Guest post from Adam Hodgkin, looking at the differences between the academic books and journals markets, and how the aggregation strategies for journals may not work in the same manner for books.
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?
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?
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.
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.
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.
Research4Life’s Richard Gedye discusses publisher contributions to UNESCO’s International Day for Universal Access to Information.
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.
There have been several recent studies of what it costs to publish academic monographs, but they all mistake the cost of production with the cost of publication. This post summarizes the issues and suggests a very simple way to calculate the cost of publication.
Ever wondered what early-career publishing professionals are worried about, wishing for, and planning to do–and how you can encourage them to keep doing those things within your organization? The Society for Scholarly Publishing wondered, too, and deployed a subcommittee of professionals (early-career and otherwise) to find out. Here are some of their findings, presented by Early Career Subcommittee co-chairs Emma Brink and Matt Cooper (both of Wiley).
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.
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.
Higher Impact Factor, faster publication, and weaker data availability policies may be drawing authors away from PLOS ONE.
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.
A presentation to the ISMTE conference. The argument is that strategy is an integral part of business operations and must be used to measure all activity within an organization. A three-step process for strategic planning is included.