Succession Planning
Robert Harington attempts to help you think through how to develop a strategy for succession planning, recognizing that in today’s world, people just don’t stay at their jobs as long as they used to.
The Art of the Beall
After deleting his predatory publishing list, librarian Jeffrey Beall reemerges into the spotlight with a self-published book about art forgeries.
How to Reduce the Cost of College Textbooks
Of the many proposals to lower the cost of college textbooks, the model called “inclusive access” may have the best chance, as it creates incentives for publishers and students alike.
Ebooks, Innovation, and the Rebel Within
In every publishing organization you need a rebel. Robert Harington talks with Peter Krautzberger, project lead for MathJax and rebel, about his views on Web publishing, ebooks and mathematics.
Wither Portable Peer Review
Does the closing of Axios Review portend the end of independent peer review?
Collision Course — Why Are Funders Straying from Their Lane?
Funders have shifted their focus, and are funding, investing in, or launching initiatives that compete with publishers and constrain researchers. What changed?
Predatory Publishing as a Rational Response to Poorly Governed Academic Incentives
Are we thinking about predatory publishing the wrong way? Are researchers deliberately choosing these journals, and if so, what are the incentives driving this decision?
The Value of Copyright: A Publisher’s Perspective
Robert Harington takes the reader on a tour of copyright law, suggesting that its value is in supporting our ability to teach and do research, and publish high quality works.
Scientific Publishing in a Time of Political Assaults
With recent political upheaval sparking activism among scientists, librarians, and educators, where do publishers fit? What are they doing? What should they do?
Diversity in the Open Access Movement, Part 2: Differing Goals
What, if anything, should be done about the fact that the Open Access movement embraces not only a variety of definitions of the term “open access,” but also a diversity of visions as to what constitutes an acceptable future for access to scholarship?
Diversity in the Open Access Movement, Part 1: Differing Definitions
Fifteen years after the term was coined, we still don’t have a single agreed-upon definition of Open Access (OA). What are the implications of this diversity of views within the OA movement, and how much does it really matter?
Journals and Politicians — A Marriage for Mutual Benefit? Or a Temporary Alignment of Interests?
President Obama has published three articles in six months in three of the world’s most prestigious scholarly journals. Is it appropriate? With these precedents, what happens when the politics of the President conflicts with the politics of science?
University Press Books We Loved in 2016
As a follow-up to the chef’s best books read during 2016, I’m happy to present a selection of our favorite university press reads of 2016 (and thanks to one of our commenters for the suggestion!). We tend to think of […]
The Measure of All Things: Some Notes on CiteScore
Elsevier’s new CiteScore service is a carefully thought-out element in the company’s competitive strategy, but it reinforces the widespread error that bibliometrics can be use as proxies for the quality of a publication.
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.