1.A View from the Outside - Trends and Challenges Consultants See in Scholarly Publishing
Publishers utilise consultants to help them evaluate strategic, technical, financial, management, marketing, or editorial options. Input from more than a dozen consultants portrays an industry struggling to adapt to a dramatically different and rapidly changing information economy, notes Kent Anderson, in his post in the Scholarly Kitchen Blog.
The blog post says (quote): Change is being imposed on the scholarly publishing industry from a number of angles. Every consultant noted that the Internet has forced and continues to force adaptation. Judging from the responses, some organisations are responding well, but even the best struggle because the Internet has caused so much change so quickly at so many levels. It's almost too much for even the largest companies to absorb. A number of consultants noted the push to make everything "open" - open science, open access, open data, and so forth. Some recent controversies around this, and vague definitions of what these constitute, continue to pose problems, especially because the goals aren't actually clear, especially for business entities that exist to sort, validate, and refine information. Yet, external exhortations to move in these directions are forcing organisations to engage in analysis and consider adaptation, while also diluting the perceived value of editorial and certification functions……………(unquote)
The full entry can be read Here.
2.Trialing transparency at Genome Biology
Genome Biology launched a trial of transparent peer review, allowing reviewers' reports and authors' responses to them to be published alongside the final article. Andrew Cosgrove, in his post in the BioMed Central Blog, discusses the update on the trial and the responses to it.
The blog post says (quote): A number of journals have been using transparent, or fully open, peer review for many years, but such review models are yet to become mainstream, and are still regarded with skepticism by some. Last year, Nature Communications published results from their transparent peer review trial, showing that they have had good uptake from authors opting to having reviewers' comments published alongside their articles. This is also one of the motivations of the trial, as well as to find out how this move would be received by reviewers, and whether they would be more likely to decline or accept invitations to peer review. It might also prepare the ground for Genome Biology to switch to fully open peer review in the future, depending on the reception by the community, authors, reviewers, and editors alike……………(unquote)
The full entry can be read Here.
3.Academic journals with a presence on Twitter are more widely disseminated and receive a higher number of citations
Posted by José Luis Ortega in the LSE Impact of Social Sciences Blog, this post examines the role of 350 scholarly journals, analysing how their articles were tweeted and cited. Findings reveal that articles from those journals that have their own individual Twitter handle are more tweeted about than articles from journals whose only Twitter presence is through a scientific society or publisher account.
The blog post says (quote): The institutional presence of research journals on Twitter is fundamental for the dissemination and visibility of their outputs. Journals should consider Twitter as an important instrument for broadening audiences and tracking the social media impact of their publications. Furthermore, these findings suggest the best strategy to promote academic journals on Twitter is to have an individual account devoted exclusively to disseminating the journal's content. Publishers and scientific societies should take heed and go to the effort of creating specific Twitter accounts for their journals. This would have the benefit of providing clear identification of the journal and track, in detail, social media engagement and impact of their publications……………(unquote)
The full entry can be read Here.
4.Historical Periodicals Can be Primary Source Documents, Too
Primary source documents can be more than just handwritten letters and diaries, or maps and legal documents. They can also be historical periodicals, representative of timely trends. Heather Peckham Emerson, in her post in the EBSCOpost Blog, discusses how resources from the American Antiquarian Society Historical Periodicals Collection serve as primary source documents for student research.
The blog post says (quote): Some might be inclined to view magazines and periodicals as secondary sources. However, academic researchers believe the difference between a primary source document and a secondary source is largely defined by how that resource is being used. Some of the strongest examples of this come from historical periodicals. While they can offer a wealth of memoirs, speech transcripts, letters, reprints of government documents and eyewitness accounts of events, they have far more to offer as primary source documents in studying culture, or topics such as literature, journalism, publishing or advertising. The wide variety of historical publications ranging from international magazines to regionally focused specialty periodicals and local newsletters can provide accurate, era-specific information about the local language, events, attitudes, and cultural markers of a certain era……………(unquote)
The full entry can be read Here.
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