Clément Zanolli
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Clément Zanolli
@clement-zanolli.bsky.social
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Paleoanthropologist, CNRS researcher at the University of Bordeaux (France)
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Footnote: Editorial Board (EB) resignation letter submitted to the journal publisher, Nadia Durrani (cc: Ann Corney, who had been the last known publishing director) (12/21/2024); acknowledgment by the journal publisher of receipt of the resignation letter (cc: Joe D’angelo, and informing the Editors that D’Angelo had replaced Corney as publishing director since January 2024) (12/24/2024); e-mail from the Editors to the journal publisher (cc: Joe D’angelo, publishing director) indicating their willingness, and that of many of the EB, to continue to handle in-process papers for a period of time, but that they would not take new papers (12/26/2024); removal of the EB from Editorial Manager (01/10/2025); e-mail from the Editors to the journal publisher (cc: Joe D’angelo, publishing director), forwarding the 12/26 e-mail communication noted above and reiterating the willingness of the editors and EB to handle their ongoing papers for a period of time (01/10/2025).
April 1, 2025 at 11:21 AM
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Even assuming two reviewers have all the necessary expertise, they may not both agree to review. So while the continued seeking of new reviewers to obtain the necessary expertise extends the time to review and decision, awaiting a third reviewer in the event of needing a ‘tie-breaker’ does the same thing. Seeking only two reviews will often result in obtaining a single review, necessitating further invitations later in the process. None of these practical realities are considered or addressed by Elsevier. To be clear, while reducing the number of reviews may at first appear to reduce the time to decision, in practice, the review process is more complex and nuanced, and the past Editors and EB functioned far more flexibly and nimbly than simply following a ‘three-reviewer’ rule. 5. The editorial states that the journal will continue with the double-anonymized peer review but that they have “enabled the deposition of preprints at submission, which of course makes anonymity impossible” and “wish to leave that choice to the authors themselves”. To clarify for the paleoanthropological community, the choice to deposit a preprint prior to or at the time of submission has always been left to authors and no past EIC has ever rejected a paper because of a preprint submission. In sum, for 52 years, the goal of JHE has been to publish the highest quality science while helping authors bring their best work to publication. Elsevier, by contrast, places a premium on speed and quantity over quality—as evidenced by reducing the number of reviews; offering editorial “guidance” rather than insisting on clarity of language, grammar, and meaning; eliminating a discipline-specific copy editor; eliminating the editor’s role in assessing production quality of the proofs. This publishing model will undoubtedly preserve the goals of Elsevier. Ultimately, the Editorial Board did not believe this publishing model would preserve the legacy of JHE.
April 1, 2025 at 11:21 AM
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3. The editorial also states that satisfying reviewer requirements “sometimes pushes the resulting paper outside the scope of the journal. Many such manuscripts were withdrawn in the past…”. While the journal publisher provides journal metrics to editors, the numbers alone do not tell the whole story. The reasons for withdrawal of a paper are varied and often provided only in personal email communications directly to the handling EIC. To give context for ‘many such manuscripts’, of 850+ papers handled over the past five years, <2% were withdrawn, with most (>1%) withdrawn either at the authors’ requests due to self-identified errors, issues during the online submission process that resulted in the inadvertent submission of the same paper twice, or unilaterally by the journal manager due to constraints imposed by the publisher on the length of time a paper may be in revision. 4. The editorial states “The three-reviewer system often leads to over-complicating the whole process [of review]” and invokes “increasing reviewer fatigue (Breuning et al., 2015) and pressures, especially on early career researchers, to publish their results faster”. This is then taken to be a reason to “only require a third review when the two primary reviewers offer dissenting opinions”. For many of the top-tier scientific journals (e.g., Nature, Science, PNAS), it is standard practice to seek a minimum of three reviewers. This is precisely because not only are good reviewers hard to find, but different reviewers focus on different aspects of a manuscript and a larger number of reviewers is crucial for identifying errors or flaws in complex often multidisciplinary studies that involve large datasets, computationally complex analyses, large numbers of figures and tables, R coding/simulations, and/or shifting of much of the details that undergird the study to supplementary material. This describes many of the studies that have been submitted to JHE in the past.
