Strategic Thinking Exercise — Who Is Positioned to Keep Gold Open Access Growing?
It’s unclear who in the academic world has any incentive to pay for Gold OA publishing, especially as embargoes satisfy nearly everyone and cost next to nothing.
Left Behind—Will Proposed Rules in Scholarly Publishing Leave Behind a Population of Researchers?
Lost in the discussions of what open access, open data and public access should look like are the concerns of researchers who are not yet on board with what is being proposed.
Publish or Perish: Is Publishing the Career it Once Was?
A sense of gloom hangs over academic publishing these days. As library budgets are cut, and the fear of OA mandates cutting profit margins clouds publishers’ sense of their place in the world, what is it like to be a publishing professional in this era of climate change?
CC-BY, Copyright, and Stolen Advocacy
Even with the protections of traditional copyright, an author may lose control of his original work and see it misappropriated and used for hateful ends. So is it any wonder that many authors have concerns about being required to publish under CC-BY?
What Does "Unsustainable" Mean?
We breeze by the statement that “scholarly publishing economics are unsustainable,” without contemplating what it actually means, how deep it goes, and why it has been allowed to get this way.
Wellcome Money — In This Example of Open Access Funding, the Matthew Effect Dominates
A surprising set of recipients dominate a list of APC payments released by Wellcome Trust, suggesting that OA is not leading to a reshaping of the industry but perhaps merely driving further consolidation.
What Library Directors Are Thinking: An Ithaka S+R Survey Report
Ithaka S+R has just published the latest in its ongoing series of triennial library director surveys, and its findings are interesting and, in some ways, sobering.
Rick Anderson at the Smithsonian: "Is a Rational Discussion of Open Access Possible?"
A video of Rick Anderson’s recent talk at the Smithsonian, on why it’s so hard to have conversations about open access that don’t devolve into shouting matches and accusations of bad faith
Data Sharing and Science — Contemplating the Value of Empiricism, the Problem of Bias, and the Threats to Privacy
Data sharing and publication is a topic we need to consider carefully, and weigh the risks, costs, and benefits, as well as the complexities.
PLOS' Bold Data Policy
PLOS has set a new policy, requiring authors to make all data behind their published results publicly available. This has been met with a great deal of controversy from the research community. Thoughts on why this policy and why now…
Is There Anything More Slow-moving than a Publisher?
Publishers are always said to be slow-moving, but the pace of development at the CHORUS organization belies that.
The Scam, the Sting, and the Reaction: Labbé, Bohannon, Sokal
Editors keep allowing nonsense and gibberish to be published in their journals and conference proceedings. How many exposés and sting operations will it take before scholarly publishing begins effectively to police itself?
Collaborate, co-operate, communicate!
Much of the public debate about open access is polarized, but a recent study of scientific communications shows that extremism breeds more extremism. Isn’t it time we started to look at more effective ways to communicate – to listen, learn to understand each others’ views, and find ways of collaborating and cooperating, rather than competing?
Marketing in the Stream
Social media presents a new set of marketing opportunities for publishers, the most important of which is a new paradigm for thinking about the world of digital media, which now is the world of the social stream instead of the world of cyberspace.
SCOAP3 Lifts Off: An Interview with Ann Okerson
Ann Okerson is the National Contact Person for SCOAP3, a partnership aimed at converting high energy physics journals to an open access model.