1. What is the Blockchain Really, and Should You Care? A Guide for the Perplexed Scholarly Publishing Citizen.
At the recent Society for Scholarly Publishing (SSP) Annual Meeting, the matter of the thing that begins with a B that nobody likes to talk about these days, came up, Blockchain, notes by David Smith in his post in the Scholarly Kitchen Blog.
The Blog post says(quote): To go right back to basics, a database is a way of storing lots of information in a structured way, with each bit of information categorized and labeled, for easy searching and access. Blockchain is a lot more than that, but let’s start here. It has certain features that differentiate it from other data storage and manipulation technologies, all the pieces of information in the database are ordered linearly with each piece of information (or ‘data element’) labeled with a link to the next data element in the list, Linked list data structures aren’t particularly special and you can store linked lists in many databases. But, linked list data in a Blockchain database is special. And the reason is that (unlike in other data systems) data in a blockchain database can only be added to...........(unquote)
The full entry can be read: Here.
2. Making the Most of Your Research Promotion Team
Promotion of research and related publications is now a shared enterprise among authors, publishers, libraries and universities, writes Christine Tulley in this post in the Inside Higher Ed. Many authors are yet unaware of how to play an active role, she notes.
The Blog post says (quote): He recently gave a talk at the Researcher to Reader Conference about developments in the scholarly publishing lifecycle. Although he talked about several changes, including the move to open-access research and the consolidation of many university presses, the audiences were most interested in learning about promotion of research as he shared enterprise among authors, publishers, libraries and universities. Promotion of research and related publications is now a team effort. Yet many authors are unaware they must take increasingly active roles........(unquote)
The full entry can be read: Here.
3. Data analysis, open access could improve peer-review process
Collectively, academics spend around 70 million hours every year evaluating one another’s manuscripts on the behalf of scholarly journals — and they usually receive no monetary compensation and little, if any, recognition for their effort. In recent years, some scientists have begun posting their reviews online, mainly to claim credit for their work. Sites such as Publons allow researchers to either share entire referee reports or simply list the journals for which they’ve carried out a review. The rise of Publons suggests that academics are increasingly placing value on the work of peer review. Although that’s vital in the publish-or-perish culture of academia, there’s also immense value in the data underlying peer review, notes Dalmeet Singh Chawla, in his post in Spectrum.
The blog post says (quote): Publishing peer-review data could perhaps also help journals address another problem in academic publishing: fraudulent peer reviews. For instance, a minority of authors have been known to use phony email addresses to pose as an outside expert and review their own manuscripts. Increased transparency could also dissuade peer reviewers from stealing papers and publishing them as their own, asking authors to cite their work as a quid pro quo for a positive review, and other unethical practices..........(unquote)
The full entry can be read: Here.
4. The Robots are Writing: Will Machine-Generated Books Accelerate our Consumption of Scholarly Literature?
Springer Nature announced the publication of their first machine-generated book — an experimental proof of the efficacy and impacts of algorithmically curated scholarly resources. In the age of “robot reporters” and auto-generated novels, Springer intends to lead the way in seriously examining the value of machine learning to aid readers at all levels with comprehending vast volumes of academic literature, notes Lettie Y. Conarad, in his post in the Scholarly kitchen Blog.
The blog post says (quote): