The Scholarly Kitchen
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Privacy and the University Press
As university presses become more involved with D2C marketing, they are going to confront the need for clearly articulated privacy policies. The time to put those policies in place is now. Continue reading
Today's Specials and Featured Items
Interlibrary loan is a complex and difficult issue in the realm of ebooks. A new tool called Occam’s Reader hopes to simplify the process for libraries, provide better service to users, and reassure publishers worried about rights management. Continue reading
Are authors leaving PLOS ONE for higher performing journals? Continue reading
Scholarly Kitchen chef, Robert Harington asks “what do researchers want?” From those in mathematics to tumor immunology, from gerontology to Melville studies, the answer is often “to do my research in the best way possible.” Using a dose of pythonesque humor, this post chips away at this question, providing an interesting example of how the American Chemical Society is thinking through such issues. Continue reading
Data sharing and publication is a topic we need to consider carefully, and weigh the risks, costs, and benefits, as well as the complexities. Continue reading
PLOS has set a new policy, requiring authors to make all data behind their published results publicly available. This has been met with a great deal of controversy from the research community. Thoughts on why this policy and why now… Continue reading
Publishers are always said to be slow-moving, but the pace of development at the CHORUS organization belies that. Continue reading
Businesses are using more data than ever to inform decision making. While the truly large Big Data may be limited to the likes of Google, Amazon, and Facebook, publishers are nonetheless managing more data than ever before. While the technical challenges may be less daunting with smaller data sets, there remain challenges in interpreting data and in using it to make informed decisions. Perhaps the most daunting challenge is in understanding the limitations of the dataset: What is being measured and, just as importantly, what is not being measured? What inferences and conclusions can be drawn and what is mere conjecture? Where are the bricks and mortar solid and where does the foundation give way beneath our feet? Continue reading
Despite the feeling that the factory has turned out just another from the same template, Gladwell’s new book turns out to be refreshing, surprising, and thought-provoking. Continue reading
Alan Alda spoke at the AAAS meeting in Chicago on the theme of communicating science to the public. We often view the communication of science, be it in one’s own scholarly journals or in mass media, as somehow distinct and meaningfully different from other communication styles. However, Alda made the point repeatedly during his presentation that this should not be the case. One can accurately convey science with stories and an engaging style that not only brings the reader along in the discovery process, but also preserves the truth and validity of the underlying discovery. Alda made the point that “Communication is not something you add on to science, it is of the essence of science.” Publishers can help to improve how science is communicated; indeed it is at the core of what publishers bring to the process of distributing science. Continue reading
While we usually think of innovators as visionaries with big ideas that challenge the very assumptions of the way we conduct our lives, many innovations seem to happen almost by accident. The challenge is how to make these accidents occur more often and to benefit from them. Continue reading
Much of the public debate about open access is polarized, but a recent study of scientific communications shows that extremism breeds more extremism. Isn’t it time we started to look at more effective ways to communicate – to listen, learn to understand each others’ views, and find ways of collaborating and cooperating, rather than competing? Continue reading
A contemplation of constraints — how some have vanished, how others are needed, how new ones are emerging, and the benefits constraints deliver. Continue reading
Social media presents a new set of marketing opportunities for publishers, the most important of which is a new paradigm for thinking about the world of digital media, which now is the world of the social stream instead of the world of cyberspace. Continue reading
Ann Okerson is the National Contact Person for SCOAP3, a partnership aimed at converting high energy physics journals to an open access model. Continue reading
A particularly pervasive type of error in the ROARMAP registry seems designed to give the impression that many institutional OA policies are more mandatory than they really are. What purpose does this serve? Continue reading
When does it make sense to call an Open Access policy a “mandate” — and when does it constitute unhelpful exaggeration? Continue reading
With the ease of posting and searching online for final published PDFs of journal articles and ebooks, publishers have turned to digital solutions for finding unauthorized copies of copyrighted materials. Recently, some authors have taken exception to these policies leaving publishers to defend these practices and explain author rights when it comes to sharing accepted manuscripts. Continue reading
Legal issues are an inevitable part of publishing cutting-edge information in a world as political as academic research. However, the role of publishers in these matters, and their important contributions, are often concealed within necessary discretion. Continue reading
When novel, newsworthy results are discovered to be wrong, is that still news? Continue reading
A recent announcement from the UK government highlights the unanswered economic questions behind its open access policy. Continue reading
EBSCO has recently acquired altmetrics startup Plum Analytics. What will this mean for both companies and altmetrics in general? Continue reading
Adam Etkin describes the workings and rationale for scoring papers and journals based on the rigor of peer review they received prior to publication. Continue reading
The Journal of Cultural Anthropology is now becoming open access. This points to one path a professional society can follow if it cannot derive significant income from library sales or if its membership is more interested in wider dissemination of material than the uses income from journals can be put to. Continue reading
A new concept video puts Google Glass at the heart of a research laboratory. But is there really anything here that couldn’t be done just as easily with existing devices? Continue reading
The “publish or perish” culture has created a major mega-journal. But are its boundaries and standards built properly to avoid becoming an enabler of that culture? Continue reading
