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.

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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!

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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.

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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.

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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

(Re)Defining the Kinds of Articles We Love to Consider for Publication

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

The Chief Editor takes a moment to unpick the broad range of articles which the research journal is keen to consider – and tackles the question of interdisciplinarity too.

An oft asked question by prospective authors, is the kinds of articles we like to receive. The simple answer is ‘pretty much any well-written research, research adjacent or practitioner paper which appeals to a cross-disciplinary audience.’ Drawing guidance from our own policies page this has long been expressed as a submission policy as follows:

The journal normally accepts high-quality research and review manuscripts, alongside less formal and shorter interviews and critical reviews. Accepted manuscripts will be published on the understanding that they are an original and previously unpublished piece of work…manuscripts should be written with an expectation they will be read by a broad academic readership, rather than a niche, sectoral subset. Consequently, authors should assume less conceptual familiarity than when writing for audiences within their own disciplinary traditions. Submitted manuscripts adjudged to address topics for too narrow an audience, may be declined.

Let’s unpick that a little, and highlight some of the key points about making your manuscript ‘Exchanges worthy’:

Formats: Firstly, we consider work submitted under a number of formats – principally peer-reviewed research articles, and shorter editorially reviewed articles. There’s a variance in the basic word count to note here, but also in terms of the speed to publication and degree of editorial scrutiny different formats undergo. Editorially reviewed pieces also offer a wider freedom in terms of authorial voice, and are an excellent way to kick off a dialogue without contrasting your writing into a prescribed style. Many special issues comprise them heavily too, as the faster turnaround to publication is often seen as very desirable. Incidentally, many of our most downloaded and cited articles come under the editorially reviewed heading each year. However, we love peer-reviewed pieces too, and while they take longer, do let us work closely with authors over a longer period in hopefully refining their work for final publication suitability.

Scholarship: Secondly, we expect articles to hit a certain level of professional scholarship. While we consider papers from researchers, we also have and continue to be happy to take papers from professionals, practitioners and people working in research adjacent roles. We’ve also published papers from taught students too from time to time, although they’re not normally the community we target as potential authors. All articles though will be scrutinized and as much as possible held to the same quality bar. This does mean we turn down (decline) some articles which in our opinion don’t meet this requirement, but we always proffer advice on how they could be improved, reworked or rewritten to overcome any deficiencies. I am pleased to say many of our declined authors do return new versions to us for consideration at a later point.

Originality: Thirdly, yes originality matters too. We take a view that ‘previously formally published works’, falling under the ‘Ingelfinger Rule’ are out of contention. However, if you’re reworking a blog post, thesis chapter or similarly shared but not editorially scrutinized piece into a new article, chances are we’ll be fine with that. Although, as all new submissions are scanned for originality, there might be the odd question from me before we can move forward. I probably get more excited by articles which tackle topics we’ve never seen in our pages before, or which resonate with earlier publications, but that’s more a personal taste issue. Provided your piece is original and scholarly, you’ve a very good chance we’ll consider it. Minor hint: if it is a reworking of a thesis or dissertation chapter, be prepared to adjust the language and writing so the manuscript stands along as a discrete piece of writing. And please make sure the opening line doesn’t read ‘In this chapter…’ as a number of pieces I see each do!

Readership: Fourthly, there’s readership, and I confess this is probably one of the two most nebulous conceptions. Exchanges has always been published to address the interests of a broad, academic or well-informed, scholarly audience in all disciplines – not just one. Many of our authors, especially early career researchers, are finely trained to write…but to write exclusively for their disciplinary peers. One of the most common reasons papers are declined early in the editorial cycle is because they are too tightly addressed to a small range of scholars.[1] Naturally, any tight-topic focus can be a bit of an issue for the potential success of the submitted manuscript, given we expect articles to be read by a broad academic audience. Now this doesn’t mean that, say, an article on quantum loop gravity needs to be understandable to a historian, but we’d expect others in the sciences and even numeric social sciences will be able to gain knowledge from it. Generally, we tackle this during the review phase, but authors can help us to help themselves by ensuring they unpick any key terminology. The words of advice I most commonly offer to prospective authors in this regard is ‘write as if you were addressing a university wide research conference’ as a way to overcome this challenge.

