A Stocking Stuffer for Christmas
A recommendation of a wonderful short story by Joseph O’Neill, which should serve as a stocking stuffer this Christmas.
Embrace the Bubble…or Burst it?
Along with recent hair-pulling about fake news has come renewed awareness of the concept of “filter bubbles,” as many of us acknowledge the risk of political information “bubbles” following the US presidential election. Where we once bemoaned “filter failure” – […]
Humanities Commons: Networking the Humanities through Open Access, Open Source and Not-for-Profit
The just-launched beta version of Humanities Commons is the latest in a growing number of scholar-led innovations in scholarly communication. How do such innovations develop, and how should more traditional publishers think about these opportunities? I spoke with MLA’s Kathleen Fitzpatrick recently to learn more.
Communicating Science: What Can We Do Better?
In the wake of public questions about trust in science, Angela Cochran had a conversation with Dr. Jamie L. Vernon about the challenges of communicating science to the public and how the SciComm community could do better.
Whither Portable Peer Review?
Three companies (Rubriq, Axios Review, and Peerage of Science) have working models for external peer review. Has any one of them found a model for success?
The Future of Authorship
Dismayed by the loss of trust in facts, and seeming preference for half-truths that appears to be driving our political present, Robert Harington decided to catch up on his reading over the weekend, and stumbled across a stimulating article in Publishers Weekly, entitled How to Sell Nearly a Half-Million Copies of a Poetry Book, by Anisse Gross.
Postdocs Promoted As Paid Reviewers
Paying a living wage for reviews could provide postdocs with a temporary career alternative. But it won’t come cheaply and it will likely result in an uncompetitive journal with little chance of success.
STM Week 2016 — Stray Thoughts on Security, Open Access, and Data
A few take-aways from STM Week, including London Information International — why publishers have to take security seriously, why OA may need to itself be disrupted, and why we might want to rethink the “content business” positioning we have.
What We Tell Society Publishers About Open Access
We are often called upon to discuss open access to society publishers. This is what we tell them.
CiteScore–Flawed But Still A Game Changer
The real innovation of CiteScore is not another performance metric, but a new marketing model focused on editors.
Let’s Make the Facts Louder than the Opinions
A public service message from the Weather Channel.
Guest Post, Jose Luis Ortega — Academic Social Networks: Collaborative Environments or Diogenes Clubs?
Quantitative analysis of researchers’ use of scholarly networks shows that they are more likely to be used for individual interests than for collaborative purposes.
Peering across the Copyright DMZ
A new book reviews various instances of piracy in the media industry and proposes using Big Data analyses as a means to manage it.
Are Journals Lacking for Reviewers?
There is sufficient supply of reviewers to meet demand, a new paper suggests. It’s just not evenly distributed.
Monographs, Transparency and Open Access
How can we better communicate to readers the degree of access being made available in the context of open access monographs?