In Search Of Gutenberg
Stephen Fry presents a journey through Gutenberg’s life and the invention of his “machine that shaped civilization.”
Ask The Chefs: What is The Role of Social Media in Scholarly Publishing?
The role of social media in scholarly communications is a continuous debate. Is there value? See what the Chefs have to say and then let us know what you think!
The Discrete Charm of Geometry – A Review
Amidst the politics of open access, the financial pressure on research libraries, and the sense that ubiquity trumps quality, it is worth remembering that nothing can squash the fervor of academic endeavor. Video is increasingly deployed in the publishing of academic research. Robert Harington explores the importance of using different types of media to provide insight into cultural and historical aspects of a field through a review of a new movie by Ekaterina Eremenko – The Discrete Charm of Geometry.
Can You Coko? An Interview with Kristen Ratan of the Collaborative Knowledge Foundation
If you haven’t already heard of the Collaborative Knowledge Foundation (CKF or Coko for short), chances are you soon will. Find out more in this interview with co-founder Kristen Ratan.
What Is SocArXiv?
A new “papers service” for social science content was recently launched and is capitalizing on concerns over the sale of a long time preprint server by a commercial publisher. While the timing might be right, the set up looks a little hasty.
Why Animals Are Needed In Research
Leading researchers explain the critical need for animal research models.
Optical Illusions — Shifting to Citation Distributions Only Makes It Easier to Fool the Eye
A proposal to substitute graphs of citation distributions for impact factors introduces many problems the authors don’t seem to have fully grasped, including unintentionally bolstering the importance of the very metric they seek to diminish.
Wellcome Money — Involvement with F1000 Opens Door on Sketchy Peer Review, COIs, and Spending Decisions
With a new partnership with F1000, Wellcome embraces sketchy peer review standards, deep conflicts of interest, and financial support of a private, commercial enterprise. Worse, the entire thing seems redundant, avoidable, and unnecessary.
Peer Review Week 2016 #RecognizeReview
Peer Review Week is back! After a successful first year, planning for Peer Review Week 2016 is in full swing. This post will give you an outline of the week focusing on Recognition for Review.
Will Citation Distributions Reduce Impact Factor Abuses?
Publishing a histogram of a journal’s citation distribution won’t alleviate Impact Factor abuse. At best, it will be ignored. At worse, it will generate confusion.
An Introduction to Uncle Charlie: NIST Research that Proved Baseballs Really Curve
A look back at NIST research into an important summer question.
Summertime and Graduate Teaching (Still) Isn’t Easy
Upstream from the work of scholarly publishers, it’s the middle of the deceptively paced academic summer when scholars I know are often focused on conferences, research trips, and writing. Summer isn’t as frantic as the academic year, when every other […]
Have You Looked At This? Yewno
Yewno was formally launched at ALA in Orlando. Is this new technological approach going to re-shape the way undergraduates think about discovery of relevant content?
Guest Post — Accessibility Is The New Innovation
Darrell Gunter discusses the great opportunities available in making all forms of content accessible to everyone.
Detecting (and Stopping) Robot Pirates
Designed to act like humans, pirate robots avoid detection by keeping download requests low, cycling through journals, and jumping from publisher to publisher.