Interdisciplinarity: Finally, there this is the other nebulous concept which is implicit in our title and one which I suspect actually puts off some of our potential early career authors: interdisciplinary. Originally, back in 2013, Exchanges was keen for papers which were explicitly interdisciplinary or which adopted interdisciplinary methods, methodologies or working practices. Or for those which drew on a team of authors from multiple, potentially non-adjacent, disciplinary traditions, by way of contrast. Don’t get me wrong, we still adore seeing papers like this submitted for our consideration [2], but as time went by a de facto policy became an explicit one once I came aboard to consider any paper from any discipline – so long as it is addressed to that broad readership (see above!).[3] I’m working on a more clearly defined statement to this end to appear on our policy pages in the coming months, as I feel while it’s something I’ve espoused to many would-be authors, I don’t think it’s really clear enough on the website. Perhaps another way to state it is ‘we will consider any credible, original, scholarly article within our chosen formats – and especially those displaying interdisciplinary thinking.’ Thus, if you have an idea for an article, which fits in the other criteria above, but perhaps doesn’t feel ‘interdisciplinary’ – chances are we would be keen to consider it. [4]

So, there you are in short, to provide us with an article which Exchanges be more likely to take on for review consideration as an author make sure it (a) fits our formats, (b) is scholarly and original and (c) is written for and appeals to a broad audience. If you’re an early career scholar, all the better, but this, along with any interdisciplinary aspirations of the piece, aren’t prequisities. Writing and submit a solid, accessible and engaging piece, located within a single discipline is as likely to be taken to review, as much as a piece from multiple disciplinary traditions will.[5]

You'll find our submissions page here#mce_temp_url# - and as always, get in touch with any specific questions or comments, but in the meantime, happy writing.

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Endnotes

[1] Economic papers in particular to this sort of issue - oddly a phenomenon seems to be something I hear other interdisciplinary journal editors experience, so we’re not alone in this. Maybe it’s the mathematical approach? To my memory we’ve only ever had one mathematics papers to Exchanges, long ago, so the sample is too small to consider if this is at the root of the issue.

[2] Even if they can prove a bit more of a headache to locate, recruit and assign to willing reviewers. Afterall, if a paper is interdisciplinary, who exactly is the right person to review it other than the author(s) who submitted it in the first place? Answers on a neatly formatted review report please.

[3] I have always explained, it is our broad collection of articles, from a range of disciplines, which today forms our interdisciplinary assemblage – rather than the discrete individual articles. I feel this gives authors an easier time in creating thought provoking and informative writing for us. Perhaps if we were overwhelmed by articles we might rethink this approach. However, I don’t foresee this being a potentiality any time in the next few years.

[4] On a macro level, the range of special issue topics while themselves more disciplinary niche (but fulfilling the broad-readership goal) form their own loci of interdisciplinarity when read as a collection.

[5] Even if the latter might gladden my editorial heart just a tiny bit more.

Gareth Johnson : 03 Dec 2024 10:48 |  Tags: Advice Articles Author Manuscript New Policy Submission |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

New (Guest) Episode: Poetry, Power & the Wind

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

Ruminations on renewable energy, poetry and the Irish perspective make for an exciting new podcast episode.

A new episode of the Exchanges Discourse is now live, but it’s a little different to our usual ones. You see, this has been produced in association with the MaREI research centre and University College Cork on the theme of ‘Energy Poetry’. Which means Fionn Rogan and Paul Deane take centre stage, along with a special guest, and other than a brief introduction you won’t hear much from me for once.

Listen in here: https://open.spotify.com/episode/1yFcuGuwP0kR7z1t86A70O

This is actually the first in a short mini-series of episodes which the MaREI team will be sharing through our platform, so there will be more to come in the months ahead which you will be able to enjoy. This very first episode, entitled Harnessing the Wind, features discussions on and around the poetry of Derek Mahon along with a lengthy interview with Brendan Tuohy (EirGrid) on how poetry informs his work today. Around this there is an informed discussion on energy generation in Ireland, especially as it pertains to wind power, along with considerations of course of its relationship to poetry.

