The publisher Wiley has fired the chief editor of the Journal of Biogeography after he resigned over conflicts with the company.
Michael Dawson, a professor at the University of California, Merced, submitted his resignation on June 21, tweeting that he made the decision “because journal management declined to explore productive solutions to a suite of challenges facing the journal.”
He also tweeted:
In an accompanying blog post, Dawson listed several concerns from his resignation letter, including proposed growth targets for the journal, equity issues in adopting an open access model in which authors pay fees to publish their work, and compensation for the editors. He tweeted that the journal’s December issue would be his last.
Wiley, however, confirmed through a spokesperson that “we are working through him to a contractual termination date of August 27th.”
Dawson told Retraction Watch that he was not available to speak before the end of the week.
Besides Dawson’s resignation and now firing, the journal has lost a deputy editor in chief, and the majority of its associate editors have been refusing to handle new submissions for the past month, as we’ve previously reported.
The associate editors cited opposition to switching the journal to a full open access model, a proposed increase to the journal’s output, and automatic referral of rejected manuscripts to other Wiley journals as the issues that triggered their work stoppage, set to end yesterday.
The dispute between the editors of the Journal of Biogeography and Wiley is the latest in which journal editors have recently resigned en masse, or threatened to resign, due to similar conflicts with for-profit publishers.
Update, 8/2/23, 0230 UTC: Following the publication of this post, a Wiley spokesperson tells us:
Wiley informed journal editors on July 14 that there are no plans to flip the Journal of Biogeography to open access but that we continually evaluate our journals to ensure they stay aligned with subject areas and funding trends. We also informed editors at that time that the Journal of Biogeography is no longer enrolled in the referral program.
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How can someone be fired *after* they resign?!
His resignation was set for December, but they sacked him in August with a few weeks’ notice instead. A rather heartless “thanks” in response to the professional courtesy of him providing significant advance notice of his resignation.
I don’t know what they’re thinking about at Wiley right now, but it certainly isn’t optics.
It’s very normal when someone gives excessive notice — this was something like half a year — to get rid of them sooner. Escially when they publicly criticize the company like that and reveal internal planning efforts.
Employing someone who wants to leak your information and embarrass you is stupid.
Sacking someone with advanced notice is kind. The vast majority don’t know until the day of.
That rather depends on what country you are in, in some juridictions it is illegal to sack someone without notice. That does not preclude companies removing access, but they would still have to pay the ex-worker their nomal salary for the notice period.
The ‘excessive’ notice of 6 months is contractual.
Wiley would be negligent if they allowed Dawson continued access to their system(s) given the apparent dislike he has for the company. Better for them to simply let him go and cut his access to their systems now rather than waiting months before doing so and to heck with the “optics” of it all.
It’s nothing personal, it’s just good IT security.
Maybe I misunderstand something, but how is open access a problem? I’ve always thought that it’s a good thing for the public/scientific community. Why do associate editors cite open access as a reason to leave? Or did Wiley want to implement it in some particular manner?
“Open access” is a euphemism for “charging authors thousands of dollars to publish a paper”. Many researchers simply don’t have the budget for this, and so are placed at a massive disadvantage to American and European researchers where these costs are baked into the funding structure.
It also has led to an explosion of pay to play publishing which is exploited by be climate science deniers antivaxx etc.
Debate is science. Calling someone a science denier is a red flag against your credibility. Do better.
The comment said climate science denier not science denier.
Talk about projection.
“Debate” particularly as practiced in countries like the US, UK and Australia is certainly not science. Typically it’s one side behaving in an honest data driven, evidence based manner with the other tossing out bogus counterfactuals or running Gish Gallops.
Hence the term science denier.
Which applies to medical, climate or in some fundamentalist cases, biological, geological or astophysical sciences
Ah okay, thank you for the explanation. I suspected it is something like this. I agree that this is no good at all.
See the reply below. Open access sounds like it contains a principle of fairness. In reality it excludes researchers not working for well funded institutions. It has also led to a proliferation of predatory online “journals” that will essentially publish anything for money. It creates a wild West in academic publishing and undermines genuine peer review. Academic publishing has its problems but a ruthless profit-based business model is not part of the solution.
Thank you, I seen now that this “open access” is just a misleading name for a model that does not resolve any problems.
Because authors have to pay thousands of dollars.
Wiley is the largest fraudulent publisher, they only care about APC.
It’s Wiely again, they should refund the fee. They have been deceiving the author, editor, and reviewer. Please stay away from Wiely.
