Iterative Development, User-centered Design, and the Fear of Getting it Wrong in Publishing
User-centered design provides a model for improving services, but is the history of print holding publishers back?
Revisiting: The Multifarious Book
Revisiting a 2017 post: The book is asked to perform many tasks, some of which are not necessarily the best use of the book format, whether in print or electronically. The long-form text, which may be print or digital, is a different matter, and is likely to remain with us and be called “a book” for some time to come.
The Other Diversity in Scholarly Publishing
After becoming a Scholarly Kitchen Chef back in July 2019, I have never stopped being amazed by the numerous dynamic issues and developments that scholarly publishing is dealing with. As a biologist by training, ‘diversity’ is the word that comes to mind.
Elsevier’s ScienceDirect as Content Supercontinent?
Does today’s news of Wiley etc. syndicating to ScienceDirect mean Elsevier is developing a supercontinent to compete with ResearchGate and Google Scholar?
SAGE’s Strategic Investments: An Interview with Martha Sedgwick
Today, Roger Schonfeld interviews Martha Sedgwick, SAGE’s vice president for Product Innovation, about its recent acquisitions and strategic directions.
Guest Post — Towards Standardizing Plain Language Summaries: The Open Pharma Recommendations
Adeline Rosenberg offers a look into the value of providing plain language summaries in research papers, and the standards created for doing so.
Where Does Enhancement End and Citation Begin?
As more publishers semantically enrich documents, Todd Carpenter considers whether links are the same as citations
The Experience of Good Metadata: Linking Metadata to Research Impacts
What do we really know about the linkages between good metadata and positive, productive user experiences with scholarly journals?
Guest Post — Fifty Shades of Hybrid Conferences: Why Publishers Should Care (and How You Can Help)
Since in-person events are likely not going away, and neither are virtual ones, conference organizers are left with the most complex of options: hybrid. How can scholarly publishers help?
Start-up Stories: Cassyni — The One-Stop-Shop for Online Seminars — Or, How to Get Your Product Built and Launched in 6 Months
Continuing a series looking at start-ups in the scholarly sector, from what they do and how it could be useful, to how they have got started, and tips they would share with other entrepreneurs. This time, an interview with Andrew Preston and Ben Kaube, two of the founders of online seminar platform Cassyni
Revisiting: Theory of the E-book
Joe Esposito revisits his 2012 post on the unstated theory of the e-book, which assumes that a book consists only of its text and can be manipulated without regard to the nature and circumstances of its creation. This is only one theory of many, but it is now the prevailing one.
Popularizing Cosmology: The Example of Katie Mack
It also can be something of a trap for a well-intentioned academic who wants to write for this audience, as writing for the lay person is often contemptuously dismissed as “popularization.” Woe to the academic who puts an article from The Atlantic or a book from Simon & Schuster into her tenure portfolio! It takes courage. My view is that these brave souls should be called out and celebrated. They are my heroes.
The Curse of More, or, Does Anybody Have Any Time Left to Do Research?
When do new approaches to research communication become an end unto themselves? How much more work can we pile on researchers? Is more information always better than less?
Revisiting — The Google Generation Is Alright
How much has changed in a dozen years? Lettie Conrad looks back at Ann Michael’s post from the 2009 SSP Annual Meeting, “Publishing for the Google Generation”.
Digital Transformation Requires Cultural Evolution
Turns out, digital transformation is actually more human than technical. Learn more in these case studies from Emerald and De Gruyter.