Access, Opportunity, and Transparency in Academic Publishing

I had the honor of being the first Journal of Physical Therapy Education Editorial Fellow, and I am grateful for this opportunity to share my experience and reflections on the past year. The focus of the Journal's editorial fellowship is to provide mentorship and training for those interested in learning more about the publishing process, becoming a reviewer, and an editorial board member. At the core of this focus is the opportunity to shadow the Editor-in-Chief (EIC), Dr. Keshrie Naidoo and seeing how a manuscript goes from submission to decision. I also had the opportunity to speak with members of the editorial board, receive feedback on my peer reviews, and receive mentoring from Dr. Naidoo on becoming a more productive researcher. The EIC, along with the editorial team, manages the demands of multiple stakeholders to ensure that the scholarly needs of all in the community are met. During this experience, I learned about the challenges of managing a journal: navigating the diversity and substantial increase of submissions the journal receives, ensuring equitable distribution of research topics to serve the physical therapy education community, and balancing those challenges with logistical constraints of page limits. One of my considerations when applying to this fellowship was to explore access, opportunity, and transparency in academic publishing. This was driven by my experiences in research and publication. Although most full-time terminal doctoral degree programs in higher education offer students mentorship in the publication process, this is not always the case for those of us who had to pursue our doctoral terminal degrees part-time. Limited research in this area suggests that full-time doctoral students receive more mentoring around research and publishing compared with their peers enrolled part-time in doctoral programs.1,2 Gap in mentorships and research opportunities can lead to a gap in knowledge of the publication process, including for those with marginalized identities. Research on the experiences of researchers new to publishing noted challenges in the publication process such as the lack of feedback during peer review3 and an overwhelming publication process4 that was time-consuming, frustrating, and degrading.5 Given the vast differences in expectations between writing a dissertation and a journal article, and the differences in requirements in submission formats across journals, the publication process can be daunting and overwhelming to the most experienced researcher. My fellowship goals included gaining insight into the publication process, and identifying strategies to support new researchers to improve their experiences in the publishing process. My time as a JoPTE fellow led me to the conclusion that access, opportunity, and transparency in academic publishing must be intentionally nurtured and is part of the journal's responsibility. The journal, like any other, has responsibilities to multiple communities—the academic community, authors, and students. There is an inherent balance in providing access and opportunity to all authors and preserving responsibility to our academic community. Many look to the journal as the leader of knowledge in physical therapy education, thus attracting diverse submissions from physical therapy education researchers around the world. As a leader, it is in the interest of the journal and our academic community to nurture quality academic research. However, the peer review process is often misunderstood as a process that determines if the research is “good” or “bad.” The peer review process is not simply a judgment on the quality of the research, but also offers feedback about how the author can translate the research in a way that is meaningful to the academic community. Improving writing for publication can only be developed through mentoring, feedback, and experience. Although peer reviewers can provide constructive feedback to authors to facilitate this process, it does not replace a meaningful mentoring relationship. Without mentorship, experience is gained through the prospect of multiple rejections for a manuscript, which could lead to multiple rounds of revisions and submissions to different journals. For the journal and our community, this could mean losing quality research and researchers due to the frustration of publishing. Fulfilling a responsibility to the academic community means committing to the professional development of new researchers and the generation of new ideas. In fulfilling this responsibility, providing mentoring and scholarly opportunities to researchers, both novice and experienced, can increase access and facilitate transparency in the publishing process. The JoPTE Editorial Fellowship is one avenue for mentoring in the publication process, but there needs to be far more opportunities for physical therapy education researchers.