Well, That Went Fast! A Few Last-Minute Reflections on a Year as President of SSP
Serving as President of SSP for a year let me see how uniquely beneficial this organization is for scholarly publishing.
Regret Salad with Aspiration Dressing — A Scholarly Publisher Delves Into the New York Times’ Innovation Report
The New York Times’ “Innovation” Report will hit a lot of nerves when it comes to strategy, long-term transformation, investment, digital operations, silos, print legacy, and organizational culture. And it will remind you how barely contained panic looks to others.
What Motivates Reviewers? An Experiment in Economics
Shorter deadlines, email reminders, and cash incentives can speed up the peer review process and minimize unintended effects, a recent study suggests. Can it work for other disciplines?
Cooperstown, Ground Zero for Altmetrics
The altmetrics movement is a key aspect of scholarly communications today. We can learn more about altmetrics by studying the statistical analysis of baseball.
How Can We Make the Publishing Process More Sound?
At a time when more research articles are more readily available to more readers globally than ever before, it’s crucial we are confident that those papers meet the highest standards and, that on those occasions where they don’t, there is a sound system in place to revise or retract them. So what can we do to make the publishing process more sound?
Open Access: Fundamentals to Fundamentalists
There is a certain fundamentalism that pervades discussions around open access policies and business models. On the one hand there are the advocates, and through the laws of conservation of energy, the equal and opposite reaction of anti-open access advocacy. There seems little room for rational debate about open access in the midst of such an antagonistic atmosphere.This post asks us to spend our time thinking through a range of open access models, experimenting and refining, rather than forcing ourselves down the road of policy mandates that potentially discourage innovation.
Identity Theft of the Scholarly Kind
Building a reputation can take decades for a society, publisher or journal. Unfortunately, the influential “seals of approval” in the industry are easy to spoof leaving some authors confused and deceived.
Identity Crisis — Does Print Need to Die for Online to Flourish?
The bias against printing has a technological basis and some business rationale, but are we underserving our role as “content marketers” by shutting down this option out of hand?
University Presses: "Under Fire" or Just Under the Gun (Like the Rest of Us)?
Are university presses really “under fire,” or are they simply experiencing the natural consequences of doing the wrong things at the wrong time in a marketplace that has evolved away from them?
Happy Anniversary: 50 Years of the Science Citation Index
This week marks the golden anniversary of the Science Citation Index, introduced by Eugene Garfield in 1964.
What Researchers Value from Publishers, Canadian Survey
Peer review, journal reputation, and fast publication were selected by Canadian researchers as the top three factors in deciding where to submit their manuscripts, trumping open access, article-level metrics, and mobile access, a recent study reports.
Keeping It Real — Are Our Technology Expectations Out of Whack?
While we fuss over our interfaces and capabilities, we often forget how difficult software is to create and sustain, how easy it is to imagine otherwise, and how scarce engineering and programming resources are across the board.
Build a Better Mousetrap
The best way to increase D2C sales is to work in increasing the traffic to your site. Without traffic, there can be few sales. Unfortunately, the university press community has paid little attention to building Web traffic.
How Do We Address the Continuing Problem of Inadequate and Deceptive Publishing Practices?
Technological trends have enabled experiments in publishing. But now that we’ve seen plenty of experiments, is it time to bring them under control?
What Is A Photocopier?
A reenactment of a legal deposition transcript offers some absurdity for your Friday.