Post by Blerfier on Nov 19, 2013 13:17:01 GMT -5
The conversation about the cheesy footnotes article about reducing reviewer times has me thinking about all the ways ASA does not serve its members--particularly those of us who aren't stars--all that well.
One of the best things the ASA could do for its members is make its journal on-line only so the journals would not be limited by their page counts, and make it easier for editors to accept more publications. Editors are forced to pare down their acceptances, and so they create multiple veto points. They overburden reviewers by soliciting 5-6 reviewers for each manuscript, do multiple rounds of R&Rs (this charge has been leveled a lot against ASR; I am not sure about the other ASA journals to be honest). This has been discussed on scatterplot and orgtheory, but the system is toxic for everyone involved, especially young scholars. Given that senior scholars are now viewing publication in a top journal as almost a requirement to get hired or get tenured, I think it is especially incumbent on the ASA to make sure that the opportunity to publish in the top journals isn't hampered by an artificially-created scarcity.
Then there's the resources for folks on the job market. The ASA charges a lot (I think $50) for people to use the employment service at the annual meetings. Given that fewer and fewer employers are using it, I would imagine that's onerous for grad students. The ASA charges employers a lot to list their positions on the job bank ($220 for the first 30 days, and then $176 for each ensuing 30 day period). So employers post their jobs for a limited amount of time, and then the announcement is yanked. This makes things harder for those of us who are actually searching for jobs, and is pretty much price gauging, as the marginal cost of posting a job announcement is pretty close to zero.
Non-academic jobs are probably going to become the main source of employment for sociology PhDs, if they aren't already. But sociology PhDs are mentored by academics, most of whom have little contact with the applied world and don't know how to groom PhDs to be attractive to those kinds of employers. There's a role for the ASA here, in terms of doing outreach to non-academic employers, getting MUCH more of their jobs in the job bank. But right now the job bank and employment services are dominated by academic jobs.
The ASA is talking about creating its own document delivery service, so people on the job market don't have to pay ridiculous fees to Interfolio, that's a step in the right direction, but I think the organization could do many, many more...
One of the best things the ASA could do for its members is make its journal on-line only so the journals would not be limited by their page counts, and make it easier for editors to accept more publications. Editors are forced to pare down their acceptances, and so they create multiple veto points. They overburden reviewers by soliciting 5-6 reviewers for each manuscript, do multiple rounds of R&Rs (this charge has been leveled a lot against ASR; I am not sure about the other ASA journals to be honest). This has been discussed on scatterplot and orgtheory, but the system is toxic for everyone involved, especially young scholars. Given that senior scholars are now viewing publication in a top journal as almost a requirement to get hired or get tenured, I think it is especially incumbent on the ASA to make sure that the opportunity to publish in the top journals isn't hampered by an artificially-created scarcity.
Then there's the resources for folks on the job market. The ASA charges a lot (I think $50) for people to use the employment service at the annual meetings. Given that fewer and fewer employers are using it, I would imagine that's onerous for grad students. The ASA charges employers a lot to list their positions on the job bank ($220 for the first 30 days, and then $176 for each ensuing 30 day period). So employers post their jobs for a limited amount of time, and then the announcement is yanked. This makes things harder for those of us who are actually searching for jobs, and is pretty much price gauging, as the marginal cost of posting a job announcement is pretty close to zero.
Non-academic jobs are probably going to become the main source of employment for sociology PhDs, if they aren't already. But sociology PhDs are mentored by academics, most of whom have little contact with the applied world and don't know how to groom PhDs to be attractive to those kinds of employers. There's a role for the ASA here, in terms of doing outreach to non-academic employers, getting MUCH more of their jobs in the job bank. But right now the job bank and employment services are dominated by academic jobs.
The ASA is talking about creating its own document delivery service, so people on the job market don't have to pay ridiculous fees to Interfolio, that's a step in the right direction, but I think the organization could do many, many more...