Catching the Wave — The Tide Turns Toward the Subscription Model
Silicon Valley’s advertising model has been exploited, and free information’s price is more apparent. Will we be saved by subscription model innovations?
An Open Letter to the AAUP: Faculty Authors and “Full Freedom in Publication”
In 1940, the AAUP published a Statement on Academic Freedom. In 2018, it’s time for it to be updated–and some items clarified.
Fixing Instead of Breaking, Part Three — Blockchain, RA21, Privacy, and Trust
We continue to battle the tidal wave of data with a bucket brigade of individual privacy settings. Maybe it’s time to pause and consider a state-level solution, ala Estonia.
Breaking the Silence: the #MeToo Moment in Scholarly Communication
We have all been shocked and disgusted by painful stories of harassment over recent months, so why have we heard nothing from our own industry? As many can attest, sexual harassment is just as real and pervasive in scholarly communication as elsewhere. It’s time for us to own this and to begin working together to eradicate this behavior for the next generation of women.
Fixing Instead of Breaking, Part Two — The Subscription Model
Business models that exploit vulnerabilities are unfair. Can a model that aligns producer and consumers help fix the Internet?
Fixing Instead of Breaking, Part One — Open Citations
With so much broken by the Internet, we may be moving into a mode of fixing things. Are open citations part of the solution, or more of the problem?
Roadblocks to Accessibility
Accessible publishing is better for publishers, better for the bottom line, better for readers of all stripes. If we agree that egalitarian dissemination of academic content is the thing to do, including those with physical, learning, or cognitive challenges, then why does end-to-end accessible publishing continue to elude us?
The Varieties of Lock-in in Scholarly Communications
There are various ways that customers get locked in to services in scholarly communications. These methods are longed for by publishers and disliked by customers, but they naturally emerge as a part of the economy.
Book Review: “Technically Wrong,” by Sara Wachter-Boettcher
A new book explores how biases and broken systems get built into technology products and platforms.
Napster vs. Record Labels, Sci-Hub vs. Publishers, Part 2: Differences
The challenges posed to record labels by Napster in the late 1990s and early 2000s resemble those posed by Sci-Hub to scholarly publishers today. But which of those resemblances are real, and which are misleading?
Napster vs. Record Labels, Sci-Hub vs. Publishers, Part 1: Parallels
The challenges posed to record labels by Napster in the late 1990s and early 2000s resemble those posed by Sci-Hub to scholarly publishers today. But which of those resemblances are real, and which are misleading?
The Wake-up Call — Looking Back at 2017, and Some Factors Affecting 2018
2017 may have been a watershed year for the Internet and its future. What did we learn? And what factors may shape 2018?
All the News That Fits — What’s Really Driving Altmetric’s Top 100 Articles List?
The Altmetric “flower” is an icon, and the annual Top 100 list a much-anticipated event. But is the flower really a stalk?
Guest Post: When Authors Get Caught in the Predatory (Illegitimate Publishing) Net
Are we losing good articles to predatory journals, with little recourse for unsuspecting authors? Or are authors becoming increasingly complicit and symbiotic in their relationships with illegitimate publishing entities with disregard for the greater good? Maybe it’s both. Today’s guest post explores what can happen when an author accidentally falls into the predatory journal rabbit hole.
Illegitimate Journals and How to Stop Them: An Interview with Kelly Cobey and Larissa Shamseer
Illegitimate – or predatory – journals are on the increase. What’s more, authors from high-, middle-, and low-income countries are now known to be publishing in them. Find out why this is the case and how we can work as a community to help stop their spread, in this interview with Kelly Cobey and Larissa Shamseer of Centre for Journalology, Ottawa Hospital Research Institute, to coincide with their new paper on the topic in Nature Human Behavior.