to know the system better and better, and the same types of problems keep appearing so we have some experience gathered. Anyway I would say prepare for a high amount of maintenance with this one. Some bodies like TSV in Finland (a confederation of Finnish scientific societies) offer OJS free to their members. This the servie that we use. Otherwise you may need to install it your own server, which costs and requires someone willing to maintain the server. The major benefit of any publishing system whether OJS or a commercial publisher is that it offers you the workflow of paper publishing which is quite essential. Some journals do it with email but with emails you end up making mistakes, and potentially a lot of consequential ones. With tens of papers that a normal journal has, some type of a publishing system IMHO is absolutely necessary.
• Install some other web publishing platform that is not meant for journals but can be used for that. I see wordpress used sometimes, e.g. Danish STS Association once used it. While it is technically close enough to a journal, I would not use it for that purpose since it requires considerably tinkering and adding on. A journal is not a blog.  

 

Then depending on how much your publishing system helps you, you will need a number of additional infrastructures. If your publishing system/site does not have the publishing workflow, you will need to maintain this somewhere else, e.g. a shared google document. You will need to write more or less emails (preferably less and do everything you can do your publishing system so there is a record). The layout person needs his/her own publishing software which may cost money unless you buy this as a service.

 

More widely you need interfacing with citation indexes, google scholar and such. I don’t know much about it since for us it happens pretty automatically and if I understood it mainly through TSV.

 

You will need to handle communications with your scientific organisation regularly, e.g. send announcements to their mailing lists, be prepared to present statistics (e.g. how many papers you accepted) regularly to them in their own meetings. Preparing for these presentations also need knowledge infrastructures, which publishing systems have.

 

What is needed in order to maintain a journal?

 

I think the persons above and the infrastructure above is needed. Infrastructures require continuous maintenance. And people need to be willing to stick on for years on end. I would say a typical cycle of being in a service to profession is something like six years, if not much more than that (10 years could be the very maximum I can think of). But that is a considerable commitment. You need to have people - in all roles above, including the possibly paid roles - that do not do too many mistakes at least regularly and that actually help you getting the journal done. If somebody “slips” out of a role and loses their motivation that can prove to be very difficult for maintaining a journal.

 

Which are the challenges and difficulties?

 

Communication and possible  misunderstandings when many people are involved, especially as most of the communication will happen online. This is probably not surprising to anyone having worked in an online community of more than a few people.

 

The publishing system can prove to be a quite constant task, although theoretically once system developers find bugs etc. it will get easier. We just had a major version update in our publishing system and that has created pretty constant work for some months. The publishing system also gives a lot in terms workflow and information security updates so I am not dismissing it, but clearly an infrastructure does not stay afloat without ongoing maintenance like STS knows.  

 

Indeed I would say any types of migrations of publishing systems are pretty challenging but I have been directly involved so this is my perspective partially.

 

Which are the costs? (economic and others)

 

As outline above - some people should be paid for their work (when they are clearly not such that are done for academic merit). The infrastructure may cost something.

 

I would say the main other cost is in the involved people’s time and energy. It takes both to edit a journal. You learn new things in so doing, but you need to find the time and energy to do it. Usually that is not from your research project: so be prerared to work in the evenings, in weekends, during holidays, or in the train (where I am typing this).

 

When I was responsible editor for a special issue (not one of its guest editors), I’d say I spent some hours of one day a week in the worst case with the journal tasks. Same when the maintenance need has been high (but I have been paid for that technical work).

 

Whether editing or maintenance (and all editors end up doing bit of both) this work is largely invisible in terms of your academic “productivity”: editing does not contribute anyway directly to publishing your own articles, books, or having funding.

 

Would you go for ‘open publishing’? or why not?

 

I am both in principle and in practice in favor of open publishing. In principle for reasons that we probably agree on (I don’t really see why anyone should take the benefit out of the voluntary work of academics) In practice because I don’t like circulating money between “subscribers” and “publishers” and if something doesn’t work this will weigh somewhat negatively in how much your colleagues trust you.

 

What kind of positive feedback does a journal generate? (on STS communities and beyond).

 

This is a very interesting question and I could write a lot about it. I have taken a number of editing type of tasks in my short career. I always expect they will generate a lot of attention to you, but the impact is often very different and difficult to foresee.

 

I would say the closest community you form around a journal is its editorial board - similar to a research network and the tight community around its coordinating committee. You end up emailing a lot and get to know them even personally. I don’t think this as such valuable for your career - after all, networks don’t hand out jobs. But it is very nice amid sometimes socially challenging and competitive academic life. I personally like doing things together, and think that works extremely well as a basis of a community: a kind of a community of practice if I am using that term correctly.

 

You do also get to know the people whose papers you edit, although they may or may not end liking you depending on the outcomes of their paper! Some people have thanked me in emails, or thanked me afterwards in person, but so far those contacts have not yet led to anything more than that.

 

You don’t really get to “network” with the referees - refereeing is anonymous for a purpose and people respect that. The referee relationship is pretty one-off especially as you are not supposed to ask the same people many times over at least regularly.

