My very last issue (on ♿️) has now come out with BMJ Medical Humanities: I have stepped down from my role as Editor in Chief. There are a lot of factors—after 17 years editing two consecutive journals, it was time. But there’s more, and I feel we should talk about the climate of #academic publishing - ThreadSky

bschillace.brandyschillace.com • 48 days ago

My very last issue (on ♿️) has now come out with BMJ Medical Humanities: I have stepped down from my role as Editor in Chief. There are a lot of factors—after 17 years editing two consecutive journals, it was time. But there’s more, and I feel we should talk about the climate of #academic publishing

Comments

helenking.bsky.social•44 days ago

Thanks for this thread and for all you did as editor. Depressing to know just how your role was undermined

bschillace.brandyschillace.com•44 days ago

Thanks Helen; I think BMJ supports better than many, but the whole system is changing for the worse

trixienorton.bsky.social•48 days ago

This happened in legal publishing in the US with Thomson Reuters and Lexis cornering the market and colluding by outsourcing to India in lockstep. Quality nosedived. Customers have no other options. Hundreds of people laid off because they didn't want to pay health insurance.

jemmscee.bsky.social•46 days ago

📌

abizadeh.bsky.social•44 days ago

In case it’s of interest:

angryalgonquin.bsky.social•48 days ago

This is a very disturbing and scary trend..thanks for the thread, Brandy.

bnerlich.bsky.social•48 days ago

Thank you for your work and your patience with authors :)

solillianbarry.bsky.social•48 days ago

This was fascinating. I work in books rather than journals, and the book editors I work with are largely quite hands-off - I'd always thought by preference, because I'd certainly rather they took a more active role! I didn't know things used to be different.

bschillace.brandyschillace.com•42 days ago

If you have been following this thread, it has now been published here:

https://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2025/01/15/guest-post-an-editors-perspective-on-my-very-last-issue/

laurasalisbury.bsky.social•40 days ago

Many thanks for writing this, Brandy, and for all your hard work.

bschillace.brandyschillace.com•48 days ago

When I began in 2007, editing a medical anthropology #journal for Springer, I had complete control of process. Articles came to me directly, I sent them personally to reviewed, who replied to me, and when accepted I worked one on one with a dedicated copy editor. A lot to juggle, but great QC.

bschillace.brandyschillace.com•48 days ago

Ours was a top ranked publication with high impact factor; we processed a lot of material—and yes, that was lots of paper shuffling. But we had an associate build a database of reviewers, and we managed just fine. Imagine! You sent a paper to the editor! And she had it copy edited!

bschillace.brandyschillace.com•48 days ago

In 2010 or so, Springer forced all journals to use a new online system. On one hand, a bit easier on me… the system kept track of where papers were, who was reviewing. I didn’t love it. But I didn’t hate it. Yet. Unfortunately, though, the system made other things invisible. Who ran the thing?

bschillace.brandyschillace.com•48 days ago

It was kept up by online assistants who worked overseas—largely in India. It looked like we were just using plug and play software, but there were people keeping all that tech going; ghost workers in the #AI. Except I couldn’t just speak to them if something went wrong. And things did go wrong.

bschillace.brandyschillace.com•48 days ago

And then something worse happened. They took away my copy editor. I had to send things through the new system to be copy edited—and that too happened overseas. There were teams of people editing all genres, with no specificity, and without English as a first language. Citations were a nightmare.

editrixinva.bsky.social•48 days ago

I am hoping that all the discontent surrounding corporations' management of academic journals will result in academics starting new open access journals that they run themselves. I work as a copyeditor for such a journal right now.

bschillace.brandyschillace.com•48 days ago

Authors complained and I would reach out to my contact, who had to reach out to their contacts, and so on in three time zones every time something went awry. But that’s not all. I was losing control of the process, unable to see it clearly. Reviewed got mad at the system too. Authors hated it.

mythmuser.bsky.social•48 days ago

Please publish this as an article on Substack or somewhere we can link to it? Important to share.

thecursingpoet.bsky.social•48 days ago

It's really hard to wrap your mind around how 'information technology' seems increasingly bad for information.

doctorzen.net•48 days ago

This would make an excellent blog post.

rasushrestha.bsky.social•45 days ago

Thank you Brandy, for your leadership and for your tenacity.

We have a lot of work to do.

#academicsky

rasushrestha.bsky.social•45 days ago

📌

tropiginger.bsky.social•45 days ago

📌

altibel.bsky.social•45 days ago

📌

robertdaleparker.bsky.social•48 days ago

Thx for yr work as editor & for this alarming account of academic journal editing. Is it poss that much of the prob lies w for-profit academ publishing? I rarely hear abt probs this extreme for humanities journals, wch rarely hv for-profit publishers.

Do humanities journals offer a better model??

bschillace.brandyschillace.com•48 days ago

I’ve seen it in humanities too, now (was on a board, have editor friends). It’s mostly been in the last two years.

amyjelias.bsky.social•45 days ago

📌

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