Also this week: Hunstanton sand, vintage dinosaur art, your most undercited paper, and more.
From Jeremy:
Athene Donald with a lovely remembrance of doing a live demo in lecture with Hunstanton sand.
Rich Lenski with the happy story of how two research teams independently studying the same topic using E. coli from the Long-Term Evolution Experiment ended up collaborating.
Love In The Time of Chasmosaurs has a long series of posts on vintage dinosaur art. Link goes to a recent post in the series, featuring some amusingly inaccurate illustrations.
43% of papers in leading psychology journals are now preregistered. Like the author of the linked Data Colada post, I wonder about the quality of the preregistrations. And about whether anybody reads them. And about whether there are any pre- or post-publication consequences for deviating from the preregistration, or for failure to disclose any deviations.
Statistician Andrew Gelman on his most undercited papers. Here’s ecologist Stephen Heard on the same topic a while back. And here’s an old post by me on the same topic, sort of.
New mass resignation from a Wiley journal editorial board just dropped. I’m starting to wonder if the ESA wouldn’t be better off joining Am Nat at University of Chicago Press once its current contract with Wiley is up. UChicago Press already publishes Am Nat, of course. I have no inside information, and don’t really know anything about the journal publication business, so I have no idea if moving to UChicago Press is even a realistic option. It just seems like the ESA, and other EEB societies that contract with Wiley to publish their journals (BES, SSE, Nordic Society Oikos…) need to cast a wide net and consider all their options. Rather than defaulting to the devil they know. If nothing else, having a serious outside option gives you more leverage when you negotiate with Wiley, right?
Profile of some superforecasters. Question: do any ecologists working on forecasting ever take this sort of approach? If not, why not?
Data on how inflation-adjusted government spending on higher education has changed over the last ten years, broken down by US state and Canadian province. Americans are likely to be surprised at which US states come out on top, and at the the fact that Canadian provinces bring up the rear.
This is old, and probably of interest only to me, but it’s the best sort of trolling, so here you go, fellow beer geeks: in praise of Budweiser. 🙂
Coming up:
Feb. 19: Non-definitive guides on developing a reading habit and generating project ideas (guest post from Gina Baucom)
Feb. 21: Poll results: how have departmental seminar series changed pre- vs. post-pandemic (Jeremy)
Feb. 26: As a researcher, you’re Bill Murray in Groundhog Day. Embrace it. (Jeremy)
Dynamic Ecology 
Regarding Wiley: Blackwell situated itself as a publisher of scholarly, society-owned journals. After they were acquired by Wiley, Wiley succeeded at getting more society journals than the other major publishers.
 SETAC, a much smaller society than ESA with only two journals, just announced that they were leaving Wiley in favor of Oxford University Press. Speaking only for myself, Wiley got too heavy handed and treated the society journals as just another imprint, was constantly pressuring the EIC and board for more articles, and their production quality was at best inconsistent. They were also strong arming for a full OA flip. Whatever one thinks of OA for society journals, the society wanted to make that call, not have it jammed down their throat. Wiley turned into a big bully instead of a respectful partner.
 Whether OUP will be a good move remains to be seen, but as Jeremy said, it’s good for societies to consider their options. Income isn’t the only issue. Quality and society vision matter too. (All IMHO only, not speaking for editorial board, society, or a mouse in my pocket)
Yes, I think/suspect ESA’s hope was that some of Blackwell’s culture would rub off on Wiley. Hasn’t happened.
I do feel like, if ESA wants to stick with Wiley, they need a detailed, watertight contract. Contract needs to spell out, e.g., how many papers per year the journal publishes, whether the journal is author-pays OA or not, etc.
More observations on Wiley/ESA pubs: From conversations with journal EiCs, society leaders, etc., a force that contributed to droving some society journals toward the bigger publishing houses in the first place was the offer of bigger/guaranteed revenues to support the society’s programs. I’m not sure whether university presses are in a position to make those kinds of agreements, which might make societies hesitate to leave. I’m also not certain whether the big for-profit publishers are still offering such deals in the current publishing landscape! But I think the calculus in these decisions isn’t going to be solely about editorial control of the journals, though I agree that’s an important factor and one that members of the field (and members of the society) should care about! I’d be curious to hear about how societies that did/do leave big for-profit publishers considered change/loss/instability in revenues from their journals.
One thing that seems different about the ESA journals but I’m not certain by how much (I know much less about how other journals/societies operate) is that they have kept a good deal of the editorial work under the control of society staff, as opposed to Wiley staff, so maybe ESA’s existing setup guarantees us greater control over the editorial process than some other journals have? Though that wouldn’t necessarily prevent them from pressuring the journals to publish more articles, it might give ESA more leverage to resist, or just be a sign that ESA’s contract already grants them substantial control. Don’t know.
