A View from the Outside — Trends and Challenges Consultants See in Scholarly Publishing
Input from more than a dozen consultants portrays an industry struggling to adapt to a dramatically different and rapidly changing information economy.
Federal Trade Commission and National Institutes of Health Take Action Against Predatory Publishing Practices
The NIH is warning its funded authors against publishing in predatory journals, and the FTC has secured a preliminary injunction against OMICS for alleged predatory publishing practices. Will this mark a turning point in the fight against fraudulent scholarly publishing?
Amazon in 1999, A Look Back
A look from 1999 at an interesting new company called, “Amazon”. Whatever happened to them?
PLOS Reports $1.7M Loss In 2016
After several high surplus years, a relatively small 2016 deficit will not sink PLOS. However, the trend over the past five years does not look encouraging, and 2017 looks no better.
Creating a Safety Net — Why Double-Dipping Is the Wrong Term and the Right Approach
An over-reliance on ad dollars in digital media is leading to a crisis. Can we learn some lessons about the value of revenue diversification? Can we accept that diversification isn’t “double-dipping”?
Is There a Business Case for Open Data?
Open data is gaining ground, but is there a revenue stream that would help journals recover the costs of gathering, reviewing and publishing data?
Puppetmasters — Who Is Pulling the Strings in the New Information Economy?
Information manipulation is not new, yet everything is different. How do governments, preprints, algorithms, and our own responsibilities intersect? Where does peer review come in now?
Strategy & Integration Among Workflow Providers
Scientific workflow providers Elsevier, Digital Science, and COS differ in their strategy. To what extent will they provide end-to-end integrated workflows?
Book Review — “World Without Mind,” by Franklin Foer
Franklin Foer’s new book is a bracing account of the current information economy, the monopolies and motivations at its heart, and the weakening of democratized knowledge.
“Technology is Not Neutral” — How Online Companies Manipulate Billions of Minds
A former Google employee explains the tricks that online companies use to manipulate users and suggests there’s a better way.
Guest Post — Does ResearchGate Emerge Unscathed, or Even Strengthened?
Librarian Lisa Janicke Hinchliffe offers thoughts on where the ongoing clash between scholarly publishers and ResearchGate may end up.
Building Healthy Online Communities — An Interview with Rachel Happe
Community management has become a key part of social media and online publishing, whether we realize it or not. In this interview, an expert in the fields shares some views of how organizations can benefit from a more singular focus.
Who Owns Digital Science?
In the shift beyond content licensing and towards supporting researcher workflow, Elsevier has few competitors. A key question is whether Digital Science and SpringerNature should be understood strategically as one company, or two. Who owns Digital Science?
Ask The Chefs: Where Does Open Access Go From Here?
Publishers, librarians, researchers, and funders all have a stake in Open Access. What happens next? See what the Chefs have to say.
Defining Moment — What Do We Mean When We Say “Diversity”?
The term “diversity” can be thrown around like we know what it means, but it is highly contextual, not always visual, and tricky to implement meaningfully.