1. Hipster Antitrust and Structural Dominance - What Is a Monopoly Now?
The term "monopoly" gets thrown around in scholarly publishing with relative ease and abandon. Calling something a monopoly has been misleading in many cases, but the new economy may require a complete rethinking of the anti-competitiveness created by intermediaries at scale, notes Kent Anderson, in his post in the Scholarly Kitchen blog.
The blog post says (quote): Are "hipster monopolies" emerging in scholarly and scientific publishing? Not yet, but there are initiatives aimed at structural dominance using data, content, and services. Currently, competition is robust in these areas. For example, years ago, Mendeley was feared to be creating structural dominance by utilising the PDF to create community. Its acquisition by Elsevier reined in this potential, only to see ResearchGate emerge as another contender. Now, Mendeley, ResearchGate, and Kopernio compete with the truly anti-competitive pirate site Sci-Hub in a roughly similar space providing content storage or access solutions. The competition remains robust because there are still boundaries on scale, either because of domain limitation, adoption ceilings, or competitive market fragmentation. However, ideas around a "supercontinent of scholarly publishing," hint that potential issues involving hipster monopolies may lie ahead………(unquote)
The full entry can be read Here.
2. Nothing lasts forever: questions to ask yourself when choosing a new tool or technology for research
Academia has become increasingly reliant on third-party tools and technologies to carry out many of the processes throughout the research lifecycle. But there are genuine concerns about the sustainability of some of these tools and what the implications would be for users in the event they were discontinued. In his post in the LSE Impact of Social Sciences Blog, Andy Tattersall suggests a series of straightforward questions researchers should ask themselves before choosing a new technology for use in their research.
The blog post says (quote): There are several examples of really useful tools to have been accepted by the academic community only to pull down the virtual shutters for good. It can be quite depressing to have invested time and energy in mastering a tool only for it to disappear offline. This may happen for a variety of reasons, such as a lack of investment (financial or development), slow uptake, or the founding individual moving onto a new venture. Those in academia want solid, factual reasons to utilise a new tool; if the one they currently use works fine, why switch to another they haven't heard of? It can be like the problem of buying a new laptop: why purchase one now when you could buy one with double the processing power for the same price a year later? Sadly that attitude means you end up not moving on at all. Academia is about finding answers to problems and learning from previous mistakes – surely the same should apply to the very tools we use to achieve better outcomes?………(unquote)
The full entry can be read Here.
3. How to get free Altmetric data to conduct research
Scientometrics researchers are well aware of how difficult and expensive it can be to access data for a bibliometrics study. That is why Altmetric has created a free, easy way to find altmetrics data for research purposes. In her post in the Altmetric Blog, Stacy Konkiel introduces the Altmetric Researcher Data Access Program, explaining the criteria for accessing the data, how to access the data in a format that suits your needs, and how to apply to the Researcher Data Access program.
The blog post says (quote): Altmetric has been collecting data since 2011, across a variety of online sources that can be used to understand how research is communicated online, including: Public policy documents; Syllabi; Patents; Wikipedia; Social media (Twitter, Facebook, etc); Peer review (Publons, Pubpeer, etc); and more! Not just those with DOIs, altmetrics for virtually any research output imaginable can also be found. Journal articles, monographs, datasets, book chapters, videos, and many other types of research formats are part of the nearly 10 million research outputs they have found attention for online. They grant access in two main formats–searchable database access via Altmetric Explorer, and programmatic access via API–for up to six months………(unquote)
The full entry can be read Here.
4. The Evolving Role of Medical Affairs – And 2 Ways to Keep Up
Medical affairs has transformed over the past decade, evolving from a supportive role into a strategic decision-maker and trusted scientific partner. No longer focused solely on supporting marketing and sales activities from a medical perspective, medical affairs now plays a vital role in strategically communicating the nuances of sophisticated science with the larger medical community. In her post in the CCC Blog, Christine McCarty discusses three ways they can help deliver strategic value.
The blog post says (quote): Across industries, employees often store content on their personal hard drives, making it impossible for individuals and teams to collaborate on content. Without collaboration, it is difficult to share insights, and as a result decision-making suffers. When the time it takes to get a drug to market is impacted, it becomes a significant problem. By encouraging the use of shared spaces, medical affairs professionals can collaborate amongst the team, and with all relevant departments on content related to a specific drug, therapeutic, or research area. By generating and disseminating data to and from patients, payers and providers in a transparent and ethical fashion, medical affairs has a key role to play in communication. Medical affairs departments have an opportunity to become the voice of a company to the outside world, including speaking to payers, patients, physicians, regulators and government agencies………(unquote)
The full entry can be read Here.
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