April 1, 2025 at 11:21 AM
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Response to the JHE Editorial (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0047248425000302): 1. The editorial notes that the EB’s resignation letter was published after the new editors had accepted the invitation to serve as co-Editors-in-Chief. The exact dates on which the offers were made by the publisher vs. signed by the editors can only be known by the editors and the publisher. However, by early December, well before the EB resignation was submitted and posted on social media, at least two of the three new editors had been informed of the intention of the EB to resign, and the reasons for this. 2. Quality copy editing—The editorial states that Elsevier has given assurances of a high-quality copy editor. It is important to be clear that editor concerns regarding the loss of support for a copy editor pertain specifically to the loss of financial support from Elsevier to the editors to allow the editors to hire a copy editor outside of Elsevier—a copy editor who was knowledgeable about the discipline and subject matter. This financial support, which had been provided to the editors for many years, was withdrawn by Elsevier in 2015. The editors since 2015 have emphatically advocated for the importance of continued support for a copy editor knowledgeable of the field and were still reassured time and again that the copy editing provided by Elsevier is sufficient. We assert that the copy editing provided by Elsevier has not served the journal well. As a result, the various EIC's over the past 10 years essentially served as their own copy editors when it came to changes requiring knowledge of the subject matter as well as basic copy editing. Over the past 20 years there have been numerous journal publishers (and publishing directors) for JHE. From 2020–2025 alone, the journal was overseen by three different journal publishers and at least two publishing directors. This loss of ‘institutional memory’ regarding support for a copy editor is thus understandable.
April 1, 2025 at 11:21 AM
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It was suggested that those interested might consider the use of a social media platform to survey the paleoanthropological community to determine what the community really wants, and how and who best to lead toward achieving that goal. As noted above, to move forward effectively, we also believe the paleoanthropological community needs to understand the implications of some crucial aspects of the recent Elsevier communications. Here are a few important clarifications: Response to the Elsevier published note (https://www.sciencedirect.com/journal/journal-of-human-evolution/about/news/publisher-s-note-on-journal-of-human-evolution): The publisher’s note states that Elsevier removed access to the editorial system for the editorial team because “…we had no indication at that point of involvement from associate editors aside from the signed letter indicating that they were stepping down and no longer wished to be involved with the journal”. This statement is perplexing because it directly contravenes communications from the Editors to Elsevier clearly stating their intent to continue to handle their in-process papers for a period of time, if Elsevier would allow it [see Footnote at the end]. The publisher’s note states that Elsevier “believe[s] in maintaining a clear separation between editorial decision-making and [their] commercial interests”. However, we contend that when 1) an editorial board structure is determined by a publisher rather than an editor or editors, 2) a publisher limits the expertise of that board by reducing the number of qualified Associate Editors, and 3) a publisher does not appoint Associate Editors vetted by the editors, those actions directly impact the editorial decision-making process.
April 1, 2025 at 11:21 AM
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Of course, this brings the discussion back around to variants of the questions raised above: does the field of paleoanthropology need a flagship journal? If yes, what would be the best path forward—raising an existing journal to the past level of JHE (or even higher), or creating a completely new journal that would differ from existing venues and respond to the current needs and requirements of our field? • A member of the EB of Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology (JVP) noted that if the paleoanthropological community did decide to start a new journal, a society-owned journal would be in a stronger position to negotiate with a publisher as compared with a publisher-owned journal. 2. A number of participants disclosed that since the EB resignation, they had withdrawn their in-process papers from JHE and submitted them elsewhere; some who had intended to submit new papers to JHE have also submitted elsewhere. One participant spoke to the potential need for early-career scholars to continue to submit their papers to JHE because the journal is indexed and has been the flagship journal for paleoanthropology. Others pointed out there are other journals that, though not discipline-specific journals, can serve this purpose, including American Journal of Biological Anthropology, Anatomical Record, Evolutionary Anthropology, and JVP. 3. The question was raised as to whether the paleoanthropological community should continue to review for JHE. Taylor suggested that to review or not review for JHE is a personal decision. Though not stated during the open forum, Grabowski, Taylor, and Zanolli are among the Emeritus and past AEs who will not review for JHE. They believe their individual decisions contribute to collective decisions, which ultimately impact community, and reviewing for JHE means serving Elsevier, which they will not do. When the meeting ended, a number of attendees expressed their interest in continuing to discuss future options for a discipline-specific journal.
