Can Highly Selective Journals Survive on APCs?
Are the APC levels set for high-end OA journals too low to be sustainable? Are there other ways that might help high-end OA journals pay their way?
Love That Dirty Water — Are We Headed Toward a "Clean Science Act"?
With greater awareness of the foibles and failings of scientific publishing, weaker self-regulation systems, and a trend toward governmental regulation of funding, is external regulation of the scientific journals system now inevitable?
Innovation, Growth and the Art of Balance
Robert Harington references our current altered state in politics as a tool to reflect on the need to invoke balance in publishing innovation, and growth.
APCs and Competition: What Shulenberger Got Wrong
Would a systemwide “flip” to open access by means of universal article-processing charges work? David Shulenberger argues that it would not, and he may be right — but not for the reasons he gives.
Caught in the Middle — Can Publishers Resolve Contradictory Expectations?
A session at ALPSP shines a light on why publishers are caught in an impossible situation — satisfying customers who demand different things at different times, and who are not aligned around the ultimate benefit they all seek to deliver.
Old Media, New Media, Data Media: Evolving Publishing Paradigms
We typically classify publishers as Old Media and New Media, but now we have companies that are part of a new paradigm, the Dat Media company. Such companies sit above both Old and New, studying patterns in usage and in the databases of information aggregated by publishers.
Visualizing Citation Cartels
Citation network maps may indicate when gaming is taking place. Proving intention is a different story.
Ask The Chefs: What Is The Future Of Peer Review?
Looking forward to Peer Review Week, we asked the Chefs “What is the future of peer review?” #PeerRevWk16
Book Review — The Traps of Big Data Revealed in "Weapons of Math Destruction" by Cathy O’Neil
The new book, “Weapons of Math Destruction,” calls out many worrying trends in the application of big data, with particularly salient entries on higher education rankings, for-profit universities, the justice system, insurance, and employment.
Hollywood Takes on Peer Review
This summer’s blockbuster movie “Ghostbusters” is, amazingly, about academic peer review and the quality of scholarly publishing. Is it possible that the specialized world of scholarly communications now has mass appeal?
When Bad Science Wins, or "I’ll See It When I Believe It"
Observational studies claiming an open access citation advantage just keep coming, despite problems in reproducibility and a lack of adequate controls. Are we in for a similar literature on the subject of the impact of social media on readership and citation?
Annual Reports — What Do They Actually Tell Us?
Annual reports from publishing organizations always have a marketing slant, even when they are required filings with governmental bodies. But some are more marketing-oriented than others, and should not be mistaken for transparency, but rather tend toward rationalization. eLife’s recent report, challenging others to be as transparent, is itself opaque and purposeful.
The Costs of Flipping our Dollars to Gold
An interview with MacKenzie Smith and Ivy Anderson, discussing the recent Pay It Forward report on the economic impact of a shift to Gold open access for scholarly journals.
Vindicated by Its Critics: The Kent Study in Light of Other Research on Library Circulation
In 1979, a study at the University of Pittsburgh Library found that 40% of the books added in the previous six years had not circulated. 37 years later, we librarians still cite that number and many of us use it (among other factors) to justify moving in the direction of patron-driven acquisition. A critic of that practice argues that many subsequent circulation studies contradict the Kent Study. But do they?
A Quick Tour Around the World of Scholarly Journal Publishing
A presentation to the 2016 ISMTE US Conference. Something of a “state of our industry” overview, or perhaps, everything I needed to know I learned from the other bloggers at The Scholarly Kitchen.