I also wonder whether ESA’s portfolio of journals gives them an opportunity that some other societies don’t necessarily have to maintain a mix of journals that allows some to remain more stable in, e.g., the number of articles, OA practices, while others grow more rapidly, so the portfolio as a whole balances editorial control/selectivity with expanding revenues in a way that’s acceptable to both ESA and Wiley. I don’t know the numbers, but it doesn’t seem like Ecology/Eco Apps/Frontiers have changed too much in terms of how much they publish and how selective they are (since I’ve been publishing, a bit over a decade) but I know Ecosphere has grown rapidly and last I saw the stats the number of articles published/year was trending upward at a good clip (submissions also rose over the same period). And ESA has a new journal, Earth Stewardship, which is OA and has a distinct focus from the other journals. I don’t mean to impugn the motives of anyone who was involved in creating the journal or is on the editorial board, etc., but I think one can read that as trying to capture a new slice of the market (publish more articles) and having a publisher-revenue-friendly business model. It might be good for the field/ESA and good for Wiley, we’ll see.
Good points Jon.
“From conversations with journal EiCs, society leaders, etc., a force that contributed to droving some society journals toward the bigger publishing houses in the first place was the offer of bigger/guaranteed revenues to support the society’s programs.”
Yes, that’s my recollection of the reason for ESA’s long-ago move from Allen Press to Blackwell. At the time, I recall finding that a pretty compelling reason. Looking back, I’m not sure if it was.
Following up, hopefully it threads right:
“Yes, that’s my recollection of the reason for ESA’s long-ago move from Allen Press to Blackwell. At the time, I recall finding that a pretty compelling reason. Looking back, I’m not sure if it was.”
Fair. Someone more involved in the inner workings/finances of ESA would know better, but from my perspective the things I care most about (journals and meetings) haven’t gotten noticeably better (for me), so either whatever benefits this created have manifest in areas that are less visible to me, or they have come more in terms of avoiding negatives (e.g., higher meeting registration costs) than in gaining positives.
I will say, though, that the history of Allen Press since that decision suggests ESA shifting to a different partner for publishing was the right choice. My partner worked at AP while we lived in Lawrence and has remained in touch with some former coworkers and AP has dealt with a lot of internal dysfunction that affected operations for other imprints, and AP didn’t make the transition to online publishing very well, which likely would have created major frustrations for authors/editors/reviewers/readers. AP was recently bought by another publisher, who as I recall decided to shut the whole operation down.
“I will say, though, that the history of Allen Press since that decision suggests ESA shifting to a different partner for publishing was the right choice. My partner worked at AP while we lived in Lawrence and has remained in touch with some former coworkers and AP has dealt with a lot of internal dysfunction that affected operations for other imprints, and AP didn’t make the transition to online publishing very well, which likely would have created major frustrations for authors/editors/reviewers/readers. AP was recently bought by another publisher, who as I recall decided to shut the whole operation down. ”
Interesting, I didn’t know that.
Two quick comments.
I’m on Clemson’s university task force to consider how we’ll deal with the Nelson memo, which mandates all federally funded research to be publicly accessible by end of 2025. As part of that committee, we’ve been looking into OA costs and universities can provide most the same services that big publishers can at a fraction of the cost. I can do a post on that later if you like.
Also, SC is top 2 or 3 in state higher ed investment increases as noted on the link. (Sorry that Alberta is such a laggard, Jeremy.) This is relatively real investment. The state has put enormous pressure on state unis to keep tuition hikes low/flat. To compensate, the state has also been making up the difference in costs. So at least our legislature is putting its money where its mouth is, in this case. Also, as a rural state with a strong ag base, the SC legislature has been very supportive of one-time and recurring investments in extension and land-grant research and infrastructure which is funded separately from Clemson and SCState General/Education budgets. That our state government didn’t flip from Dem controlled to GOP controlled during the tea party/maga times probably helped since we didn’t have a major party shift driving funding priorities/cuts. NC and WV flipped, for example, and they show decreasing or flat funding.
Hi Skip,
Yes, please do email me to chat about that guest post offer. jefox@ucalgary.ca.
Interesting context on the South Carolina uni funding situation.
“The state has put enormous pressure on state unis to keep tuition hikes low/flat. To compensate, the state has also been making up the difference in costs. ”
We have the same pressure for flat tuition in Alberta. It’s a shared priority of both the governing conservative party, and the main liberal opposition party. But the difference is, the governing conservatives here in Alberta cut the uni’s government funding ~30% in inflation-adjusted terms in 5 years. Our marching orders are to do more with less–educate as many undergrads as cheaply as possible.
You can only do less with less.
I’m glad SC understands this for higher ed. We understand it at the k12 level too, where we pay lublic school teachers less, and our public schools produce/perform less. It’s not all hunky dorey here.