Guest Post — Reading the Leaves of Publishing Speed: The Cases of Hindawi, Frontiers, and PLOS
The analysis of operational data is complex, dull, and unrewarding. It is also necessary. Three case studies of major journals and portfolios explain why.
Guest Post — Reputation and Publication Volume at MDPI and Frontiers
Compared to their peak levels, publication volume has declined at MDPI by 27% and at Frontiers by 36%. What’s behind these declines, and how do they reflect the inherent risk in the APC open access model and different approaches to reputation management?
Guest Post — The Nelson Memo and Public Access are Under Attack – Will Powerful Incumbents Come to its Rescue?
The Nelson Memo is being contested. Will the incumbents of the scholarly publishing world stand up for the Memo and fight for its funding?
The Downside of Scale for Journal Publishers: Quality Control and Filtration
Scale can be achieved by broadly outsourcing the editorial process. Does this lead to a loss in quality control, and is this acceptable?
Open Access at a Crossroads
There’s no denying the growth and increased acceptance of the concepts of open access in scholarly publishing. But the repercussions of the business models and methodologies chosen for OA are just beginning to be recognized.
Keeping It Real — Ethics and Privacy as the Frontiers "Recursive Fury" Case Continues to Churn
Frontiers issues another statement about why the “Recursive Fury” paper was retracted, raising once again questions about why it was retracted, but shifting the focus more and more to how it was retracted.