A group of eight publishers today announced that, during 2016, they will begin requiring authors to use an ORCID identifier (iD) during the publication process. The first to do so is The Royal Society, which has introduced this requirement beginning January 1, 2016. In this interview, their Publishing Director, Stuart Taylor, explains why.
Can PLOS exist without a mega-journal?
While all publishers like to have a strong brand, some brands are so prestigious that they actually serve to paralyze the managements responsible for them, making it impossible to introduce innovations and to develop the business. Vast bureaucracies arrive whose purpose is not to develop the business but to protect the vaunted brand. This is a management problem, not a marketing one, but it can stymie a publisher from pursuing a progressive agenda.
Today, we grapple with privacy issues as consumers, as citizens, and as voters. As an industry, we should be thinking about how to draw not only on policy but also on technical architecture to balance privacy and innovation. When the stars align, an entirely different architecture for the control of user data is possible. What would such a shift mean for scholarly publishing and academic libraries?