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Video Wednesday

August 23, 2011, 10:04 pm

Penn State University gears up for the new academic year.

Indiana State University is the home of the Sycamores, and one of the favorite expressions there is “Go Trees!” Here, 2,500 new first-year and transfer Sycamores spell it out for the camera.

Emory University offers up a time lapse by the class of 2015.

The band Sharpened Crayons makes up for the lack of music in the previous video with this tribute to Towson University, released in May. Joe Schuberth, associate director of undergraduate marketing, produced it with a team of students who acted out, shot, and edited the entire production.

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  • gavin_moodie

    Yes, we should all referee our share of manuscripts.  In turn it would be good if editors provided some basic information for authors such as the proportion of manuscripts that they reject without sending to referees and the proportion of MS that are rejected following referees’ reports.  It would also be good to know for each paper when it was first submitted and when it was accepted for publication. 

  • profmomof1

    As a journal editor, I feel harassed by all the emails from authors wanting to know why they haven’t heard yet about their paper status — it’s because the associate editors have trouble finding reviewers; or, more commonly, someone agreed to review and then just never did it. After several reminders, eventually we’re back to square one seeking another reviewer. But I sympathize! I receive not only requests to referee journal papers, but also requests to review grant proposals, to write recommendation letters for students and colleagues, and to review colleagues for universities. Many fellowships or funding opportunites that colleagues and former students apply for require 3 recommendation or support letters tailored to the specific project, even though only a handful out of 100+ applications will be funded. My university now requires all professors to undergo post-tenure review every 5 years, complete with external evaluation letters. That’s hundreds of faculty members each year, in addition to those going up for promotion and tenure. Yet, writing all of these evaluations, reviews, and recommendations counts for absolutely nothing in our own 5-year (or annual) reviews; number or students taught, amount of external funding and publications are all that count in measurements of our “productivity.” We need to find ways to minimize the letters/evaluations/reviews needed to make the system sustainable (e.g., don’t ask for reviews of manuscripts that clearly don’t meet the minimum standards of the journal, don’t ask for recommendation letters except for finalists, let a publication record for senior faculty stand on it’s own merits whenever possible rather than require additional support letters, etc.).

  • profvirginia

    I agree with everything in profmomof1′s letter. Let me add, after 30+ years of reviewing and evaluating (for which I get no credit at my university) that editors and referees are frequently irresponsible. I recently was asked to review an article by a very respectable journal. I was sent an abstract written in very poor English, so I declined. Ironically, the topic of that article had to do with style and rhetoric. The editors should never have sent it out. In another case, one of my own articles was rejected after a very long wait, by what many would say is the leading journal in the field. The most substantive comment that I received from that journal was that my points had already been made “in the literature.” Puzzled, I asked the editor to request specific references from the reader — both because I doubted the claim and because I’d certainly want to read those other articles or books to improve my own research. After several months the editor said that he/she’d asked the reader several times, but was unable to get a response. I’d already sent the article to another journal, where it was accepted within about two months, and published as the lead.

  • 12080243

    Colleagues in my department claimed that good journals won’t publish research from a Tier IV school. They had been unsuccessful and didn’t expect success. I was fortunate in my efforts and my research was published in some of the best journals in our discipline.

    Rejections are a normal part of the research/publication process, but many of the reviews I received were clearly incompetent. The reviewers accepted the assignments but demonstrated that they had no expertise in the methods I/we applied, didn’t read the entire papers, and/or the comments were unrelated to any ideas in the papers. That’s life; we can’t expect a perfect process; it’s merely a peer review process. A suggestion: if you are considering reviewing a paper and are not competent in the method or topic, do us all a favor and don’t accept the assignment.

    An area we all need to improve is with regard to reviewing research on controversial topics. And I’m not referring to critical papers within a particular established paradigm. Peer reviewed journals fail in the review process of controversial research.

    Chauncey M. DePree, Jr., DBA, Professor, School of Accountancy, University of Southern Mississippi

  • 3rdtyrant

    I’m sure we all know, having done this before, that it is utterly an act
    of altruism.  Universities don’t allow time for it, there is professional value inasmuch as a person reads something interesting
    (usually) and gets to participate in the discipline, but in the end, the
    net yield is somewhat intangible (i.e. participation in the
    discipline, being part of the scholarly conversation), and therefore a thing that
    administrators cannot measure, even though it is a very valuable and
    important service/experience. It’s immeasurableness makes it anathema to the modern bottom-liners who run our institutions, and thus we are left to do it on our own time, between drafts of an article, grading papers, & c.

    I’m happy to referee, and try to do a very good job for the sake of the profession, but it sounds like I’m in the minority, and editors are not knocking down my door to get my help, either.

  • over30yrsatit

    I agree that there are few direct rewards for reviewing. However, I learn a lot about my discipline and about my research area by reading the work others are doing. Although some of the papers I review contribute little to my understanding of my area or any others, some others inform me of new directions or perhaps of relevant research I have not found on my own. I like to review because I like to know about directions research may be taking — although my department chair told me not to bother because it doesn’t really “count.”

  • profslw

    Above and beyond being overworked, the issue of compensation is central to the problem. Why should we spend precious time working for free for a journal that charges my institution (and all others) about $1000 for an annual subscription? However, it is not professorial greed at work here — I am sure that more and more professors will be reviewing for the free online journals because that is felt to be “academic philanthropy”. We’re all in this together to help each other out, but not if someone else makes money from our efforts. Ask yourselves this: if you were asked by Wikipedia (open source and free to all) and the Encyclopedia Britannica (paid subscription) to write an entry without compensation, in your field of expertise, for which would you be more willing to do so? The answer provides the main factor behind the declining number of reviewers for the paid subscription journals.

  • lr_ed

    I think, profmomof1 has said it all! From the point of a non-profit, open access editor, I can only add that the situation is as bad as anywhere. Referees don’t seem to scheme against big commercial companies…

  • ProfUK

    I fully subscribe to the view of profslw. I am regularly approached to review and have made it a rule of thumb to do so only where I get paid for doing it. After all, if I am in possession of certain expertise, it is normal to expect that it is appreciated and that this appreciation finds a monetary expression.  I recently had to consult a lawyer who charged me £350 for an hour-long consultation; the rate of my expertise, in contrast, is much lower (if I can get it recognized, that is).
    In practice I reject about half of the approaches (those that do not offer to pay) and review half (only the paid ones), which is a decent balance. I am quite conscientious in reviewing and normally do it quite swiftly, as it is business and not voluntarily-inflicted stress. 
    I believe that the solution to the problem described here is to give recognition to the whole “grey economy” of peer reviewing. If properly paid for, expertise will be readily available. Last week a Canadian government body told me they cannot pay for my reviewing time; most Universities in the UK pay a fee of about £150 for reading and examining a doctoral thesis (minimum three full days work), I can go on quite a bit longer…I simply reject being treated this way and paid a pittance for my expertise. 

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