Farewell Warwick Blogs

We were sorry to hear this week, that Warwick blogs, long the host of the Exchanges blog is to shutter its doors at the end of March. You can probably tell that from the banner above. While we've perhaps not had the highest visibility on the platform, it has been valuable to be based here on an institutional resource. Sadly, all good things come to an end and we are migrating to our new site.[2]

While I'm still in the process of setting it up [1] you might want to bookmark our new address:

https://exchangesdiscourse.wordpress.com/

We hope to see you there on the new Exchanges Editorial Discourses blog!

---

Endnotes

[1] As of writing, 5th March 2025, the site isn't live to view. Hopefully I'll be launching it in the next few days!

[2] I hope to bring all our old content along for the ride, although currently importing this seems to be slow...

Gareth Johnson : 05 Mar 2025 10:29 |  Tags: Closing Down End Final Post |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

IAC Visit 2025 Brings a Chance for Exchanges’ Moment in the Spotlight

Writing about web page https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/cross_fac/ias/about/community/advisoryboard/

A chance to share what Exchanges does with senior academics, is something that is always worth getting excited about.

Yesterday, I had the opportunity to present and discuss the Exchanges journal with the Institute’s International Advisory Committee (IAC), chaired by the esteemed Sir Vince Cable. As long-term readers will be aware, taking any opportunity to talk about publishing and what we do at Exchanges, is something I love to do. One of my mantras has long been ‘promote it: anywhere, anytime’ and this occasion certainly met those criteria. While I ended up having a somewhat reduced slot due to schedules being jiggled at the last minute, hopefully I gave the gathered dignitaries and members of the professoriate a fair accounting of what we do and why. Not to mention a little taste of what we hope for the future.

Part of the value of events like this to myself, and the journal, are that they permit a liminal space within which we can take stock, reflect and evaluate what has been achieved. For me, the most surprising little metric I found when drawing together my talk was realising the scale of how many editors who’ve passed through our doors during my (almost) seven years in office. A key part of our mission has long been not simply focussed on publishing, but also offering a developmental experience to early career scholars. To find how, as of writing, around 100 academics have been involved as my Board and associate editors since I started in 2018 is quite simply – flabbergasting! That is >quite< the community of practice we’ve helped enable![1]

It is my fervent hope that each of them carries a little bit of their Exchanges experience, and the collaborative, altruistic and empowering ethos the title operates under through into their professional lives. I do know from the ongoing ethnographic interviews I conduct as individuals depart our team how much past editors have learned from and value their experiences with us. That we’ve almost hit that magic century of past participants is one of those elements I think we’ll be celebrating later this year.

And in a small way, I hope the members of the IAC will share tales of our exploits further afield too – word of mouth and personal recommendations do play such a key part in people coming to publish with us!

---

Endnotes

[1] For the record: 58 previous editors and associate editors, and 47 currently working on the title (!). Over a hundred. Wow. All since 2018, when I took over!

Gareth Johnson : 12 Feb 2025 11:06 |  Tags: 2025 Alumni Editorial Iac Ias Programme Visitation |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Early–Stage Researchers Publishing Workshop – February 2025 Edition

Another round of discussions with early career scholars focuses in on generative AI and peer-review practices within scholarly publishing.

Yesterday was the latest iteration of the Leadership and Development Early Stage Researchers Publishing Workshop. As long-time readers will be aware, this is a session I’ve been contributing to for a good three years now, and is facilitated by the wonderful Dr Harriet Richmond. While the groups of delegates are often small, because this session is part four of a five week course, it means there’s always a strong exiting bond of collegiality between the delegates already. Certainly, this makes it easier to spark off some conversations around publishing, editing and reviewing, without the usual ‘getting to know you’ ice breakers needed for one off events. There’s also always a good chance for myself and Harriet to have some valuable explorations around the theme between ourselves, while the delegates are off in a separate room working on a task. A little bit of bonus professional development and awareness raising, as well as helping to ensure a thread of bespoke, currency runs throughout the later delegate discussions.

