UPDATED — 82 Things Publishers Do (2014 Edition)
The annual update to the list adds some important items overlooked on prior versions, including design, enforcement of editorial policies, and Board interactions.
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.
Finding Stuff: Discovery and Data Quality
Three different items recently published discuss the current state of thinking about discovery tools for purposes of research. Which one captures the right mindset? What should content providers be doing to support discovery?
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?
Book Review: "What If?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions" by Randall Munroe
A new book by the creator of xkcd takes crazy questions about science and tackles them with verve, humor, great illustrations, and great examples of how to break down even the strangest problems.
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”?
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 […]
Tweaking Twitter
Social media giant (and information tool) Twitter has casually suggested to its users that it might be changing its algorithm. But has it considered what the implications for users might be? The users have and they are worried.
Coping With New Technology: Medieval Help Desk
Struggling to come to grips with the new Apple Watch or the latest Kindles? You’re not alone, and in fact, there’s a historical precedent.
Interview with Laurel Haak of ORCID: Supporting the Efforts with Membership and Integration
As ORCID comes close to reaching it’s goals for registrations, the organization is not yet financially stable. Laurel Haak, executive director of ORCID, answers questions about where they are at and what is coming for users and members.
Exhibition Prohibition — Why Shouldn’t Publishers Celebrate an Improved Impact Factor?
A trend toward shaming journals that promote their impact factors needs to be rolled back. Impact factors are journal metrics. It’s the other uses that need to be curtailed.
D2C Marketing Report Now Available
A research report on direct-to-consumer marketing is provided here. The study was first announced on the Scholarly Kitchen. The report includes a survey of current university press practices and recommendations for steps to take to improve performance.
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!
An Interview with Amy Brand on a Proposed New Contributor Taxonomy Initiative
We’ve got DOIs (digital object identifiers) to help identify research articles, images, and other digital objects, and ORCIDs (Open Researcher and Contributor IDs) to help disambiguate the authors of those objects. Now there’s a new initiative to create a contributor taxonomy that identifies who’s done what in the creation of published research – find out more in our interview with Amy Brand, one of the brains behind the concept.
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.