Virtual Reality Research — Some Early Problems with Data Reanalysis and Risks of Open Data
The idea of “reanalysis” needs to be rethought, if recent examples are any indication of what this trend could do to science.
Stick To Your Ribs: What Does A Scientist Want?
Revisiting Joe Esposito’s post on the real world concerns of the research community. Although many people claim to know what scientists want, the author’s own ongoing survey has come up with results that are at odds with most conventional wisdom. This post summarizes those findings and identifies a near-universal view held by many scientists.
More Data, More Problems — Lessons from the Limitations of Google Flu Trends
“Big data” continues to draw attention, but will it ever amount to more than a hypothesis-generating engine and supplementary findings?
Surprise, Surprise — The Web Turns Out to Be Too Persistent
The recent “right to be forgotten” case raises a corollary issue for scholarly publishers — are you managing your archives so that users have been given the “right to ignore”?
Quality and Relevance: A Matrix Model for Thinking about Scholarly Books and Libraries
Libraries do not have the luxury (or the mission) of selecting books solely based on their intrinsic quality. In order to do their work, the students and scholars served by the library need access to books that are highly relevant to their interests. How do the variables of quality and relevance interact with each other when it comes to library book purchasing?
The Editor — A Vital Role We Barely Talk About Anymore
An alien landing in the scholarly and scientific publishing world today, reading all the opinions about how to make things more efficient and effective, might be forgiven for thinking there are only authors, readers, librarians, and reviewers. After all, those […]
Cascades and Volcanoes — Are the Problems of Science in Public Discourse Getting Worse?
Hysteria over a supervolcano leads to speculation about the eruptions of misinformation all around us. And, why exactly are we seeing so many recycled news stories in social media these days?
Instruction Junction — The Ballooning Lists of Editorial Policies, and the Burdens They Create
Long “Instructions to Authors” filled with ancillary policies and undifferentiated requirements don’t help authors, staff, or editors. As the graveyard for unmade decisions, they’ve only gotten longer and more opaque. Maybe it’s time to clean yours up!
Housecleaning at the Directory of Open Access Journals
The DOAJ is kicking out hundreds of predatory and scam publishers that found their way into the directory, and tightening standards to ensure that they don’t sneak back in. Which makes things a bit awkward for a community that, for years, has been insisting that predatory OA publishing isn’t a problem worth worrying about.
A Day at the Beach — How the Messiness and Unpredictability of Journals Thwart Granularity
Attempts to use new measurements to more finely predict or represent journal quality are bound to falter because of some qualities inherent to journals themselves.
Your Question for the Day — What Is “Peer Review”?
A recent “Slate” article shows what can go wrong when we talk about “peer review” as if we all share a common definition about an unchanging phenomenon.
Trust But Verify — Identity Fraud and Exploitation of the Trust Economy in Scholarly Publishing
A ruse to self-review and self-recommend papers for publication leads to 60 retractions. Can we find a way to prevent this kind of identity fraud and its consequences?
Open Access Publication Gains Acceptance With Authors, Licenses Still Problematic
A recent survey of authors by Taylor and Francis reveals growing acceptance of open access publishing; however, Creative Commons licensing may still pose a problem.
The Business Model is a Community Affair
Drawing on a presentation from the recent AAUP annual conference, this post argues that the business of publishing scholarly books requires reciprocal arrangements among many publishers. This system is undermined by free riders.
This Just In from the 1990s — We’re Doomed, Doomed, Doomed, Sayeth the Editor of VentureBeat
A Silicon Valley journalist has seen open access and deemed it disruptive. He’s 15+ years and scads of evidence behind the times, as we enter the post-disruption era.