Each time I’ve spoken at these sessions I’ve evolved the slides and the timbre of what I have to share, and yesterday was certainly no different. In my preparation, I found myself cutting some old favourites, and reworking some of the groupwork exercises I post too. Hopefully, that ensures a better relevancy for the delegates, as well as iteratively streamlining and focusing what I have to talk about. Given, most of what I’m talking about is drawn directly from Exchanges’ experiences, this helps make the session as grounded in practice as possible. Does it give a comprehensive view of the publishing domain? Far from it, and in many cases I suspect we opened up more questions than offering answers. Although, as I would often argue, that’s how publishing generally works: there are few cut and dried answers. If the delegates are thinking and reflecting a little bit more about how and where they place their next article, or even the publishers and journals they’re going to work with in the future – then I’ve done my job!

Interestingly, Harriet, the delegates and I got into a long back and forth concerning the impact of AI (generative, large language models: let’s get the language right here!) and it was fascinating to see the split of opinions. I think I remain, cautiously sceptical but concerned on its wider impact on publishing – a topic explored in last year’s podcast with Jonathan Vickery.[1] Yet, after yesterday I think it was really useful to find that the delegates themselves are keeping a watchful, modestly apprehensive but curious eye on how the scene develops. Maybe this tech bubble will burst, or maybe a few years from now academic publishing – and associated esteem and career markers – are going to look a whole lot different to the landscape today.

One other topic that really came to the fore during my talk and discussions was the art/science/practice of reviewing. If you’ve listened to our podcast, you’ll know it’s particular fascination for me both professionally and personally. I’ve also long recognised it’s a rather under-developed skills area for many early career scholars, and would love to run some more training in this domain. Finding the time, the will and the way: hah! That’s always the challenge, but I think from what I presented yesterday, and the discussions we had around it, there’s a good framework for a healthy couple of hours exploring the topic. Maybe it’s something I’ll have the chance to explore more later this year, as the IAS reexplores what and how it supports local scholars from March onwards.

As always, my grateful thanks to Harriet for the invite to participate once again, and the wonderful delegates for a spirited exchange around publishing! Certainly the session was a highlight of my working week.

---

[1] Listen in at: https://open.spotify.com/episode/7uRFdX9RVPgzwEWCzNNdgx

Gareth Johnson : 06 Feb 2025 09:33 |  Tags: AI Career Development Early Generative Peer-Review Researchers Reviewing Skills Stage Workshop |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

New Episode: It’s all getting a bit Theoryish in here

Writing about web page https://exchanges.warwick.ac.uk/index.php/exchanges/podcast

The first podcast episode of the new year, brings a engaging discussion about the how, why and where of academic podcasting for early career researchers.

It’s a brand-new year, which means it’s time for a whole new season of the Exchanges Discourse podcast, focusing in as ever on the early career researcher experience. For our first episode of the year, I thought we’d have something a little bit different, as I am beyond thrilled to talk with the hosts of the incredibly successful academic podcast ⁠Theoryish⁠ – Hannah Ayres and Paola Medina-Gonzalez (University of Warwick). Maybe they can share the secrets of their success and help the Exchanges Discourse podcast gain a few more listeners, eh?

In what is undoubtably a wonderfully lively and free-wheeling exchange, the pair share the secrets and inspirations behind a personal quest for knowledge, which in turn became a whole new way to engage and share a love of academic theory. Highlighting the power of audio as a cost effective yet impactful way to engage with theory and a wider academic community, we explore elements of how podcasts fit into the realm of valuable academic outputs. Along the way, Hannah and Paola offer some candid insights and perceptions and in particular, explore just what podcasting means to them as new professionals. Interestingly, they explain how what began as a desire to engage with the literature more, has become something integral to their academic identities and future career dimensions.

Throughout, Paola and Hannah also graciously offer a range of tips and inspirations to other aspiring academics and research students looking to create and capture their own conversations within the podcast format. You can be sure we’ll be taking some of these to heart as we plot out the new episodes of the Exchanges Discourse podcast this coming year!

• Listen in here: https://open.spotify.com/episode/1EMrxKBqjH4xBOyJ9HZrwy?si=QqYHiCAvQVupxPY9F7K83g[34:54]

And as always for more on the podcast, or if you have any comments – use the box below or get in touch with us at the journal.

Gareth Johnson : 29 Jan 2025 15:44 |  Tags: Academic Communication Episode New Podcast Theoryish |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

How to Get Published – 2025 Edition

Writing about web page https://files.warwick.ac.uk/garethjohnson/files/Workshops/Arts+Jan+2025+How+to+Get+Published-GJJ.pdf

The Chief Editor provides some advice for early career scholars on the art and science of getting published.

