Given the centrality of journal publication in university performance these days, naively, one might have expected that sound publishing procedures had evolved and that they were generally recognised. Nothing could be further from the truth. The criteria by which submitted papers are assessed are generally opaque, reviewers are given no guidance on how to go about their task and the procedures are rarely spelled out.
As a result, submitting a paper to a journal has a black-box aspect – the paper goes off into a void. One has no idea as to when one might hear back from the journal. And when a response is forthcoming, the procedure can veer all over the place.
There is a paradox here. It is now standard practice for any research-oriented university to have an ethics committee to which research proposals are submitted. However, there is something of an ethical vacuum when it comes to the editing and reviewing of papers for journal publication.
