1. Revisiting - Navigating the Big Deal: A Guide for Societies
In the wake of Plan S, many independent and society publishers are investigating partnerships with larger publishing houses. In his post in the Scholarly Kitchen Blog, Michael Clarke revisits a post that talked about understanding the current state of the Big Deal and the careful planning one needs to do in order to put together a successful publishing partnership.
The blog post says (quote): The Big Deal began as a package of journals very much rooted in the collections histories of licensing institutions. Before the Big Deal, libraries subscribed to various individual journals from a given publisher. Each title had a listed subscription price and that was that. When the Big Deal came along, the situation became more complex. Because many journals in a package are owned by various societies (and because even journals proprietary to the publisher typically maintain separate financials), publishers could not simply license to libraries all the journals in a package at a bulk discount applied to every title, because that would disadvantage stronger journals with historically broader circulation. The way the publishers got around this was to sell packages on a "top up" basis, whereby the library would continue to subscribe to currently subscribed journals at full price but would also get all the rest of the journals published by that publisher for a relatively small additional fee.........(unquote)
The full entry can be read Here.
2. The "impact" of the Journal Impact Factor in the review, tenure, and promotion process
The Journal Impact Factor (JIF) - a measure reflecting the average number of citations to recent articles published in a journal - has been widely critiqued as a measure of individual academic performance. In their post in the LSE Impact of Social Sciences Blog, Erin McKiernan, Juan Pablo Alperin and Alice Fleerackers present evidence from a recent study of review, promotion and tenure documents, showing the extent to which (JIF) remains embedded as a measure of success in the academic job market.
The blog post says (quote): The Journal Impact Factor: few scholars will be unfamiliar with this controversial metric. Appearing on journal websites, academic CVs, and in hiring decisions-it’s both the most widely used and the most criticised research metric that exists. Although the Journal Impact Factor was originally developed to help libraries make indexing and purchasing decisions for their journal collections, it has become a proxy for quality-not just of the journals academics publish in, but of the academics themselves. Many now believe that publishing work in high JIF journals is an essential step to achieving academic success. And although many have raised concerns about the JIF’s use - and potential misuse - in current academic evaluation systems, little is known about the extent to which the metric features in tenure and promotion decisions.........(unquote)
The full entry can be read Here.
3. Elsevier strikes its first national deal with large open-access element
Agreement with Norwegian consortium allows researchers to make the vast majority of their work free to read on publication in Elsevier journals. The two-year pilot scheme marks the largest such agreement - often called a ‘read and publish’ deal - that Elsevier has made with a national consortium of research libraries, notes Holly Else, in her post in the Nature Blog.
The blog post says (quote): Several other big publishers, including Wiley, have begun brokering read-and-publish deals in recent years, as many in the academic community and governments have pushed to make more scholarly articles free to read. The Norwegian government, for example, wants all publicly funded research to be freely available by 2024. But Elsevier has largely opposed the change, saying that libraries are trying to get two services for the price of one. The Dutch firm has engaged in lengthy negotiations in countries including Germany, Sweden and Hungary, and with the University of California system - the US’ largest public university - but these talks have stalled over disagreements about the cost of open-access publishing. Because no new contracts have been signed, researchers in all but the University of California system are working without access to the latest Elsevier papers.........(unquote)
The full entry can be read Here.
4. Editing is at the Heart of Scholarly Publishing
Invisible to most readers of scholarly content is the editing process. In their post in the Scholarly Kitchen Blog, Angela Cochran and Karin Wulf explore the role and processes for journal editors from two very different disciplines - History and Civil Engineering.
The blog post says (quote): Despite the time invested in developing the work once it arrives at the Omohundro Institute (OI), the essays in The William & Mary Quarterly (WMQ) have typically been read and commented on by scholars at multiple stages of development well before they arrive in the Editor’s inbox. Drafts are shared in shorter form at conferences, where commenters read them ahead and then offer comments and suggestions, or longer versions are pre-circulated to seminars. In scholarly publishing of all types, criticisms of peer-review and the role of editors as gatekeepers of the scholarship can seem to be getting louder. Some envision a world where traditional journals are no longer needed and peer review happens haphazardly on the web. Some of the megajournals are already operating largely like this, with little or no editorial oversight.........(unquote)
The full entry can be read Here.
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