The Future (?) of the Scholarly (?) Monograph (?)
As the scholarly communication environment changes, so does the monograph–and the nature of scholarship itself. A few years from now, what will these terms even mean?
Getting Open Access Embargoes Right: Rational Policy Must Be Evidence-Based
A new study, out today, takes a broad look at the usage lives of scholarly journal articles. The information it contains is vital for achieving the balance necessary for Green OA policies to work.
What is Kudos? An Interview with David Sommer, Co-Founder
If there was a word of the year competition for Scholarly Publishing, #Altmetrics would be a favorite to win. David Sommer, co-founder and Director of Kudos discusses how this new service could offer usable measurements of the array of article promotion and influencing activities undertaken by scholars.
The End of an Era for Academia.edu and Other Academic Networks?
The Chronicle of Higher Education reports that Elsevier has issued a sweeping series of Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) take down notices regarding Elsevier-published content to Academia.edu, a file-sharing network for researchers and other academics.
This has prompted a storm in the Twittersphere, a response from Elsevier, a number of commentaries on blogs and list-serves, and a truly bizarre article from CNET. Academia.edu for its part is reportedly encouraging authors of affected papers to sign this Elsevier boycott petition despite the fact that their own terms of use prohibit the posting of content that infringes on the copyright or license of publishers such as Elsevier.
Is this a footnote or the end of a chapter in the annals of digital science publishing?
Stage Five Book Publishing: A Guide for University Presses
The five stages of book publishing outlined here describe the arc as publishers move from the traditional model (where print books were sold mostly in bookstores and to libraries) through a range of developments using online media, culminating in new forms of subscription marketing.
Tip of the Iceberg — How the Illusion of Products Can Mislead Customers About the Realities of Business
As consumers, we are often seduced by the apparent simplicity of the products we use. This can lead us to believe that products are as easy to make as they are to consume — and that is a mistake.
ETDEWEB Is Now Open To All
An interview with Debbie Cutler, discussing the Energy Technology Data Exchange’s recent move to broaden access to their ETDEWEB resource.
How PLoS ONE Can Have It All
PLoS has an interesting opportunity before it to push its most robust service, PLoS ONE, very aggressively for growth. PLoS can do this by lowering the cost of publishing fees, which would make it increasingly hard for other publishers to match them for a Gold OA service. This could result in PLoS ONE becoming the default OA publishing option for all STM publishing.
Scholarly Kitchen Podcast: Standards, Standards, Standards
Scholarly Kitchen chef Todd Carpenter discusses technical standards in today’s scholarly-publishing landscape, and what’s on the horizon.
Google Books Lawsuit Dismissed: "All Society Benefits," Says Judge Chin
In a decision that may have deep and wide-ranging implications for the publishing industry and for future applications of the fair use doctrine, Judge Denny Chin has dismissed the Authors Guild’s eight-year-old lawsuit against Google over its Google Books project.
Open Access on the Sea of Confusion
How many different definitions of “open access” are there? A look at how conceptual confusions conflict with making effective policy.
The Web-scale University Press
This is an essay on what it would mean to create a university press that operates at Web scale. It speculates about what such an endeavor would look like and probes some aspects of the financial model.
An Interview With Janne-Tuomas Seppänen, Co-founder of Peerage of Science
Peerage of Science’s Janne-Tuomas Seppänen discusses their new peer review offering for authors and journals.
Open Online Book Experiment Yields Expected Results
Providing free access to online books has no effect on sales and citations but increase online downloads. A critical review of the study’s research proposal three years ago foretold these very results.
MOOCs and the Cycle of Hype
Thoughts on the future of the Massive Open Online Course (MOOC).