It really is a beautiful, lyrical listen that I’m sure lovers of poetry and scientific/arts collaboration will be fascinated to hear. I certainly enjoyed it on a number of levels, not least because it was the easiest podcast episode in a long time to edit.[1] Incidentally, when Evan Boyle first approached me a few months ago to see if we’d like to showcase their work in this area, I felt the science and arts cross-over felt like a great example of interdisciplinarity. I also perceived it was a good opportunity to collaborate and promote something a little more experimental in Exchanges ‘ ‘publishing’ activities.

Now, that doesn’t mean we’re going to switch away from the journal to be a podcast publisher for a myriad of other people – this is very much a toe in the water, a pilot programme really. Anything more regular than this occasional series would require a re-examination of our priorities and re-tasking of ever-slim staffing resource from other activities. But it does at least feel that there is a viable potential to share spoken word materials alongside the Exchanges brand, within our mission. That, I am pleased to say, seems to validate my decision to work on this collaboration. Naturally, what this means for the future, we shall just have to see in the fullness of time.

In the meanwhile, I hope listeners will agree, this collaboration has more than paid off - it is a glorious episode, well worth your time to listen to. I am certainly looking forward to helping produce and share the next episode(s) in the coming months. Thanks to Evan and the whole team for their hard work in collating this too!

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Endnotes

[1] Don’t get me started on my hours long battle with the Spotify for Creators interface which steadfastly refused to make the episode live yesterday. Thankfully, today the system finally worked as it should!

Gareth Johnson : 28 Nov 2024 10:11 |  Tags: Collaboration Episode Guest Interdisciplinary Marei Podcast Poetry Power Wind |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Attending the Third International Conference on Sustainability Culture

An early start for a truly international event on sustainability culture is well worth the effort

This morning I had a super early start…at 4am…in order to be up, ready and chirpy enough to attend the 3^rd International Conference on Sustainability Culture#mce_temp_url#. This event, hosted by Dr Theodoor Richard and the National Chung Hsing University in Taiwan was, naturally, running on their local time for an afternoon’s event. While I’ll confess it was a bit of a challenge to rouse myself to alert status in the dead of night [1], I was really glad I did – not least because the event ties into a future special issue of Exchanges.

Mostly I was delighted to be there because the speakers and topics of discussion were fascinating ones. Perhaps I was a little spoiled because the topic of sustainability and environmentalism have long been close to my heart, but it was superb to hear such a variety of topics and insights too. The speakers were drawn from around the world, although I believe I was the furthest west of all the delegates for once. A refreshing change! Thankfully, most of the speakers are going to be (hopefully) appearing in the special issue, so it’ll be a pleasure you’ll all be able to enjoy once that comes out next year.

The event opened with a welcome from Professor Jen Ming-Song, a university dean of our hosts for today. This was followed by a keynote talk from Emeritus Professor Geoffrey Scott (WSU, Australia) who spoke with such a casual but engaging style that I found myself quite envious of his aplomb. Geoffrey shared many thoughts about enabling sustainable cultures within higher education institutions, and how to affect change from both a top down and bottom-up approach. As someone with a long and storied career his candid insights were useful – especially when it came to dealing with and influencing your university vice-chancellor (or similar) and their often-entrenched perspectives![2]

This rousing intro was followed by four shorter papers from Duncan Furquhar, Maria Giovanna Cassa, Graham Wood and Lucy Sabin. The topics were varied, from soil carbon capture to ethnographic studies of permaculture in Sardinia, through philosophical considerations of ‘sustainability culture’ and finally a fascinating look at the fusion of art and science in an over-agrochemicaled world. There was something to consider or be enlightened by in each of these talks, and I think what I liked the most was how genuinely interdisciplinary this made the event. Indeed, it reinforced for me that the topic of sustainability culture is an excellent match for Exchanges’ publication mission too.[3]

After a short break we went into an hour-long discussion, drawing in the other eager participants as we explored contrast viewpoints – not least of which being the tensions between expansion versus contraction as a key aspect of sustainability. Alongside this there was naturally, no pun intended, the extant tensions between industrialisation, expansional and economic factors vs traditional, local, and desirable lifestyles. There was much debate around agency and power relations, a long-time keen interest of mine, and while there was some common ground among the delegates, there’s also a fair bit of disagreement on where (and with whom) the power for change lies: be it the economic overlords, political actors or strongly networked communities.

