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March 16, 2006
A new journal for judgment and decision making
ANNOUNCING THE JUDGMENT AND DECISION MAKING JOURNAL
Jon Baron has announced A new online journal for judgment and decision making.
A new journal is always a risk. If people will read it and cite it, submitting there now is wise. If nobody will read it or cite it, submitting there now is foolish.
In an exclusive interview, DSN asked Jon Baron the following questions :
Before a journal has a reputation, what should one do? Submit early? Or wait and see? If you submit early, you may have good chances of getting in, and your article may get great exposure if the journal succeeds, but if the journal fails, your article may slip into oblivion. If you wait and see before submitting, and others do too, the journal will surely fail.
Should a pre-tenure academic who needs articles in certain reputation journals publish in a new journal? Or just senior people who care more about exposure than building a tenure case.
What makes this journal a safe bet? I believe that unlike most journals, this one will be reachable by search engines, so articles there may get more exposure than one in a traditional journal.
Jon Baron replies:
"I think there are a few answers about "why submit," and I didn't want to harp on some of them in a general post sent everywhere.
1. As you point out, this gets lots of exposure.
2. By going after short articles, we are looking for good ones that get rejected from Psychological Science, of which there are
many. There is no other outlet for these. Most main-line journals do not take short ones, e.g., with one experiment. Moreover, the Psychological Science review process has become slow, so it is a bigger risk to send things there, and you might want to try us first. (I don't know if you should say the last thing. Say it if you agree with it, but perhaps don't attribute it to me. It is, however, true.)
3. There are successful on-line journals of societies, e.g., the Journal of Vision (published by ARVO).
4. This seems to have a lot of support, as indicated by those who agreed to be on the board.
5. The usual journals (OBHDP and JBDM) have very low penetration and citation rates. This is, I think, largely because most institutional libraries do not get them. As a result, they don't really count as "prestigious" when people come up for tenure. So there is little to lose. See the proposal for documentation.
In sum, yes, this is a risk, but I'm really not sure it is a very big risk. A publication in a refereed journal is, after all, a publication in a refereed journal. And our rejection rate will, I think, be high."
Posted by dggoldst at March 16, 2006 08:29 AM