Today I was an invited speaker at an event in our Arts Faculty on the topic of How to Get Published. Aside from the obvious answer – submit to Exchanges – it was a very enjoyable few hours talking to and with the delegates about this topic. Having run Exchanges for almost 7 years now, and with my past career in publishing and research beforehand, it’s a topic about which I’ve a lot to say. Perhaps a little too much – as in all things post hoc one or two of my slides could have benefitted from some judicious pruning. Have a look for yourself here:

• https://files.warwick.ac.uk/garethjohnson/files/Workshops/Arts+Jan+2025+How+to+Get+Published-GJJ.pdf

It was lovely to be asked to contribute – talking to our Warwick researchers about Exchanges is always something that’s a pleasure to do – it was even more useful to hear from the various other speakers about their thoughts, experiences and opportunities. There is, undoubtedly, always something new to learn. Interesting small debate at the end about AI and publishing ethics – a topic which I know is a hot one in publishing [1] – and I suspect that could have filled the two hours as well.

My thanks to CADRE and the Arts Faculty for asking me to participate, and especially to the audience for listening patiently and even laughing at a few of my jokes!

---

Endnotes

[1] Pick up on some of those thoughts in our recent podcast with Jonathan Vickery.

Gareth Johnson : 21 Jan 2025 13:29 |  Tags: Advice Discussions Ecr Pgr Publishing Workshop |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

2024 Retrospective: Geographic Access

Where are Exchanges readers based around the globe, and how many of them were accessing the journal in 2024? For the first time, we can share this insight with you.

Having looked at the headline stats for 2024 in terms of most accessed articles, issues and podcast episodes, I’m turning today to a new metric: end-user location. Information about where people are based in the world, isn’t information OJS (the Exchanges platform) has aggregated for us before, so I’m rather excited to be able to reveal it. Not least, because it’s the first time I’ve been able to get a genuine insight into where our readers are coming from, which offers a suggestion as to where we need to perhaps strengthen our outreach and engagement.[1] The data is based – to the best of my knowledge – on those people accessing the articles, based on unique identifiers. Hence, the same person accessing the journal from the same location (IP address) will be counted only the once. So, that means we are recording both those who visit an article’s landing page to read the abstract as well as those downloading the full article to read.[2]

As a headline, there were accesses last year from 155 countries, which in of itself is an interesting factoid.[3] In terms of absolute numbers, for around a third of countries accesses were in the single digits, representing a solitary individual, accessing an article or abstract once. A singular, but welcome measure of interest – perhaps they went on to cite that article! However, from here the access numbers steadily climb until we’re into the hundreds and thousands of unique accesses needed to appear within the top 10 locations. Rather than share the full table here, which I suspect would make for tedious blog entry and be of marginal interest to anyone who’s not me, what I’ll present here are the top 10 countries accessing us. I’ve included an indication for each of the percentage of the total unique accesses each region represents of our total.

Rank – Country – Percentage

Rank*	Country	Percentage of Total Accesses
1	United Kingdom	22.26%
2	United States	19.82%
3	China	11.42%
4	India	5.87%
5	Germany	3.56%
6	Netherlands	2.92%
7	Canada	2.89%
8	Ireland	2.33%
9	Russian Federation	2.08%
10	Indonesia	1.90%

*out of 155

The table therefore represents ~75% of all our readers in 2024 – so what does this tell us then about them? Well, finding out more information on our readership has been a topic I’ve been both curious about and frustrated in my efforts to uncover. So, you can understand my mild delight in finally having some concrete, if solely indicative, data to consider.

Given our UK base of operations, Editorial Board composition and relative ‘outreach’ in recent years, I am not in the least bit surprised that the UK is the single biggest reader of our title.[4] I am though thrilled to see the US comes in close behind, although the relative larger population of this country undoubtedly accounts for the level of access to a degree. Likewise in third and fourth, China and India’s burgeoning population and research community undoubtably contributes to their degree of interest in us. Were I to normalise the figures by population sizes of each country, then perhaps a very different ‘top 10’ would emerge![5]

