Academic publications

Traditionally, scholarly communication has been understood as publishing of research results in academic forums and for the use of the academic audience.

Academic publications are important for enabling researchers to participate in academic discussion and also for gaining prestige. By publishing results in academic forums, researchers and research projects gain visibility and publicity. Publishing also develops a manner of thinking in which research has to be placed in academic context and connections found with earlier research. Through their publishing, researchers also are invited to attend to academic discussion by performing peer review of others’ work. Without producing academic publications, researchers are left out of this discussion.

When you publish yourself, you’ll also get papers to read and of which to give referee’s evaluations. I think it is a shame that if you don’t publish you won’t participate in this academic discussion. (I6)

However, publishing is seen as a demanding process that requires time and effort from researchers. To get papers published, researchers have to concentrate on publishing and put time and effort into it. A common problem for all of the interviewees was lack of time. One interviewee described his point of view on time management when it comes to publishing:

Publishing has to be your number-one priority, and you make time for it.

You cannot think: ‘Okay, let’s write an article about this for the newspaper and if there is time we’ll write an academic one.’ You will never have the time. (I6)

Research institutes may set goals as to how many academic publications each researcher should produce per year. The importance of publishing has grown over the years, as one researcher pointed out:

One researcher who worked here already in the ’80s said that at that time it was not expected that people would publish any academic articles. This is quite new. One article per year per researcher – I don’t know when this started. Of course, people did publish also in the ’80s, but it wasn’t as if they had to. (I6)

In the survey, respondents were asked to indicate the number of their publications in the last two years in academic publishing forums of various types, such as academic journals, edited works, and academic monographs (see Table 25).

International academic (peer-reviewed) journals were the most common academic publishing forums. On average, 73% of respondents published at least one article in an international peer-reviewed journal within the previous two years. Almost 40% published one or two articles, 25% three to five articles, and 10% six or more articles.

Differences between disciplines are significant (ANOVA df = 6, F = 14.699, p

= 0.000) when the proportion of respondents producing at least one international journal article is examined. Publishing was most active in the health care sciences, biological and environmental sciences, and multidisciplinary biosciences. More than 80% of respondents in these fields had published at least one article in international journal within the two-year span. The difference from the humanities and technical sciences is significant (Tamhane p = 0.000). A quarter of respondents representing the humanities and half of those representing the technical sciences had published at least one article in an international journal.

International journals are valued as publishing forums. However, prestige varies from one journal to the next. Well-known journals published by prestigious publishing houses are valued.

Mainly, they are series published by international publishing houses.

Everyone knows these publishers, and the journals are well known because of that. It is seen as familiarity and reliability if the journal is run by a big publisher. (I1)

Whitley (2000) have pointed out that general journals are usually more respected because of the wide audience they reach. However, researchers have to

think about several things when selecting the journal they want to offer their paper.

For example, timetables may impose their own limits on publishing.

There is a risk if you offer your paper to a good journal that it will still be rejected after second revision. So if you have to publish it quickly, it might not be worth the risk. (I6)

Publishing in national academic journals is not as active as that in international journals. In fact, 65% of all respondents did not publish any articles in national academic journals within the previous two years, while 30% of respondents published one or two articles and under five per cent more than two articles.

Differences between disciplines in the percentage of respondents producing at least one publication are significant (ANOVA df = 6, F = 9.347, p = 0.000). Publishing in national journals is most active in the social sciences. Half of the respondents from that field and also of those in health care sciences had published at least one article in a national journal within the previous two years. The difference from technical sciences and natural sciences is significant (Tamhane p = 0.000). In the technical sciences and natural sciences, under a quarter of respondents had published at least one article in a national journal.

Interviewees saw national journals as problematic because of the small size of the country. There are not enough researchers for a well-running national journal to be established.

[T]here aren’t many national refereed journals, because there aren’t so many researchers. One could say there is a lack of basic material that you would need to run a national journal, so it’s hard. Maybe you could get it started, but keeping it up would be difficult. Where would you get enough material for the journal? (I1)

Articles are published also in edited works. One third of respondents published one or two book articles in the two-year period and, on average, seven per cent of respondents had published more than two articles in edited works. However, more than 60% did not publish any articles in edited works. Again, differences between disciplines are significant (ANOVA df = 6, F = 4.989, p = 0.000) in the percentage of respondents producing at least one publication. Publishing articles in edited works is most common in the social sciences. More than half of the respondents representing social sciences and also of those in the humanities had published at least one paper in a book.

