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On vacation over the weekend, all but one member of Elsevier’s editorial board Journal of Human Evolution (JHE) resigned “with deep sorrow and deep regret”, According to Retraction Watchuseful provider online pdf from the editors’ full statement. It’s 20 mass resignation Many are in response to controversial changes in business models used by the scholarly publishing industry, according to Retraction Watch, a scholarly journal on various controversial issues since 2023.
“This has been a very painful decision for all of us,” board members said in a statement. “Over the past 38 years, the editors who have led the journal have devoted a great deal of time and energy to making JHE the leading journal in paleoanthropological research, and have remained committed to the journal and our authors long after their terms have expired. (Assistant Editors) were equally loyal and committed. We all care deeply about the journal, our discipline, and our academic community; however, we find that we can no longer work with Elsevier in good faith.
The editorial board cited several changes made in the past decade that they believe conflicted with the journal’s long-standing editorial principles. These include removing support for a copy editor and special issues editor and delegating these duties to the editorial staff. When the board expressed the need for a copy editor, Elsevier’s response was to “argue that editors should not focus on language, grammar, readability, consistency, or correct nomenclature or accuracy of formatting,” they said.
There is also a major restructuring of the editorial board, which aims to cut the number of editors by more than half, which will “result in more papers and fewer AEs working on topics outside their areas of expertise”.
In addition, after Elsevier “unilaterally takes full control” of the board structure in 2023 by requiring all associate editors to renew their contracts annually, there are plans to create a third-tier editorial board that acts essentially as a personality – the board believes. undermines its editorial independence and integrity.
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Internal production was reduced or outsourced, and in 2023 Elsevier began using artificial intelligence during production without informing the board, resulting in many stylistic and formatting errors, as well as reversing versions of documents that had already been accepted and formatted by editors. “This was very embarrassing for the magazine and a resolution took six months and was only achieved through the persistent efforts of the editors,” the editors said. “AI processing continues to be used and regularly reformats submitted manuscripts to change meaning and format, and requires extensive author and editor oversight during the proofing phase.”
Furthermore, author page fees for JHE are significantly higher than even Elsevier’s other commercial journals, as well as broad-based open access journals such as Scientific Reports. Many of the journal’s authors “cannot afford these fees, which are contrary to the journal’s (and Elsevier’s) promise of equality and inclusiveness,” the editors write.
The tipping point came in November, when Elsevier told co-editors Mark Grabowski (Liverpool John Moores University) and Andrea Taylor (Touro University California College of Osteopathic Medicine) that it was ending the dual-editor model that had been in place since 1986. When Grabowki and Taylor protested, they were told the model could only stay if they received a 50 percent discount. compensation.
