Editorial: Lee Harvey Future for printed journals

The evolution of technology and the increasing reliance on the Internet has, inevitably, led to suggestions that the current process for publishing academic articles, viz. in printed journals has a limited future. As of 27 February 2022, Quality in Higher Education had this year’s entire issue of articles already published online. The situation is getting progressively worse with more and more papers issued online well before they ever appear in print; the paper version is thus dated before it is published. Of course, it is not just Quality in Higher Education that is in this position. As of 27 January 2022, Studies in Higher Education had 117 articles published online, some going back to July 2019, that’s two and a half years and still not in a published paper issue. Studies has six issues a year, a total of around 95 articles, so the backlog is growing all the time. The current issue of Studies (47(1)) features articles all published online in February and March 2020! The process seems unsustainable in its current guise and, in the case of Studies, has contributed to the reluctant resignation of the Editor, Leo Goedegebuure (2022):