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.
Ask The Chefs: Are Publishers Customer Focused?
This month the Scholarly Kitchen Chefs consider how publishers identify and serve their customers? Are they doing it well? What do YOU think?
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 […]
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.
How Much Does It Cost eLife to Publish an Article?
Adding to the discussion of APCs, eLife’s financials suggest that being competitive with some major journals means the journal is expensive to run.
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.
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.
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?
Stick To Your Ribs: Ask the Chefs: “Are We a Service Industry Or a Product Industry?”
Revisiting a 2012 post to ask, do journal authors really give their articles away for free to publishers?
What Societies Really Think About Open Access
What do societies really think about Open Access? A recent survey, though small, provides some initial answers…
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.
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.
How Do We Address the Continuing Problem of Inadequate and Deceptive Publishing Practices?
Technological trends have enabled experiments in publishing. But now that we’ve seen plenty of experiments, is it time to bring them under control?