Europe is also strongly represented in the top 10 with Germany, Netherlands and Ireland making their appearances – although you’ll note by now the relative levels of access are starting to fall, with eighth placed Ireland only representing a tenth of the accesses in the UK. Canada and Russia make appearances too, although given our (mostly) shared language with the former, that accesses are not higher is a pity. Tail End Charlie of our table is Indonesia, possibly the one location I was surprised to see riding so high. Other more Anglophone regions of the globe are much further down the chart, indicating a relative invisibility in this regions. Perhaps though, there’s been some especially relevant, exciting or positive work to scholars within Indonesia appearing in our pages – but I’d be darned if I could point my finger to what it is! Maybe blog readers can make suggestions? [6]

So, this is, on reflection all broadly interesting stuff to myself as an editor. Not too many surprises with global superpowers and large populations well represented. Scouring further down the table though I am spotting those countries with whom Warwick has partnerships who we might look towards to gain a greater visibility and readership. Certainly, this is all information I’ll be continuing to reflect on as we revisit, expand and relaunch our marketing and outreach efforts over 2025.

If anyone is curious as to where their country appears in this list – leave me a comment or drop me a line, I’ll only be to happy to share.

---

Endnotes

[1] Having checked it appears there’s no data recorded for 2023. This leads me to suspect that the information for 2024 might not represent the entire year, but only from the point at which this new ‘feature’ was turned on. This might be September, when our last major update occurred, it might be earlier in the year – I’ve no way of telling. Sadly, the IT workings behind the scenes aren’t something I’m party to, so this is all an educated assumption. Four months however, is still a usefully representative sample to use, even if the absolute figures for this year (2025) will not be directly comparable in 12 months.

[2] Yes, if they were using a VPN, this probably skews the stats. Some people living in, certain less ‘informationally free’ regimes are undoubtedly going to appear as though they are coming from elsewhere. It’s an imperfect, indicative rather than absolute metric at best.

[3] ‘Countries’ being defined by OJS’s ISO based dataset. I’m not going to get into the geopolitics of what is/isn’t defined as a country here – given the answer can be problematic even for those well versed in geography! Yes, there were one or two regions in the list that made my eyebrows rise. The fact that Wales was listed as an ‘unknown’ subregion of the UK, also baffled (and slightly annoyed) me!

[4] If you’re interested, from the more granular data the top three UK locations to access us are Long, London (Shadwell) and bringing up the rear, Kenilworth (likely meaning the University of Warwick itself).

[5] Sadly, the realpolitik of available time against work demands precludes me continuing this line of thought. Especially since while it would be interesting, I am unsure as to what further value it would offer at this time. Never mind, should it become important down the line – I’ve got the data to hand now for future analysis.

[6] By contrast I strongly suspect the forthcoming Sustainability Culture special issue will be of particular interest and relevance to Indonesia and scholars in this region of the world, so maybe they’ll climb the charts in 2025?

Gareth Johnson : 15 Jan 2025 10:04 |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

2024 Retrospective: Most Downloaded Articles

Writing about web page https://exchanges.warwick.ac.uk/index.php/exchanges/issue/archive

Looking back to the most downloaded articles published in Exchanges in the past year, along with a special focus on those first published in 2024. Small surprises and recurring old friends abound.

Following on my previous two posts looking at popular issues and podcast episodes, today my attention turns to the subject probably of most interest to our readers: the most popular articles. 2024 was a halcyon year for Exchanges as we published the most articles in our 12 year history. 67 articles across nearly 1,000 pages – quite an accomplishment for the authors and editorial team members! Yet, currency doesn’t always equate with immediacy of academic interest, and as you’ll see from the chart below, the most popular articles with our readers last year demonstrate the longevity of value readers ascribe to pieces appearing in our pages.[1]

Position	Author	Title	Volume	Year	Type	2023 Rank
1	Pavel Fedotov	Critical Analysis of the Electric Vehicle Industry: Five forces and strategic action fields	10(1)	2022	Article	#1
2	Eve Benhamou	From the Advent of Multiculturalism to the Elision of Race: The Representation of Race Relations in Disney Animated Features (1995-2009)	2(1)	2014	Critical Reflection	#5
3	Catherine Price et al.	Multispecies, More-Than-Human, Nonhuman, Other-Than-Human: Reimagining idioms of animacy in an age of planetary unmaking	10(2)	2023	Conversation	#7
4	Desmond Bellamy	A 'horrid way of feeding': Pervasive, aggressive, repulsive cannibalism	7(3)	2020	Review Article	New Entry
5	Ursula de Leeuw	A kiss is the beginning of cannibalism': Julia Ducournau’s Raw and Bataillean Horror	7(2)	2020	Article	#4
6	Simon Varwell	A Literature Review of Arnstein’s Ladder of Citizen Participation: Lessons for contemporary student engagement	10(1)	2022	Article	#6
7	Rita Augestad Knudsen	Mental Health Exemptions to Criminal Responsibility: Between law, medicine, politics and security	11(2)	2024	Article	New Entry
8	Paul Wilson	Academic Fraud: Solving the Crisis in Modern Academia	7(3)	2020	Article	New Entry
9	Raad Khair Allah	The Use of Miro in Teaching Practice	10(3)	2023	Criticial Reflection	New Entry
10	Ann Haughton	Myths of Male Same-Sex Love in the Art of the Italian Renaissance	3(1)	2015	Article	New Entry

