Springer Establishes a Beachhead on the Desktop with Acquisition of Papers
Springer’s acquisition of Papers shifts the publisher into the workflow, and provides a unique opportunity to become a unifying resource.
More eLife Articles on PubMed Central — The Government Subsidy Continues
More articles are published by PubMed Central at the behest of eLife. It seems taxpayer-funded publishing is just fine for this new group.
eLife Articulates Its Media Policy, and Risks Some of Its Editorial Power
eLife clarifies its media policies, adopting the mask of an enlightened approach that actually makes it harder for everyone to generate much attention.
CC-Huh? Fundamental Confusions About the Role of Copyright and the Reuse of Data
A fundamental confusion between articles and data leads to a call for more CC licenses and less copyright. But why are data being closed down while articles are being opened up? Is there a fundamental misunderstanding of copyright, licensing, and rights?
PubMed Central or OA Central — More Strange Behaviors at PMC and NLM Paint a Portrait of Biases and Poor Process
More information emerges about PubMed Central, its processes, its relationship with eLife, and its role as a technology provider. Overall, it looks like certain OA friends get special treatment, and the processes you think occur are often short-circuited and may not even be tracked.
Book Review: Nate Silver's "The Signal and the Noise: Why So Many Predictions Fail — But Some Don't"
Nate Silver’s new book tackles many topics — Big Data, the problem with scientific statistics, chess, baseball, gambling — with style and substance. There’s a lot of signal here.
Something’s Rotten in Bethesda — The Troubling Tale of PubMed Central, PubMed, and eLife
Last week, PubMed Central became the primary and sole publisher of eLife content, putting its competition with publishers, its manipulation of PubMed indexing criteria, its competition with publishing technology companies, and its clear OA bias into stark relief.
Dark Social — A New Concept in Analytics That Explains Much of What We (Don't) See
The dark matter of social sharing may be visible now, thanks to some smart theory, not more data.
PDA and the University Press — Final Study Now Available
Joe Esposito, with his colleagues Kizer Walker and Terry Ehling, has been working on an analysis of patron-driven acquisitions (PDA) for the past year. Joe has been posting early drafts of sections of the report on this research on the Kitchen. The full report is now available and can be downloaded here.
Acquiring a New Style of Argument — Clay Shirky on Github
Can the Internet create a new and more cooperative way of arguing?
The Google/AAP Settlement: Less Than Meets the Eye?
AAP and Google have reached a confidential settlement over Google Books. But the larger Authors Guild case remains.
Jury Duty — Putting Peer-Review Into a Tougher Context
When the stakes are scholarly, peer-review works well. What about when the stakes are life-altering?
Quantifying OA Complexity
A recent attempt by SPARC and others to assess “How Open Is It?” shows how complex OA publishing is, but also fails to accurately represent the potential complexities in many areas.
I Wish I'd Had This Teacher — The Ping Pong Ball Explosion
And the sky rains ping pong balls, as this simple experiment provides both audible and visible entertainment.
The Financial Burdens of the CC-BY License for Scholarly Literature
By allowing free commercial use of OA articles, current CC licenses may shift costs to researchers, presage an unsustainable information economy, and ultimately work against their stated goals. A commercially viable option might actually prove more sustainable.