The value of conference publications: old challenges and new opportunities

Abstract

The digital economy has brought both challenges and opportunities to academic publishing, particularly in regard to publication outcomes for international conferences. Although journal publishers have initially suggested that the impact of digital and open access publishing might be problematic to existing business models, conference convenors have largely embraced the possibilities for free digital access to conference proceedings in online environments. Many professional associations and conference convenors have presented the conference ‘publication’ as a way to improve attendance at conferences, to increase the likelihood of university funding to academics to attend conferences and to increase exposure to the bodies that fund conferences. Nonetheless, there are challenges in finding, facilitating and maintaining quality academic publishing in the conference environment. Lack of transparency around processes for ensuring academic quality, the imposition of governmental research rankings on publications and lack of collaboration between conference and journal publications all create barriers to good-quality publication outcomes in the conference environment. Drawing upon my recent experiences as the conference convenor for the Australian and New Zealand Communications Association (ANZCA) annual conference in July 2014, I will discuss the ways in which these challenges could be overcome, and present publication outcomes that are viable for conference environments.