As is often the way with these charts, there are always some surprises. However, I was not surprised to see Pavel Fedotov’s article atop the list for the second year in a row. I’ve been periodically glancing at the download statistics through the year, and this paper has continued to show an almost relentless level of interest from our readership. No doubt the twin focus on manufacturing and the electric vehicle industry has a strong, and salient, resonance with researchers globally. If anyone wanted to write a follow-up, counterpoint or companion article, I suspect you’d benefit from a similar degree of interest. Just a suggestion, mind you.

Taking a more holistic view, I am pleased looking across the whole chart to spot that we have a good mix of old favourites and new entries appearing in the top 10 downloads. I am, personally, especially delighted to spot one article from 2024 making the cut as well, with Rita Augestad Knudsen’s article Mental Health Exemptions to Criminal Responsibility popping up in the number 7 position. My congratulations to Rita for authoring a paper with such an immediate interest across our readership – and if you’ve not read it yet, I certainly commend it to you! It’s a gripping and inciteful piece of work, and certainly a personal favourite of mine from last year.

Interestingly, while we do still have interest in articles way back to Exchanges’ early days, it is noticeable that 8 out of the top 10 come from pieces published since 2020 – what might be described as the ‘relatively recent’ period [2]. While, as a humanities scholar I do like to acknowledge the long tail of interest in research knowledge in my own domain, it is clear readers have a particular interest in our more recent publications. Glancing back at last year’s top 10, this currency trend was, if anything, even more pronounced in 2024! As I noted in the most popular issues post, interest in whole volumes of Exchanges prior to 2016 is certainly diminishing too. Make of this what you will, and if you’ve any thoughts on this or the value of continued archival access to ‘older’ materials – let me know in the comments below.

Curiously, the most venerable article in the chart, Eve Benhamou’s From the Advent of Multiculturalism to the Elision of Race, hails from Vol 2(1) of the journal, back in late 2014. I am curious if the topic or contents of the paper alone are responsible for the continued interest? I note this, due to the certain mouse-centric global media goliath mentioned in the article’s subtitle. Benhamou’s article is a frequent entrant in our top 10 annual lists, and hence I have long been intrigued to know if garners readers due to its scholarly contents or from a more casual ‘fan audience’? While I doubt I’ll ever know the answer to this – available metrics do little to clarify it further – if you happen to be one of this paper’s many readers last year, drop me a line and let me know why you love it so much.

Most Popular Article in Each New 2024 Issue

Now, the above chart represents the most popular articles in 2024 across all 30 volumes of the journal published since 2013. But what about the most recent four issues we published in 2024? Which article has had the standout performance in each of these, seems a salient companion question to ask. Curiously this was a statistic which took more digging than I anticipated [3], but after half an hour of data retrieval, number crunching and cross checking to make sure I’d not missed anyone out – I am able to reveal which are the most popular items in each of 2024’s issues of Exchanges.

Volume	Author	Title	Type
11.2 (Spring)	Rita Augestad Knudsen	Mental Health Exemptions to Criminal Responsibility: Between law, medicine, politics and security	Article
11.3 (Research Culture)	Jemina Napier et al.,	Empowering a Global Community Through Co-Production of a Connected University Research Culture	Critical Reflection
11.4 (MRC@50)	Setara Pracha	Moving on from Manderley	Critical Reflection
12.1 (Autumn)	Simon Gansinger	Max Horkheimer on Law's Force of Resistance	Critical Reflection

Okay. Given Rita Augestad Knudsen’s article Mental Health Exemptions to Criminal Responsibility appears in our top 10 overall above there is no surprise that it was also the most popular article in our Spring (Vol 11.2, April) issue. As I’ve already noted, it was a worthy top-dog. Moving on though, to the next issue, our packed Research Culture special (Vol 11.3, August), there was plenty of competition among the 30+ articles within its pages. Curiously, it’s also the article Empowering a Global Community Through Co-Production of a Connected University Research Culture which appears right at the end of the volume, from Jemina Napier et al, which generated the most interest.[4] Glad to see those articles I schedule in the latter parts of the journal still can receive such great attention from the readership.

