This text is part of the special Acfas Congress notebook
The Acfas congress will unveil four recommendations affecting all stakeholders in scientific publishing.
What actions should we take to strengthen Quebec scholarly publishing? “We must start by recognizing the value of scholarly journals in the scientific research circuit,” says Anne-Marie Fortier, professor at Laval University and director of the scientific journal. Literary studies. On the one hand, scholarly journals have the role of independently certifying the scientific value of the articles that are published. On the other hand, they act as disseminators of knowledge to other researchers — which serves to revive research — and sometimes even to the general public and decision-makers. »
This desire to better promote itself is the result of a symposium organized in November 2023 by Érudit, the Quebec platform for aggregating French-speaking scholarly journals, in collaboration with Acfas, which brought together around forty Quebec scholarly journals. “In 2023, we celebrated our 25e anniversary, explains Tanja Niemann, general director of Érudit. Rather than just celebrating the event, we wanted to highlight the essential contribution of scholarly journals to scientific research. And in this era of profound changes in scientific publishing, with digital technology and open access, what could be better than creating a common space where journal managers could exchange views among their peers? »
Concrete recommendations
Hence the idea of this symposium, which resulted in four main recommendations affecting all stakeholders in scientific publishing, i.e. public authorities and granting organizations, universities and scientific institutions, libraries and digital infrastructures, and, of course, the scholarly journals themselves. It is Anne-Marie Fortier who will have the pleasure of publicly revealing these recommendations during the Long live scholarly journals activity, supported by Érudit, at the next Acfas congress.
“The first recommendation is mainly aimed at granting agencies, which are asked to index funding according to inflation,” explains M.me Fortier, and to perpetuate it by extending it over five years rather than three years, as is currently the case. This would allow journals to better plan their route. »
The second recommendation is addressed to universities and institutions, which are asked to better harmonize the support they provide to scholarly journals from their departments and faculties. Currently, support varies depending on the institution. “We must better recognize the task that researchers accomplish when they assume editorial responsibility for a scholarly journal,” continues Anne-Marie Fortier. He must ensure the scientific validity of the articles that the journal publishes, but also work on revising the texts, guide young authors, not to mention that he must master all the tools necessary for the publication of a journal. . A measure of recognition could be a teaching rebate. »
Libraries and digital infrastructures have expertise within them—for example, some libraries have librarians specializing in scientific publishing—that could greatly benefit the editorial teams of scholarly journals. We therefore recommend improving and harmonizing this expertise and offering it to editorial teams.
The last recommendation is addressed to scholarly journals themselves. “Given their nature, which links them to a discipline, scholarly journals are often atomized,” underlines Anne-Marie Fortier. And despite the excellent work of Érudit as an aggregator, it would be desirable for scholarly journals to organize themselves as a community. Such a grouping would not only allow for exchanges between peers, but also to promote scholarly publishing in Quebec. »
For the rest of things
What should we expect once these recommendations are revealed? “What we hope,” says Tanja Niemann, “is that these recommendations serve to create alignment between the different players in Quebec scientific publishing. This alignment is necessary if we want to develop a common vision. »
And according to her, the time is right for such a breakthrough. “For years, internationally, the most valued scientific edition, by default, was that in English,” she continues. But for some time now, we have realized the importance of publishing in the language of our nation, because it often allows us to understand the particularities specific to each community. Everything in English is fading, which, in Quebec, opens the way to the promotion of French-speaking scientific publishing. »
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