New changes at COPE seem to move the organization further away from standards and closer to suggested behavior. At the same time, a new policy on member expulsions was announced. Is it clear exactly what members are agreeing to?
Hoping to woo authors away from commercial publishers, a group of biomedical science societies have launched a new alliance to promote the value of publishing in society journals.
Citations and the metrics around their use are an important part of evaluation and promotion of science and scientists and yet, little attention is paid to them in the peer review process. In this post, Angela Cochran makes a call to critically review reference lists and develop standards around what should and should not be included.
Managing volunteers in a critical and yet overlooked part of running a successful journal or program. Angela Cochran explores tips for getting the most out of volunteers and where we can find training to learn these skills.
There is little doubt that piracy of subscription or member-only access content is damaging to publishers and societies. Does the same hold true for open access journals? Angela Cochran explores some of the dangers piracy poses to open access content.
No matter what we call it, commenting on scholarly publications has a spotty record of success. Despite the mediocre results, journals, databases, and third party sites keep trying to get authors and readers to engage in this way. This post explores different models and the challenges online commenting faces.
In the quest to measure everything, authors are now presented with all kinds of metrics. This post reviews common sources for citation, attention, and usage metrics. Not all the tools are up for the job leaving authors wondering how to quantify the impact of their work.
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.
Fake News is making headlines as questions about how dubious stories may have influenced the US election. This post explores the damage done to reputable news organizations and what scholarly publishers could learn from the whole thing.
With everyone in a rush to get work published quickly, authors are sometimes torn on what to do when major revisions are requested. The post examines the pros and cons of seeing the process through, or cutting bait mid way.
As we celebrate Peer Review Week, this post summarizes some of the reviewer preferences along with ways to boost recognition for peer review activities. #PeerRevWk16
Launching a new journal is a lot of work. This post looks at the basic “to do” list of logistical details that need to be done to successfully launch a new journal.
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.
Angela Cochran talks about the need to sometimes move out of our comfort zones or give others a slight push. Moving out of the “zone” can bring big benefits but also fear of the unknown.
While many of the traditional publishing tasks remain intact, new tasks that are much more technical in nature have changed the skill sets required to be scholarly publishers. As new and developing standards and services such as Funder Identification, ORCID, CHORUS, and more come online, publishers and their vendors must integrate when they would rather innovate. The trick is in realizing where integration allows more innovation.