How Much Editorial Misconduct Goes Unreported?
Editors are in a position of power to coerce authors to cite their journal and personal papers. Can algorithms help detect misconduct when authors and journal staff are unwilling to speak out?
Has Google Become a Journal Publisher?
Google’s journal about artificial intelligence (AI) coming from editors and authors associated with Google and Google Brain raises questions about conflicts, vanity publishing, and Google as a media company.
Libraries Face a Future of Open Access
Libraries and legacy publishers are in an unholy embrace. They need not love each other to feel they should stick together.
Journals Lose Citations to Preprint Servers
Why do authors continue to cite preprints years after they’ve been formally published?
Peer Review – Authors and Reviewers – our “North Star”
Robert Harington suggests that publishers need to do more for researchers to help authors, and to help reviewers understand their role as a reviewer and be recognized for their work. We need to tackle implicit bias in peer review. We need to focus on our “North Star”
Everything You Wanted to Know About Lava Flows
Geologist Jerry Magloughlin looks at the different ways that lava flows.
Publishing Continues to Outperform Perception
Publishers have shown themselves to be resourceful, navigating troubled waters to growth and profitability.
If ResearchGate is Where Authors Connect and Collaborate …
The recently announced agreement between ResearchGate and Springer Nature, Cambridge University Press, and Thieme demonstrates that there is not a uniformity of perspective in the publishing community about article sharing on ResearchGate, or presumably on the many other scholarly collaboration networks that exist. It also signals that ResearchGate, a decade-old start-up disruptor with with venture capital investment and a rapidly grown user base, has taken its place at the negotiating table and found not just enemies but allies.
Guest Post: Research Deluge — Are Researchers Writing More yet Contributing Less?
Sneha Kulkarni from Editage takes a look at the ever-increasing global scientific output, and asks questions about quantity versus quality.
Is Copyright Piracy Morally Wrong or Merely Illegal? The Malum Prohibitum/Malum in Se Conundrum
Is copyright infringement malum prohibitum (wrong only because it’s prohibited) or malum in se (morally wrong in and of itself)? Interestingly, scholcomm commentators and legal reference materials often characterize it as the former–while both statute and case law treat it like the latter, classifying it as “property theft” and regularly awarding its victims both statutory and punitive damages.
Why Don’t Societies Simply Sell off Their Publishing Assets?
Society publishers resist the sale of their publications to bidders from the commercial world because they view the publications as a central component of the society itself.
The Race to the Bottom — Short-term Bargains versus Long-term Vitality
Haggling for cheaper content today will certainly have hidden and unpleasant costs — large and small — down the road.
50 Years in Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood
A look back at a cultural icon on the 50th anniversary of his greatest creation.
A Woman’s Worth: Examining the Gender Pay Gap among UK Scholarly Publishers
It’s a well-known secret that women are paid less than men — in scholarly publishing as in other sectors — but the UK government’s recent legislation requiring organizations with more than 250 employees to publish their gender pay gap provides valuable data on just how much of a gap there is…
Interview: Keith Marmer, AVP & ED for Technology & Venture Commercialization at the University of Utah
How can secrecy and openness most productively coexist when it comes to the intellectual property of universities and their research faculty? Some thoughts from the new vice president for technology and venture commercialization at a Tier 1 research university.