For me, I certainly think one of the key takeaways from the discussions was that while much of is what is traditional (be it in agriculture, society or life in general) IS sustainable. Yet, the tensions arise, and the environment is impacted, because these aspects are not scalable or even maintainable at current levels. Food production and related security issues being just one such exemplar of this concern.

As I say, this was an excellent event and with lots to chew over for everyone in attendance – me certainly among them. I shall be reflecting on the lessons for some time, and no doubt once the special issue comes to publication, there will be more to be said by scholars better informed on the topics than I!

My thanks to Theodoor and colleagues for organising the event, and of course everyone who contributed to it!

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Endnotes

[1] I was up with my alarm, but how I made breakfast and tea beforehand, was pretty much on autopilot.

[2] Strong resonances here with our Research Culture issue(s) too.

[3] For more of my thoughts on the event – see the @ExchangesJournal Bluesky profile, or indeed follow the #tag #SustainabilityCulture.

Gareth Johnson : 26 Nov 2024 10:41 |  Tags: Conference Culture Event Icsc Issue Special Sustainability Taiwan |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Nothing but Bluesky Ahead – Farewell Twitter/X

Writing about web page https://bsky.app/profile/exchangesjournal.bsky.social

Exchanges moves its primary microblogging output over to Bluesky, as Twitter/X diminishes

If you’re any kind of social media user, you can’t have avoided the debates around the downturn in Twitter/X as the preeminent social media discussion site. While I’ve been mulling Exchanges presence for some months now [1], with the recent US election fallout, it’s become an even more acute question about remaining on site which is increasingly swaying away from any pretence at ‘fairness’ or ‘balance’. It is a shame, as personally I joined Twitter way back in the late 00s and back in the early days it was a brilliant tool for finding likeminded people. I had more than a few beneficial, and surprise, collaborations emerging as a result of being on there. Not to mention creating many long running professional friendships too. Hence, when I took over running Exchanges in April 2018, one of the very first things I did, during my first week, was set up our Twitter account. At the time it was totally a no-brainer in terms of trying to reach out to potential contributors around the world.

Back in the 2010s Twitter was clearly a major channel of communication for academics and those in higher education alike. However, over the years, as the platform shifted to more of a mass market, the signal to noise ratio certainly changed, and not for the better. Personally, I suspect we passed ‘peak Twitter’ during the pandemic years, as we all reached out to one another for some human contact. With Twitter’s sale in late 2022, and the actions of its new owner, I started to have more than a few concerns about it as a channel and started asking myself if it was one we should continue to be associated. However, as a small journal, with limited marketing impact and visibility staying on the platform even then remained one of the major routes we had to reach potential contributors to the journal.

That said, over the past 18 months Musk’s ‘X’ has continued to remove many of the safeguards which are an essential part of any reliable communication channel. Consequently, I set up a Mastodon instance last year, although I will confess I found that a challenging platform to find new followers. Our account’s over there is still live but currently dormant in terms of new content. As soon as I was able though I set up a Bluesky account, as everything I heard about this platform pointed towards it being a viable alternative to Twitter/X, and being run more along the lines of that platform in its ‘better’ days. Since then, I’ve been running the two instances in tandem – posting to Twitter/X and Bluesky at the same time.

However, then the US election happened, with the run up to this making Twitter/X’s owner’s political leanings becoming…more overt. The resultant increased migration of notable bodies, organisations and peoples away from Twitter/X and onto Bluesky argues that the time to close down one account and focus on another is here.

Now, as I drafted this article last week we had 452 followers on Twitter/X (fallen to 447 today) and around 21 on Bluesky.[2] Getting those ~450 followers took us a good two years, and while I am loathed to leave them, something interesting has been happening in the four days since I started writing this piece. Without me posting anything our Bluesky followers has increased to 31. Still small-beer, but a reinforcement that our potential audience there is growing. Such a growth rate in followers seems to argue to me that we’re on the cusp of enough people with interest in the journal migrating across to Bluesky to make the transition I’ve been mulling not only agreeable but logical.