 

In general STS community, I feel your work as an editor is pretty invisible all in all. People see the journal but they don’t remember every person that makes it, and outside of acknowledgements (when authors give you that), I don’t think journal readers even know what editors exactly do - all the corrections, seeking of referees, more corrections, technical comments etc. pretty much are taken for granted by people who just read journals, as it should be.

 

I often wonder how much editing helps my own research. Maybe but just maybe it gives you an overview of where a field is at (and particularly often, what its shortcomings may be), but you often edit such different papers that your overview can be quite selective in itself. Also, you have to read and comment a lot of draft papers which is different than reading finished research publications. You learn about some new research in so doing but arguably you would learn about new research by just reading journals or going to conferences or especially by being a referee when you read stuff in much detail.

 

You have some small degree of power and control over what gets published, although your referees have more of that I would say. As editor your main possible influence comes in the start - what will be taken into editing at all - and in the end of the process - how the referee comments bear upon what you yourself see. Lot of these decisions of “control” are however not that deliberate in my view. You rather decide on what the “quality” of the paper is using whatever metrics you deem as relevant for that. That feels more isolated to that particular paper than connected to any whole.  

 

Guest editors have thanked me for journals that I was responsible for, but it is usually left at that. Because you often have no institutional connection between people you edit/help guest edit, it requires an extra step if you want to draw on that to form a research community or something like that. In fact, in my impression the main nice parts of journal editing is precisely is that it is not tied to any particular academic institution, and I would like to respect that division between science as international and science as the life of an institution.

 

People whose papers I have not edited certainly don’t come and talk to me in conferences or others. I cannot really remember any case of receiving positive feedback in generic from anyone. I had some very good time along with the editorial board, and they have acknowledged my work very directly (I take this as a big merit as these are highly established scholars in my view especially relative to myself), and some authors have sometimes came and thanked me, for which I am very grateful. But that reveals that it is not the rule to get lots of positive feedback for doing a journal.

I think you should do a journal if you like it and are good at that type of work - this is a very pragmatic notion of skill in that people like doing things that are successful. So if you like reading and commenting new texts in detail and giving that as feedback to authors, writing lots of emails in so doing, using practically everything you know because the situations of editing are always different especially when you start, seeking referees and seeking up institutions that do relevant research, and developing rules of thumb of how authors and referees think, and I do like all of these tasks very much, then I recommend you do found a journal as soon as you can notwithstanding the practical difficulties.

 

But take this with a grain of salt too. If you are an early-career researcher and feel the pressure to publish articles, or a book, and get your first independent fundings which will allow you to perhaps eventually get a permanent job, then do consider whether you can add even more complexity to your life by doing a journal. It will eat up your time and lots of energy, you will not be thanked for the majority of the work, and you will have to tread carefully with your sponsors so they don’t think you are using work time to do your own stuff. I would say some of my best experiences in academia have been through journal editing - especially because it allows you to talk to other academics who will tell you how research actually works, and you will be very close to that pragmatic plane of research happening almost in realtime. So in many ways, editing a journal feels like what proper scholarly work should be at least as far as I understand that concept. But I would be dishonest if I told that the amount of volunteering I have done - as an early-career researcher - has really consistently and always helped me progress in my academic career.

Antti Silvast
Research Fellow

Science, Technology and Innovation Studies

School of Social and Political Science

University of Edinburgh

Editor, Science & Technology Studies, official journal of EASST

Tomas from the Nordic Journal of Science and Technology Studies: 

Dear Ana,

It just struck me like a lightening bolt that I had completely forgotten about this. I had a little too much on my plate before leaving last week, and I have no other excuse than this slipping, I am terribly sorry. Anyways, I will try to answer now - I really hope it might be of some use, even though I realize it comes too late. I hope your discussions have been fruitful none the less!

What is needed to launch the journal:

Actually, surprisingly little. There needs to be some dedicated people involved. I was not part of the start-up here in Norway, but I have been told this was the main ingredient. People who could use their networks, mobilize authors, reviewers and so on. Beyond that, there is the need for some web-competence and a domain. We also used some very competent graphics people in order to make it nice to look at. We only print online, so no need for any physical press.

What is needed to maintain the journal:

This is more tricky I guess. We published our first issue in 2013. When the founding editor did not want to do it any more, it could have been over, but we have been able to keep it up. It would help with a network of backers such as in your case. We are more ad-hoc, not formally attached to any network/organization. But we receive a steady flow (though not many!) of papers.

Challenges/difficulties:

keeping up momentum is tough. It is also sometimes difficult to find reviewers, when writing from a small/indie-journal. We would also like to see more papers coming in, now it is just enough to get by.

Costs:

Not much. Some for graphics, web etc in our case, and we do pay for proper language washing. There are some costs in terms of work, because this is unpaid workload on top of everyone's hectic lives.

Open publishing:

Definently, see no reason why not, as long as one does peer review etc. rigorusly.

Positive feedback:

quite alot. Both from within STS-communities (particularly norwegian and nordic, but also some from beyond). It also gives us much credibility with our department and faculty who are extremely happy to host us.

Again, so sorry to not have sent you this earlier. It is also short and crude, but hope it can give some modest insights

Tomas