Going to the Beach with a Public Intellectual
This year’s beach reading will be spent with books by public intellectuals. Unfortunately, writing for the general public is not valued within the academy, to the detriment of public education.
Interview with Gordon Nelson — Public Access Policies, Open Access, and the Viability of Scientific Societies
An interview with the President of the Council of Scientific Society Presidents, on the unintended and potentially damaging consequences of public and open access mandates and embargoes.
US Department of Energy Announces Public Access Plan
On February 22, 2013, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) released a memorandum on, “Increasing Access to the Results of Federally Funded Scientific Research.” Today marks the first release of a funding agency’s plans to fulfill […]
The Importance of Funding Basic Science Research
FASEB’s Stand Up For Science competition winner brings perspective to the question of why we need to fund basic research.
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.
The 1% of Scientific Outputs — A Story of Strawmen, Sensationalism, and Scopus
A paper claiming to have identified “the 1%” in productive published researchers may suffer from problems with disambiguation, timing, and scope.
Technology and Digital Scholarship
An overview of new tools available, to help us consider how publishing may better incorporate technology in the context of a connected society.
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?
The Journal Redesign — More Complicated, More Costly, and More Strategic Than Ever
Journal redesigns seem to be occurring more frequently — and are certainly more complex — than in the past. What motivates a publisher and editor to undertake a redesign? And why is it so complex, costly, and strategic today?
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.
Hiding in Plain Sight — Is the Subscription Model the Optimal Business Model for the Digital Age?
The half-forgotten subscription model deserves our praise and renewed attention. In the Digital Age, it has become more popular than ever.
Hit the Road — How a Forgettable Paper and a Misguided Publisher Created an Unnecessary Controversy
The censorship scandal at Taylor & Francis has wrapped up, and the lessons are as obvious as you think.
The Daily Show: Glass Half Empty
The Daily Show goes after the “glassholes”.
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.
Stick to Your Ribs: Breaking the Silence Around Premature Quantification
Revisiting Joe Esposito’s 2010 post which discussed how improper use of financial analysis can obscure problems in strategy, a problem faced by for-profit and not-for-profit organizations alike.