The Desirable Features and Weaknesses of Iranian Academic Textbooks Publishing in Social Science Fields

Abstract

The present study investigates the Iranian faculties’ attitude toward knowing the desirable features and weaknesses of academic textbooks. The survey research method was used and the data were collected by a semi-structured interview. The population consisted of Iranian faculties in the fields of management, geography, sports science and economics, and maximum variation sampling was used as a sampling method. Findings showed that when choosing academic books, faculties pay attention to several aspects including the use of a book, book credits, those materials added to the original text such as a table, diagram, figure, original content issues, book content, book appearance, and its distribution. The weaknesses presented by faculties can be divided into two parts: the weaknesses of compiled books and the weaknesses of translated books, which are related to publishers and authors. Besides, other weaknesses are lack of expert authors, the non-strength of book physical structure, inappropriate layouts, non-fluency, and literal translation. This is the first study to analyze the desirable and weakness point of Iranian academic book publishing and attempt to show selection criteria of academic book publishing as there is no evaluation systems of academic books in Iran.