Now, I was especially curious to see which article would prove the most popular in our Modern Records Centre @ 50 special issue (Vol 11.4, September). I had some thoughts, but I couldn’t say for sure if my favourites were likely to be the same ones which resonated most strongly with the readership. It turns out, actually by a not inconsiderable margin, that Setara Pracha’s article was the winner here. I do recall spending ages finding the right image to accompany its entry in the table of contents, so am delighted that lots of our readers decided to spend some time with Moving on from Manderley. Finally, turning to our final issue of the year (Vol 12.1, October) and we find Simon Gansigner’s intriguing piece concerning Max Horkheimer on Law's Force of Resistance makes the cut. This is a great scholarly piece, and I am delighted to see it receiving such a strong reception from the readers too.

Well done to all the authors appearing in both these lists – and thank you especially to those who contributed to our 2024 publications!

---

So, there you go, the most popular articles last year across our whole back-catalogue, alongside those new champions emerging fresh-faced from last year’s new issues. Are you as devastated as I am, that none of the editorials made the cut?[5] Is your favourite article among them, or was something else we published last year your genuine #1 for 2024?

As always, let me know your thoughts in the comments below.

---

Endnotes

[1] All values are for downloads of the PDF or HTML version of each article, ignoring people who only accessed each article’s landing page. For an access date range 1^st January to 31^st December 2024, (GMT).

[2] 5 of these are from the ‘post pandemic’ era of 2022-2024 as well.

[3] As I’ve said before, OJS’ native analytical tools are not well configured for real world use. In fact a number of the tools seem to do nothing useful at all! It’s a genuine, and ongoing, frustration in terms of producing rapid or real-time metrics.

[4] Clearly our readers diligently do scan through the entire contents page to the very end! Either that, or the author has well promoted the piece too. We find those authors who share their articles over social media – especially Linked.In, do seem to get increased traction and readership over those that don’t.

[5] Actually, if any of my editorials had appeared in either list I would have been both personally flabbergasted and mildly shocked that the richer content in the actual articles hadn’t gained as much attention!

Gareth Johnson : 09 Jan 2025 10:06 |  Tags: 2024 Articles Downloaded Hot List Most Popular Retrospective |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

2024 Retrospective: Most Streamed Podcast Episodes

Writing about web page https://exchanges.warwick.ac.uk/index.php/exchanges/podcast

With over a dozen episodes to enjoy last year, which podcast episode of the Exchanges Discourse found the most favour with our audience? A surprise or two awaits.

Following on from yesterday’s article, today I’m looking back at the episodes of the Exchanges Discourse Podcast published last year. This means we’re considering all 14 episodes recorded and released to on our Spotify home over 2024.[1] Now, as with all things, those episodes which appeared earlier in the year have a certain advantage over others in the ratings, as there’s more time for them to be picked up by listeners than those appearing towards the end of 2024. However, as you’ll see from the chart below – primacy of release doesn’t always guarantee high ratings!

Position	Episode	Listen	Duration
1	Biochar, Artificial Pollination & Multispecies Justice: In Conversation with Catherine Price	Play	25m24s
2	Energy Poetry One: Harnessing the Wind	Play	29m19s
3	Voices of Transnational Girlhood(s) on Identity, Gender, and Culture: In Conversation with Simona Di Martino	Play	22m23s
4=	Researcher Vulnerability and Physical Impacts: In Conversation with Mia-Marie Hammarlin⁠	Play	39m30s
4=	Postdisciplinarity, Ontologies & Futures: In Conversation with Liam Greenacre	Play	12m58s

