Please note this late session addition at the Annual Meeting.

As part of its annual meeting, the Conference of Historical Journals is sponsoring a panel discussion on the “grading” issue.

In recent months, the European Union’s European Reference Index for the Humanities (ERIH—a subset of the European Science Foundation) group and follow-up groups in Australia and New Zealand have been “grading” scholarly journals in all fields—including history and all other disciplines in the humanities and social sciences. Check out what grades your publications have received—and check out comments about the ERIH grading on the Internet! Join a conversation about how these ratings may soon become a part of individual faculty and institutional assessments and a factor in funding schemes. Will your administrators find these measures attractive? Do these “grades” have an “upside”? How will they affect emerging new fields and formats? Will your journal become part of an international “no journal left behind” movement, or will it get slammed? Since many North American journals (including AHA and MLA) publish European authors, ERIH “grades” will soon begin to affect their status (and your journals) unless academics in the humanities organize an effective rejoinder.

The Council of Editors of Learned Journals has been considering the topic of journal identity in the digital age at the December MLA meetings. The Council hopes to forge a broad coalition of journals and editors, as well as other academics and scholarly associations, to think swiftly and helpfully about these matters.

Panelists are:

• Martin J. Burke, Graduate Center, City University of New York; co-editor, Journal of the History of Ideas
• Robert A. Schneider, Indiana University; editor, American Historical Review
• Robert Townsend, Assistant Director for Research and Publications, American Historical Association
• Bonnie Wheeler, Southern Methodist University; editor, Arthuriana, and president of the Council of Editors of Learned Journals
• David Johnson, Portland State University; co-editor, Pacific Historical Review, and president of the Conference of Historical Journals, chair

Please join us Sunday, January 4, 2:20-4:30 PM, in the Harlem Room of the New York Hilton. The Annual Business Meeting of the Conference of Historical Journals will follow the panel discussion.

This post first appeared on AHA Today.