April 1, 2025 at 11:21 AM
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The presentation ended with a series of questions for consideration by the paleontological community moving forward, including 1) Does the discipline need another journal like JHE, but built on a different kind of business model, and, if so, what would that journal look like? 2) What does the discipline owe the community when thinking about how it publishes and disseminates work? And 3) What do we, as individuals, owe the discipline and our students? Following the presentation, there was an open discussion with some Q&A. Key points and outcomes of the discussion include the following: 1. There seemed to be general support by those in attendance for a discipline-specific journal built on a different business model. • Katerina Harvati, Editor-in-Chief (EIC) of PaleoAnthropology, spoke to the history and scope of the journal. She noted that PaleoAnthropology is a society-owned journal (jointly by ESHE and the Paleoanthropology Society), is fully OA, and currently has no article processing charges (APCs). A number of questions were raised, including who publishes the journal (the University of Tübingen Library), whether the journal is positioned to handle a substantial increase in the number of submissions and whether the model of diamond (=platinum) OA would be sustainable with such an increase, and the status of the journal in terms of indexing. A number of attendees spoke in support of sending papers to PaleoAnthropology, especially papers by more senior authors who may no longer need to publish in an indexed journal with an impact factor. • Andrea Taylor spoke to conversations she has had with MIT Press (a not-for-profit publisher) for a fully OA journal and the advantages and challenges around establishing a new discipline-specific journal. A next generation journal would need to be community-based and built on an OA model, with the ultimate goal of being indexed and becoming the flagship journal for the study of human evolution.
April 1, 2025 at 11:21 AM
clement-zanolli.bsky.social
JHE update: here below is a summary of the JHE Open Forum at AABA and a final response to recent Elsevier communications
Summary of JHE Open Forum & response to Elsevier communications We thank all those who attended and participated in the Open Forum (concerning the en masse resignation of the JHE Editorial Board) which was held at the annual meeting of the AABA on Saturday, March 15th, from 10:30am–12:00pm. The Open Forum was led by Emeritus Editors Andrea Taylor (in person) and Clément Zanolli (via Zoom); Emeritus Editor Mark Grabowski sent his regrets as he was unable to attend this year’s AABA meeting. The meeting was well attended (~50–60) and included a number of Emeritus Editors and immediate past and earlier Editorial Board (EB) members. What follows is a summary of the discussion that took place during this Open Forum. Additionally, in the days before the Open Forum, Elsevier published an editorial and a publisher’s note. While we will not engage in continued back-and-forth discussion of communications from Elsevier as we do not see this as productive, we do believe there is a crucial need to set the record straight on several claims and for the paleoanthropological community to understand the implications of some of the assertions in those communications. Summary of the Open Forum: The forum began with a short presentation which included a brief background of changes in the publishing world, including the history of Open Access (OA) in Europe and the 2022 US federal mandate by the Office of Science and Technology that all federal agencies make federally funded research freely available to the public immediately upon publication by the end of 2025 (NSF Public Access Plan 2.0); the implications of the 2025 mandate for authors in the US; the consequences of the OA mandate in Europe and the US for publishers, journals, and authors; and the fundamental misalignment of the goals of JHE and the goals of the publisher that ultimately led to the en masse resignation (the details of which were communicated at the time of the resignation and were not the focus of the Open Forum)
April 1, 2025 at 11:21 AM
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Hi John, actually the two reconstructions by Suzuki and Amano are very similar, the neurocranium being very similar in shape (including in elongation). Did you try to superimpose the two reconstructions? I did it and here is the result.
January 25, 2025 at 8:31 AM
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Resignation of the Journal of Human Evolution Editorial Board: We are saddened to announce the resignations of The Joint Editors-in-Chief, all Emeritus Editors retired or active in the field, and all but one Associate Editor. Press release below.
December 26, 2024 at 6:20 PM