I think every journal has a right to charge APC to authors or a subscription charge to readers. Very often, the idea of open access was proposed as to disseminate scientific information. However , we forget the efforts, time, energy, and money spent by journals to make a high quality literature. It takes many years to gain a respectable impact factor. We as an author only see our side. Marketing and business are diametrically opposite to write an article. The authors who published in these journals also get fame, recognition, remuneration, money, promotion, and sponsorship from pharmaceutical companies. These authors themselves take all monetary benefits and when it comes to journal they start talking about OPEN access. This is nothing but politics.
Praveen and others who may share Praveen’s point of view should watch this documentary: https://paywallthemovie.com/
It’s not politics, Praveen, it’s corporate greed.
Dear Sir, I agree with your statement regarding corporate greed. However, without money, no one works. Money is the biggest motive in life.
We observed such a thing in India. The majority of Indian journals are open-access. Hence, they have no money to maintain the quality and overall look of the published journal.
However, compared to that, the majority of the European and USA journals are of high quality with an appealing look due to the huge amount of money Western journals charge to the Universities. The money helps them to maintain the standard of the journals. This in turn leads to more research, innovation, publication, and overall progress of the society and these countries.
Again, I am saying the same thing, publishing an article and making money from that article are two different things. It takes a huge amount of money to keep staff, editors, and marketing of the journal. It takes someone’s whole life to establish a publishing company.
If someone has an objection then no need to send articles to these journals and no need to be on the editor board of these journals. Who is stopping them to do this?
However, still authors send articles to these journals and want to be on their editor board. Universities also take subscriptions to this journal. The main reasons are the prestige, authenticity, and money attached to these journals.
Also, anything which is given free has no value. Like free advice had no value.
Hence, I think publishing companies are absolutely right if they charge money to authors, readers, or universities.
“If someone has an objection then no need to send articles to these journals and no need to be on the editor board of these journals.”
Yes, there is a need. Professors HAVE to publish. It is part of their job. There will be no career advancement for a professor who does not publish (worse, it would likely end their career). And someone (experts) have to peer review.
“Universities also take subscriptions to this journal. The main reasons are the prestige, authenticity, and money attached to these journals.”
Again, universities have no choice, it is the ONLY way to get access to these journals. Some publishers make sure they have exclusive rights to particular journals, and since they are the only point of access they charge more for it. Also, university programs will NOT be accredited if the documentary resources are lacking. Making the diploma/degree worth nothing.
“Hence, I think publishing companies are absolutely right if they charge money to authors, readers, or universities.”
Yes, no problem! Absolutely! There is a cost to publishing, they need to recoup these costs and make a profit. But Wiley’s revenue was over 2 BILLION last year. That is way beyond a reasonable profit margin, especially considering that science should be a public good since it is basically publicly funded (your tax dollars pay for all this).
I do not at all dispute that Wiley and their ilk are making obscene profits, but revenue and profit are not the same thing.
Let me ask you a question ? What other profession seeks research funds, generates the work to capture the data, analyses it, writes it up, then pays to publish it after relinquishing all IPR on their work and receives no recompense for all that work. Remember too that all the editing, referee and quality assurance for that work is done by academics not the publishers. While your at it check the companies profits. Open access is expensive and is precluding huge swathes of scientists from publishing their work from poorer regions of the globe.
Thank you.
Dear Sir,
Again and again, I am saying the same thing. Writing and editing articles are different from selling the article.
For example, suppose you write an article and then publish it on your blog or personal website or get it done print and distribute for free. No one will read your article until you have a market value. To make a market value it takes many years (probably someone’s whole life). For example, Apple took 30-40 years of hard work where they are today. Hence, people are buying their phones.
Similarly, Springer, Wiley, and Elsevier took many years to reach a respectable value in the market. Hence, authors and universities prefer and read these journals. For the same reason, these journals charge a heavy amount to authors or readers.
I hope I made my point clear.
Thanks
We call for all Wiley’s open access journals (including Hindawi) to be included in the Predator Journal list. At the same time, we demand that all scholars stop submitting to Wiley’s open access journals (including Hindawi), and we will work together with all platforms to launch a boycott campaign.
I suspect that the author of the previous comment is not related to the person or people who use the pseudonym “Hoya Camphorifolia” to comment on PubPeer.
I also suspect that the author of the next comment is not related to the person or people who use the pseudonym “Rhipidura albiventris”.
Wiley should return all APCs collected by Open access, which is the best solution. I suggest that Wiley take immediate action to return the APC, which is in the best interest of the scholarly community to discontinue them.