So, what was our number 1, most listened to episode for 2024? Well, it’s perhaps no surprise that returning podcast guest Catherine Price’s chat around Biochar and Multispecies released back in January last year is at the top of the heap! Although, while it’s early release will have helped, a lot of its popularity will also be due to Catherine being such a charming and informative guest, making the episode is an especially enjoyable listen. What is surprising though is that as we move down to the number 2 position we find our guest podcast from our poetic Irish colleagues on Harnessing the Wind. As this episode only came along at the end of November, it’s managed to leapfrog past many other longer released episodes to come up the chart quite rapidly. No doubt as 2025 moves along, I wouldn’t be surprised it we weren’t looking at a future all-time top-rated episode here! [2]

Another semi-guest episode comes in at number 3, with my chat with Simona Di Martino on Voices of Transnational Girlhood and Identity. Simona isn’t talking about an article in Exchanges [3], but as one of our former IAS fellows it was still a delight to have Simona on. Clearly looking at the episodes statistics that’s an opinion with which our listening audience agrees. Bringing up the bottom two places of our top five are two jointly fourth placed episodes from Mia-Marie Hammarlin and Liam Greenacre. Liam’s episode, on Postdisciplinarity, has the advantage of being one of those recorded earlier in 2024, so has gained in listeners over the year. By contrast, Swedish academic Mia-Marie’s episode – a timely piece on researcher vulnerability - was only released in early December. I suspect like our energy poetry episode above, this will be another discussion whose ratings will continue to climb over the coming months. I enjoyed both of these chats, but especially my wide-ranging discussions with Mia-Marie, possibly because of the closeness of our own disciplinary alignments.[4]

Incidentally, while it came out in late 2023 and so isn’t appearing in this chart, our highest overall rated episode – of all time – are my discussions with Moroccan scholar, scientist and author Intissar Haddiya. Wonderful to see how popular this one continues to be with our audiences, especially as it was one of the more unusual episodes with Intissar being the subject rather than the author of an article in Exchanges! Maybe we should record more of these kind of episodes – what do you think?

So, there you have it, the highlights of last year’s podcast episodes. Was your favourite episode among them? Were there other lower rated episodes that inspired you instead? And more importantly, as I’m in the process of scheduling the first recordings for 2025 – who should we interview next?

As always, let me know your thoughts in the comments below.

---

Endnotes

[1] And available on other platforms too.

[2] And we’ll be looking forward to their next submission in the coming weeks for this series too.

[3] More’s the pity, as her work is in a fascinating and revelatory area.

[4] I am, after all, allowed these tiny biases.

Gareth Johnson : 08 Jan 2025 09:50 |  Tags: 2024 Audio Podcast Popular Researchers Retrospective Statistics |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

2024 Retrospective: Most Popular Issue

Writing about web page https://exchanges.warwick.ac.uk/index.php/exchanges/issue/archive

Which of our 30 published issues had the most whole-issue downloads during 2024? Some of the results may surprise you – they did us!

As has been our long tradition at the start of a new year, I like to look back over the past 12 months at some of the statistics for the most popular items appearing in Exchanges as well as podcast listener levels too. This year thanks to an OJS system reporting update, I’m also able to share for the first time, which were the most popular whole issues of the journal – this is in terms of the number of downloads of entire issues.[1] Readers will probably know it is possible to download the entire contents of each Exchanges issue as a single file, and this is what we’re tracking. When it comes to individual articles, I’ll be sharing those insights in a future post in the coming days.

Position	Volume	Title	Year
1	11 (3)	Special Issue: Research Culture '24	2024
2	9 (3)	Special Issue: The Lonely Nerd	2022
3	11(2)	Spring 2024	2024
4	5(2)	Spring 2018	2018
5	11(1)	Autumn 2023	2023

At a glance, it is (perhaps) no surprise how our glorious Research Culture ‘24 special issue (vol 11.3) is riding high – given the vast size of the issue and wide range of authors and topics appearing in that issue. If anything, I would have been surprised NOT to have seen this issue atop our chart, and its appearance is a credit to everyone involved in its creation.[2] I am more surprised but still delighted to see another of our special issues, vol 9.3 The Lonely Nerd appearing close behind in the number 2 position. Gratifying to see a few years on that this fascinating collection of articles is still resonating with our readership, as it did at the time of publication too. The third position is taken by last year’s regular spring issue (vol 11.2), which is pleasing to see, although doubtlessly it has beaten out the other issues published last year simply due to having had the longest stretch of time post-publication to make an impression! [3]

Now, the fourth place is another little surprise, as it’s vol 5.2 – the very first issue with myself as Chief Editor, which is oddly slightly gratifying. I don’t recall this one being especially impactful,[4] but clearly it remains resonate with the readership 7 years on. Now, that is quite an impressive legacy! Finally, in our top 5 chart it is another of our recent issues, as 2023’s closing volume 11.1 arrives in a most commendable fifth place. This was our 10^th birthday issue, as you might recall. While I would love to assume that its celebratory and retrospective contents have helped its continuing traction with readers, I strongly suspect it’s the enduring quality of the articles which provided any uplift!

