Intention to Tweet: Medical Study Reports Tweets Improve Citations
A paper linking tweets and citations comes under attack, but more from the authors’ inability to answer even basic questions about their paper and resistance to share their data.
Can Twitter, Facebook, and Other Social Media Drive Downloads, Citations?
A brief review of studies linking social media and article-level performance.
Sometimes the Reveal is Better than the Magic Trick
You can still be manipulated, even when you know you’re being manipulated.
Is #DeleteFacebook Going to Change Academic Life and Scholarly Publishing?
What might the recent backlash to revelations about how Facebook was exploited mean for the scholarly ecosystem?
Book Review: “Technically Wrong,” by Sara Wachter-Boettcher
A new book explores how biases and broken systems get built into technology products and platforms.
The Wake-up Call — Looking Back at 2017, and Some Factors Affecting 2018
2017 may have been a watershed year for the Internet and its future. What did we learn? And what factors may shape 2018?
Building Healthy Online Communities — An Interview with Rachel Happe
Community management has become a key part of social media and online publishing, whether we realize it or not. In this interview, an expert in the fields shares some views of how organizations can benefit from a more singular focus.
Technology as the New Tobacco
Comedian Bill Maher draws a disturbing parallel between social media and cigarettes.
The Information Landscape — How Do We Tackle the Problems Caused by Silicon Valley?
Science’s historical progress can’t be assumed. It has to be reclaimed, re-established. That’s more difficult in a fragmented information space geared for extremism.
The Future of Authorship
Dismayed by the loss of trust in facts, and seeming preference for half-truths that appears to be driving our political present, Robert Harington decided to catch up on his reading over the weekend, and stumbled across a stimulating article in Publishers Weekly, entitled How to Sell Nearly a Half-Million Copies of a Poetry Book, by Anisse Gross.
How’s That "Abundance" Thing Working Out For You?
The age of information abundance may have fundamental flaws — barriers to entry that create false equivalence; dissemination tools that conflate fake information with responsible sources; self-reinforcing loops of conspiracy and paranoia; and social fragmentation that makes societal disruption more likely. What can be done? Here are a few ideas.
What We Can Learn from Fake News
Fake News is making headlines as questions about how dubious stories may have influenced the US election. This post explores the damage done to reputable news organizations and what scholarly publishers could learn from the whole thing.
Curation Nation: Thoughts on the Future of Textbooks
Is there a role for a curated, remixing approach to developing next generation textbooks. Robert Harington investigates the role of curated open textbooks in teaching today’s students, looking at some of the available tools, the way in which instructors utilize such tools, and issues around fair use of content.
Locks, Keys, and Firewalls — Why Internet Security Requires Digital, Analog . . . and Diligent Humans
Internet security seems to be crumbling before our eyes, and our media and leaders are not immune and lack a crucial understanding of how vulnerable a totally digital world can be. The answer may lie with analog technologies.
What #ColorOurCollections Suggests
Last week’s surprisingly successful social media campaign was a winning event for libraries, archives, and museums.