In this new University of California (UC) Office of Scholarly Communication blog series, we highlight the successes and challenges of leading journals published by UC’s eScholarship Publishing program through interviews with journal editors. Our first interview is with the co-editors-in-chief of Glossa Psycholinguistics, Fernanda Ferreira (Distinguished Professor of Psychology, UC Davis) and Brian Dillon (Professor of Linguistics, UMass Amherst).

What is the origin/focus/purpose of your journal?

Glossa Psycholinguistics publishes contributions to the field of psycholinguistics, which is the scientific discipline focusing on how people process, remember, and acquire human languages. For example, in a recent issue we have several articles on how an individual’s language experience, such as their familiarity with diverse accents, influences how they perceive speech.  

The articles we publish generally reflect basic science in this area and often, but not exclusively, use some combination of experimental or computational methods. We consider submissions from all fields and theoretical perspectives on any psycholinguistic topic. Our papers often investigate the processing of understudied languages or language use in communities that have traditionally been neglected in mainstream psycholinguistics research.

Why does open access matter in your field?

First off, some of our work is of broad public interest (e.g., bilingualism, sign languages), and we want the public to be able to read it. For instance, Newsweek recently did a feature on one of our articles on nonbinary ‘they.’ Since our journal is open access, interested Newsweek readers were able to access the primary source directly.  

Research studies in our field are conducted in a wide variety of languages, including those that are understudied and where collaborations with individuals in under-resourced areas are crucial. We therefore cannot have our research hidden behind an expensive paywall that prevents scientists working outside a small set of wealthy, usually English-speaking countries from accessing the work. 

Our community is philosophically inclined towards models of science that are inclusive, not only to promote access but also to weaken the hold of corporate interests on scientific publishing. Almost all of our research is supported by public funds, and we believe it is therefore important to ensure the public has access to the work they pay for. 

How does eScholarship support your goals for this publication?

Without eScholarship we could not have created this journal. When we decided to try to establish Glossa Psycholinguistics, our goal was to provide an open access outlet for psycholinguistic work that could compete with some of the most prestigious paywalled publications. To be successful, we had to provide a publication that met the aesthetic and error-free standards our community expects and deserves. This meant we needed a platform that could host our articles in a familiar and accurate format and that could offer long-term access to these materials. We required basic features such as DOIs, but also the availability of articles in both PDF and XML formats so our audience could read the articles in whatever way they preferred: on a phone, a tablet, or a computer. Articles had to be downloadable and printable as well. We also needed a skilled team to help us with the inevitable technical problems that might arise in the journal production process. Perhaps most importantly, it was essential to work with a professional and knowledgeable publisher who could advise on matters such as publication ethics and could guide us as our ambitions grew along with our success – for example, we are now working on getting the journal indexed in Web of Science and eventually obtaining an impact factor.

What challenges does your publication face?

Our publishing model relies on scholars generously contributing their time and energy to editorial and reviewing tasks without any compensation. Given the increasing demands on academics’ time, maintaining this generous spirit can be challenging: Some members of the scientific community have expressed skepticism about engaging in editorial tasks such as journal reviewing and editing without any type of financial compensation. If editing and reviewing come to be seen as an added burden rather than the inherent responsibility of scientists who publish in journals that use peer review, then models like ours which rely on pro bono work on the part of scholars are in trouble. We’re very lucky to have recruited a group of renowned scholars to serve as our handling editors and editorial board even though we can’t offer any type of honorarium, and they contribute their time very generously to ensure a high quality publication. 

It is increasingly difficult to recruit reviewers for article submissions. People are overextended and overworked, and the added burden of reviewing a paper (a task which, if done properly, can take hours) is often just too much. Nothing in our system prevents someone from submitting a dozen papers a year without taking on the social responsibility of doing a single review of someone else’s manuscript. No one really wants to police scientists’ behavior, but it’s clear there is a type of prisoner’s dilemma at work that eventually will have to be addressed. 

We compete with prestigious journals such as the Journal of Memory and Language (published by Elsevier) that have far more resources than we do. More junior scholars often tell us that their university won’t give them credit for articles published in journals that are not indexed or lack an impact factor, which means we need our journal indexed in Web of Science as soon as possible. Of course, submitting an application for inclusion is an enormously time-consuming task that we have to squeeze in between our other journal tasks as well as our normal academic work.

How do you measure success?

Our goal is not modest: We would like to be seen as one of the primary main outlets for research in psycholinguistics, eventually competing favorably with journals that have been around for decades, including Journal of Memory and Language and Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition (published by the American Psychological Association).

In terms of more specific metrics, we would like to increase our annual submissions and published articles. We have steadily increased the number of articles we publish each year, and are on track to publish more than 30 articles in 2024. Moving forward, we think a reasonable annual target might be 150 submissions and 40-50 published articles. We also want to see our articles being cited, which is already happening.

Our revenue comes almost entirely from Voluntary Author Contributions, or VACS. Authors are not required to pay anything to publish in Glossa Psycholinguistics, but we ask that if they have the funds to support us, they consider a contribution in the form of a VAC. The idea is that if some people pay VACs, then this covers the rest of the authors who are not in a position to do so. We are delighted to say that more than half of our authors voluntarily contribute in this way, which ensures that we are in a good position to keep the journal running smoothly. We’d like to keep this up to ensure we can continue to operate for many years and possibly hire an assistant to perform some of the routine tasks the Editors-in-Chief now handle, particularly on the production side.

How does the future look for Glossa Psycholinguistics?

We have already achieved far more than we imagined we would when we started the journal in early 2021. The number of articles we publish grows year on year. Perhaps the most important measure of our success is that we have the support and goodwill of our community. The field respects and appreciates what we have done in creating a new and exciting outlet for the best psycholinguistic research being done anywhere in the world.

Tags: eScholarship, Open Access