A recent research report from Simba Information analyzes the market for publications in the social sciences and humanities. Continue reading
Strategy can mean many things to many people. Why is strategy important? How do you go about developing strategy? Chef Robert Harington discusses how, in his view, societies should approach strategic development in context of building a sustainable publishing future. Continue reading
Revisiting Todd Carpenter’s 2012 post on the value of altmetrics. Continue reading
Amazon is now the most important participant in the business of scholarly books, but it faces few threats. This post hypothesizes about where challenges to Amazon could come from. Continue reading
The European Union sets up a public consultation on copyright policies. Continue reading
A study of journal advertising support in large, multi-specialty journals fails on many key fronts. Continue reading
The US government’s new appropriations bill contains a public access mandate for research articles funded by some agencies. Continue reading
Richard Huffine, former Director of Libraries for the US Geological Survey (USGS) and current Senior Director, U.S. Federal Government Market, at ProQuest speaks about public access policies. Continue reading
The Jack Andraka story develops further. SSP pages on Wikipedia are taken down by a disgruntled commentator. And Andraka’s draft paper gets a preliminary review, and both the reviewers and Andraka admit it’s less game-changing than the media has led us to believe. Continue reading
What happens to non-subscription revenue streams under funding agency public access policies? Will broadening access to articles result in higher subscription prices? Continue reading
This is an announcement of a university press research project, which includes a link to a survey we hope every book publisher will fill out. The project is sponsored by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. The focus is on how university presses can sell books, both print and digital, directly from their Web sites. The project report will cover current practices and recommend courses of action. Continue reading
Journals in the arts, humanities and social sciences are often seen as the poor relations compared with their counterparts in science, technology, and medicine – but perhaps that is starting to change. Continue reading
As requested, here is a summary of all the things found so far through the FOIA requests regarding PubMed Central — from eLife to BMC to JMLA to conflicts of interest to coverups. It’s quite a fetch. Continue reading
Another association of historians has recommended that students be allowed to impose limited embargoes on their dissertations. And so the question arises again: whose work is the dissertation, and who should control it? Continue reading
A new study, out today, takes a broad look at the usage lives of scholarly journal articles. The information it contains is vital for achieving the balance necessary for Green OA policies to work. Continue reading
A new study reports on the usage half-life of articles in thousands of academic and professional journals. The results may help in the formation of public access policy and the setting of access embargoes. Continue reading
Although Jeffrey Beall has done us all a good service by coming up with his list of predatory publishers, his arguments against open access publishing have become shrill and reveal that he is expressing a political viewpoint that obscures the many gradations of opinion concerning scholarly publishing. Continue reading
The Internet rewards scale and creates clear competitive disadvantages for niche businesses. Now that a long-term economic downturn has made for starker realities, the effects of this basic set of facts seem inevitable. Continue reading
The Chronicle of Higher Education reports that Elsevier has issued a sweeping series of Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) take down notices regarding Elsevier-published content to Academia.edu, a file-sharing network for researchers and other academics.
This has prompted a storm in the Twittersphere, a response from Elsevier, a number of commentaries on blogs and list-serves, and a truly bizarre article from CNET. Academia.edu for its part is reportedly encouraging authors of affected papers to sign this Elsevier boycott petition despite the fact that their own terms of use prohibit the posting of content that infringes on the copyright or license of publishers such as Elsevier.
Is this a footnote or the end of a chapter in the annals of digital science publishing? Continue reading
The editor of eLife, on the eve of accepting his Nobel Prize, publishes an article designed to give his journal a competitive advantage. Unfortunately, the errors, lack of disclosure of his incentives, and inappropriate dismissal of incentives made the social graph light up with derision. Continue reading
Under Open Access mandates, what constitutes a “federally funded” paper? Continue reading
Gold open access publishing has proved to be successful, but it has certain limitations. This essay probes what those limitations are, but it argues that OA’s limitations do not outweigh its strengths. Gold OA most usefully coexists with traditional publishing models. Continue reading
Why does PubMed preferentially link to PMC versions in its search result lists? Emails from 2011 suggest it’s specifically to generate more traffic to PMC and show off NLM services. Continue reading
Authors
Angela Cochran
Stewart Wills
Alice Meadows
Ann Michael
David Crotty
David Smith
David Wojick
Joseph Esposito
judyluther
kwissoker
Michael Clarke
Rick Anderson
Phil Davis
Robert Harington
Kent Anderson
Todd A Carpenter
The mission of the Society for Scholarly Publishing (SSP) is "[t]o advance scholarly publishing and communication, and the professional development of its members through education, collaboration, and networking." SSP established The Scholarly Kitchen blog in February 2008 to keep SSP members and interested parties aware of new developments in publishing.
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The Scholarly Kitchen is a moderated and independent blog. Opinions on The Scholarly Kitchen are those of the authors. They are not necessarily those held by the Society for Scholarly Publishing nor by their respective employers.
Authors
The mission of the Society for Scholarly Publishing (SSP) is "[t]o advance scholarly publishing and communication, and the professional development of its members through education, collaboration, and networking." SSP established The Scholarly Kitchen blog in February 2008 to keep SSP members and interested parties aware of new developments in publishing.
......................................
The Scholarly Kitchen is a moderated and independent blog. Opinions on The Scholarly Kitchen are those of the authors. They are not necessarily those held by the Society for Scholarly Publishing nor by their respective employers.