Edited works are published in the natural sciences too; however, they are not perceived as being such established publishing forums as journals are. One of the interviewees explained his thoughts about publishing in edited works:

We were considering sending one of our articles for this book, but in the end we were afraid it would vanish within the book. It was also unclear when it would be published and what its readership would be. So we submitted the article to a journal. (I6)

Writing academic monographs is not very common among those at state research institutes. Only 16% of all respondents had published academic monograph within the previous two years. The difference between disciplines in the proportion of respondents producing at least one monograph is significant (ANOVA df = 6, F = 7.620, p = 0.000). Publishing of monographs was most active in the social sciences and the humanities: 34% of the social scientists and 28% of the humanists had published at least one academic monograph in the two years. The difference between those in the social sciences and those in the technical sciences, biological and environmental sciences, and natural sciences is significant (Tamhane p = 0.000).

Table 25: The percentage of respondents with at least one publication in various types of academic publishing forums, by discipline

Article in international journal

Article in

national journal Academic

monograph Chapter in edited work Bio and environmental science

(N=238-248)* 83 40 12 39

Natural science (N=128-131)* 69 19 11 31

Social science (N=106-108)* 67 50 34 56

Technical science (N=90-96)* 51 14 7 23

Health-care science (N=84-85)* 84 48 17 34

Multidisciplinary (N=44-48)* 94 33 20 46

Humanities (N=21) 24 38 29 48

Total (N=715-737)* 73 35 16 38

*Because of the missing information N varies between variables

Conferences too are important forums for publishing research. In the survey, respondents were asked how many articles they had published in the previous two years in international and national refereed conference proceedings (see Table 26).

Almost half of the respondents had not published any international conference papers. A third published one or two, and 16% published three or more conference papers. The difference between disciplines in the proportion of those producing at least one international conference paper is significant (ANOVA df = 6, F = 4.966, p = 0.000). Publishing by means of international conference is most common in the technical and natural sciences, with 70% of respondents in the technical sciences and 63% of respondents in the natural sciences publishing at least one paper in international conference proceedings. The difference from the humanities is significant (Tamhane p = 0.000). In the humanities, only one fifth had published at least one article via international conference during the two-year period.

In the interviewees, researchers explained reasons for attending conferences.

With conferences, results can be published more quickly:

The reason results are published at conferences in this field is, for example, because this field is developing so quickly, technical development is so quick that journal articles are always a few years behind. Our results are published sooner via conferences. (112)

On one hand, conferences are good forums for publishing research results and making one’s work and organisation known. At the same time, conferences allow researchers to meet other researchers and build networks:

They are meeting places where you can present your own work and also attend discussions. For example, if people are interested in developing a common EU project, they can meet. Personal contacts are possible. And also you can see Finnish researchers from your own field there. (I3)

At conferences, researchers can be in touch with their international colleagues.

An invisible colleague can become visible at conferences. Conferences are also excellent places for monitoring what is happening on the research front:

You’ll get the latest information from conferences – for example, information about research or markets or political issues. That kind of background information. (I1)

Publishing via national conferences is not as common as publishing via international conferences. Most respondents did not publish any articles in proceedings of national conferences in the two-year period. A quarter of the

respondents published one or two papers. This publishing is most common in multidisciplinary biosciences and in biological and environmental sciences.

However, the difference from other fields is not significant.

The small size of the country is one of the key reasons for researchers not publishing via national conferences. It is not always worth the work of arranging national conferences, because of the small number of researchers. However, interviewees did see national conferences as good places to for tracking what is happening in Finland. When demands for one’s time are great, it might be hard to stay informed of what is happening even in the next room:

It’s nice to hear what your neighbours were doing last summer, what the common problems in the field are. It’s a place for updating knowledge.

[…] Your sector is so narrow, and you don’t have the time to delve deeply into what others are doing, even though they work in the same field. (I4) Respondents were also asked to indicate the number of publications that are not refereed but still are published in academic forums such as editorials or posters (see Table 26). Almost 40% of the respondents had one or two unrefereed academic publications, one fifth three to four of these publications, and eight per cent more than five. The difference between disciplines in the percentage of respondents producing at least one publication is significant (ANOVA df = 6, F = 7.287, p = 0.000). Such publishing is most common in the health care sciences.

About 85% of respondents in that field produced at least one unrefereed academic publication over the two years. The difference from the technical sciences and the humanities is significant (Tamhane p < 0.05). For example, 65% of respondents representing the humanities did not produce any unrefereed academic publications.

Table 26: The percentage of respondents with at least one conference paper or non-refereed

Multidisciplinary (N=45-47)* 60 29 79

Humanities (N=21) 19 14 38

Total (N=717-723)* 54 25 67

*Because of the missing information N varies between variables