I set up the Twitter/X account to create and sustain conversations around the Exchanges journal, and scholarly publishing. And to my mind, Bluesky is where these conversations are going to be able to continue, without (as) a concerning political dimension. There’s also my slight concern that continuing to associate with Twitter/X lends credibility to its owner and the political bed into which he’s (literally) jumped. That, is just one more thing which makes me believe this is the right move to do!

So, from today we’re going to be scaling back our Twitter/X output to an effective minimum – probably mostly using it to encourage people to come find us on Bluesky. We’ll keep the domain alive, given were I to delete it, after a month or so, someone else could register our handle. I really don’t want to be dealing with ‘fake’ Exchanges, so that’s account will be retained.[3]

Hence, it’s farewell to Twitter/X, and hello to Bluesky in a big way now. I hope you’ll come join us there!

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Follow Exchanges on Bluesky at: @ExchangesJournal (https://bsky.app/profile/exchangesjournal.bsky.social)

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Endnotes

[1] I confess personally, I departed from it during 2023 once Musk’s agenda became pretty apparent. It’s not a decision I regret at all. It’s noticeable my personal account followers has been swelling in the last week too – and that’s a place I only talk about social rather than work things!

[2] I think we’re still niche enough to be ‘indy’ or ‘underground’, which while cool is a bit frustrating when I’d like us to be a heck of lot more visible. Maybe the mass-migration to Bluesky might end up seeing us increase in followers a lot faster?

[3] It is exactly what I did with my own account for the same reasons.

Gareth Johnson : 19 Nov 2024 09:39 |  Tags: Announcement Bluesky Media Microblogging Migration Social Twitter X |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

New Podcast Episodes Focus in on Researcher Development

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

It’s a two for one deal as two new episodes consider issues around developing researchers and experiences with peer-reviewers too.

I was rather fortunate to be able to host not one but two guests on recent episodes of the Exchanges Discourse podcast, and even more delighted to discover the episodes rather complimented each other. I would like to pretend this was clever planning, but I don’t think anyone actually would be fooled!

In the first episode I talk with Anna Fancett (Warwick) about her varied and exciting international career, as well as her current work at the University of Warwick where she’s helping to develop postgraduate researchers’ writing skills: a topic close to my editorial heart! Alongside looking into the paper she authored on this topic for our Research Culture special issue, we also consider the lessons which can be drawn from developing effective workshops. Anna also talks about her thoughts on engaging positively with the peer-review process. We touch particularly here on issues of dealing with more negative feedback and of course our own thoughts on how we approaching reviewing ourselves.

In the other episode, out today, I chat to Taryn Bell (Leeds) about her life as an archaeology academic, but mainly about her work with colleagues in Leeds and York in developing researchers. Again, centred around a paper in our Research Culture issue, we exchange thoughts on the tricky matter of offering focused, bespoke workshops suitable for particular career stages, versus the emergent benefits in getting scholars across the board to exchange experiences. We even touch a little on the issue of agism – why, for example, do so many universities seem to assume all PhD students and early career researchers are ‘young’? And does this speak to some concerning biases which we need to challenge in our own thinking and development planning? Similarly to Anna’s episode, we talk about peer-review and getting the most out of it and thankfully uncover some more positive examples along the way.

Both episodes of course contain our signature discussions concerning advice for new authors looking to publish, from experienced authors who’ve known the growing pains themselves.

You can listen to the episodes here:

Anna: https://spotifycreators-web.app.link/e/L1K8f0VFuOb

Taryn: https://spotifycreators-web.app.link/e/40VKqZVFuOb

Or to catch up with all the past episodes of the podcast – and there’ve been a lot lately – visit:

https://exchanges.warwick.ac.uk/index.php/exchanges/podcast

We’ll be taking a short break from new episodes now – but hopefully will have one or two more to round out the year/season in the coming weeks.

Gareth Johnson : 13 Nov 2024 15:11 |  Tags: Developing Episodes New Peer-Reviewers Podcast Postgraduates Researchers |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem