All entries for February 2025

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!

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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.

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[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