And the wooden spoon? Someone always has to be last, and unsurprisingly it’s the very first issue of Exchanges (vol 1.1) from back in 2013. Along with a number of issues from 2017 and older, this publication scored no actual downloads of full issues last year – although individual articles still saw interest. How did it come last when there are other without whole issue downloads? Well, that’s because I can also track visitors to each journal issue’s landing page too, on top of downloads. Among these, poor old vol 1.1 has the lowest overall figure, which given it was our first issue all those years ago, is something which doesn’t come as a massive surprise to me.

Anyway, that’s your guide to the hottest issues of last year – which one was your favourite? Let me know! See you in the next post to look at most popular podcast episodes!

Endnotes

[1] There is, no doubt, a more sophisticated analysis which can be done here – normalising the downloads against the number of total articles.

[2] It has around 40% more downloads than the issue in second place. A worthy winner.

[3] For the record the other issues of 2024 - vol 11.4 (MRC) was in sixth, and vol 12.1 (October ’24) in 15^th, out of 30 issues overall.

[4] I mostly remember the scramble to get it published as I frantically worked through the first month or two of my new post.

Gareth Johnson : 07 Jan 2025 11:14 |  Tags: 2024 Downloads Issues Retrospective Statistics Whole |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

New Episode: Music, Philosophy & the Art of Public Engagement

Writing about web page https://exchanges.warwick.ac.uk/index.php/exchanges/podcast

The final podcast of 2025 brings a positive note to the art and science of academic public engagement.

Yes, it is our final episode of the Exchanges Discourse 2024, and we’re going out on an extremely positive note. In this episode I talk with recent Exchanges author Giulia Lorenzi (University of Warwick). We talk through her career as a philosopher and musical scholar, with a particular attention on her paper dealing with public engagement with academic research. A topic you can be sure is near to the heart of many academic editors such as myself.

Listen in here:https://open.spotify.com/episode/3HeLf9SdLS74qyFdtinRYX

In her paper, ‘Musical Reflections’: An experience with public engagement (Vol 12.1) Giulia explored the challenges and inspirations which arise when scholars seek to engage disparate members of the public with academic research and discourse. Far from meeting disinterest or disengagement, Guilia discovered that she had an amazingly positive experience, which in part helped to reinvigorate the joy of research for her. Certainly, it is an experience Giulia notes that she wishes more academics could experience or have such positive encounters with the public.

As has been our long tradition, we also chat about her publishing experiences with other journals, and especially the impact that editor and reviewer comments can have authors – for better or for worse. We close out our discussions with some advice for other newer authors in the early career and post graduate researcher community too.

If you want to skip to the key parts of the episode – here’s the time-index for it.

Timecodes

00:00 – Start

00:44 – Introductions

03:18 – Discussing the paper

10:40 – Public engagement challenges

16:40 – Key messages from engagement

18:35 – Future research publications

20:12 – Academic publishing experiences

26:02 – Advice to early career authors

30:44 – Outro (end)

So, that’s it for podcasts for this year, and after a very slow start I’m delighted to say we picked up the pace over the summer and our recent special issues to bring you a goodly number of episodes. In fact, this year has seen the second most episodes and the second longest amount of new content in our five-year history. 14 episodes, lasting a grand total of 6hrs 41 minutes – oh so close to our record output of 2022 at 6hrs and 48 minutes. The good news is I’ve already two podcast recording slots pencilled in for January and February, and hopefully the next in our series of guest episodes from our Irish collaborators to come too.

So, I’d just like to close out this year of podcasts to thank all my guests for their chat and their time. Naturally, if you’re a past author of Exchanges and haven’t appeared on the podcast as of yet, the door is always open! See you for a slightly revamped series 6 in 2025 then!

Gareth Johnson : 11 Dec 2024 14:04 |  Tags: Engagement Episode Music Philsophy Podcast Public |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem