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?
Tackling Diversity in Scholarly Communications – Part 2
Researchers from Africa, Asia and Latin America answer the question, “How do we increase diversity in scholarly communications?”
A View from the Outside — Trends and Challenges Consultants See in Scholarly Publishing
Input from more than a dozen consultants portrays an industry struggling to adapt to a dramatically different and rapidly changing information economy.
Federal Trade Commission and National Institutes of Health Take Action Against Predatory Publishing Practices
The NIH is warning its funded authors against publishing in predatory journals, and the FTC has secured a preliminary injunction against OMICS for alleged predatory publishing practices. Will this mark a turning point in the fight against fraudulent scholarly publishing?
Women in Academia Unite
A look at inequality in research and knowledge systems, and in particular, how gender issues in higher education are exacerbated in the Global South.
Diversity and Inclusion at SSP: An Interview with Executive Director, Melanie Dolechek
Learn how – and why – the Society for Scholarly Publishing is committed to addressing issues around diversity and inclusion in scholarly communications in this interview with Executive Director, Melanie Dolechek.
Ask The Chefs: How Can We Increase Diversity In Scholarly Communications?
Why is increasing diversity in scholarly communications seemingly so difficult? What should we be doing differently?
Is There a Business Case for Open Data?
Open data is gaining ground, but is there a revenue stream that would help journals recover the costs of gathering, reviewing and publishing data?
Puppetmasters — Who Is Pulling the Strings in the New Information Economy?
Information manipulation is not new, yet everything is different. How do governments, preprints, algorithms, and our own responsibilities intersect? Where does peer review come in now?
Biological Science Societies Hope to Convince Authors to Stay in the Society Family
Hoping to woo authors away from commercial publishers, a group of biomedical science societies have launched a new alliance to promote the value of publishing in society journals.
Access vs. Accessibility in Scholarship and Science
Ideally, we want science and scholarship to be not only available to the general public, but also comprehensible to them. But the challenges to doing so are real, and may vary both by discipline and by study type.
Metrics: Human-Made, but Humane?
With a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, HumetricsHSS is a kind of meta-workshop in “rethinking humane indicators of excellence in the humanities and social sciences.”
Book Review — “World Without Mind,” by Franklin Foer
Franklin Foer’s new book is a bracing account of the current information economy, the monopolies and motivations at its heart, and the weakening of democratized knowledge.
“Technology is Not Neutral” — How Online Companies Manipulate Billions of Minds
A former Google employee explains the tricks that online companies use to manipulate users and suggests there’s a better way.