Weathering the Storm: What Will 2025 Bring for Academia?
My glass of optimism is usually full. But my glass is leaking now, or maybe it’s broken? The realities of the new political landscape have cast its shadow on the future of academia.
The Genesis and Purpose of the Forensic Scientometrics Declaration: An Interview with Dr. Leslie McIntosh
What is the Forensic Scientometrics Declaration, and how did it come about? An interview with Dr. Leslie McIntosh.
Guest Post — Evaluating China’s Science and Technology Journal Excellence Action Plan: A New Era of Research Impact and Standards?
Here we examine the second phase of China’s Journal Excellence Action Plan, its implications, its funding framework, and what it means for Chinese scientific journals, researchers, and the broader international academic publishing community.
Guest Post: The Perennial Question of Librarian Credentialing
A new survey looks at the philosophies and practices around librarian credentialing in the United States.
Disruption As an End in Itself: eLife’s Suspension and DORA’s Response
DORA’s reaction to Clarivate’s decision to no longer fully index eLife (and, therefore, not to give it a Journal Impact Factor) seems inconsistent with both its and eLife’s public positions, and based on the mistaken belief that “disruption” is an absolute good in itself.
A Dissonance of Ideals: Openness, Copyright, and AI
Robert Harington attempts to reveal inherent conflicts in our drive to be as open as possible, authors’ need to understand their rights, and a library’s mandate to provide their patrons with the enhanced discovery that comes with AI’s large language models (LLMs).
Peer Review Week 2024: Ask the Chefs
Leading into Peer Review Week 2024, we ask the Chefs: What is, or would be, the most valuable innovation in peer review for your community?
Kitchen Essentials: An Interview with Hylke Koers of STM Solutions
In today’s Kitchen Essentials post, Alice Meadows interviews Hylke Koers, Chief Information Officer for STM Solutions about his organization and his career in scholarly infrastructure
Revisiting: Libraries and the Contested Terrain of “Neutrality”
Revisiting Rick Anderson’s 2022 post which asks, are libraries “neutral”? That question is way too simplistic to serve as anything other than a political football.
Revisiting — What Does “Federally Funded” Actually Mean?
With a new public access memo and federal agency policies due, Angela Cochran revisits her 2013 post exploring what Federally Funded means.
Should Publishers Invoice Authors for Retraction Costs?
It is essential to address the hidden costs of retraction and to discuss who needs to bear this cost.
Woefully Insufficient Publisher Policies on Author AI Use Put Research Integrity at Risk
Do publishers really understand what tools researchers are using and how they are using them? Can we do more to create better policies based on real use cases and not hypothetical conjecture about what AI might do in the future?
Oxford Administrators Want OA Policy Removed from REF 2029. I Have an Even Better Idea.
Three Oxford administrators want to lower the cost of mandatory open access by shifting the responsibility for enforcement to funding agencies. But that doesn’t lower costs at all; it only shifts them. To truly lower costs, stop trying to make open access mandatory.
Guest Post — DOAJ’s Role in Supporting Trust in Scholarly Journals: Current Challenges and Future Solutions
In this post we reflect on the current threats to trust in scholarly journal publishing, and the implications for organizations like Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) that seek to uphold that trust.
The American Sunlight Project Wants to Make It More Costly for Bad Actors to Spread Disinformation: How Will They Do That?
How will the American Sunlight Project make it more costly for bad actors to spread disinformation — and what does this mean for scholarly publishing?