Backward advance.
I learned recently of a mass-resignation from the editorial board of an open-access journal. The journal, Advances in Anthropology, is published by the troubled publisher Scientific Research Publishing (SCIRP).
The current editorial board.
Here’s a screenshot (above) of the current editorial board. It has nine members plus the Editor-in-Chief Anatole Klyosov.
I wrote to the former Editor-in-Chief, Dr. Fatimah Jackson, who confirmed the mass resignation. She replied:
Thanks so much for your message. Indeed, I resigned as Editor-in-Chief of Advances in Anthropology after consistent and flagrant unethical breaches by the editorial staff in China. [ ...]. The senior members of the Editorial Board resigned as well and we wrote up the editorial conditions we wanted implemented before we would return. The editorial staff in China was unwilling to integrate the scholars on the Editorial Board into the decision-making process regarding the review, acceptance, and publication of articles. This was unacceptable. For them it was only about making money. We were simply their “front”. [...].
Best wishes,
Fatimah Jackson
The former editorial board. Note that Dr. Jackson is now at Howard University. Image courtesy of the Wayback Machine
As best I can tell, this resignation occurred around a year ago.
In recent years, editorial board mass-resignations were generally carried out by activists wanting to take action against subscription journals. This is the first mass-resignation I know of from an open-access journal.
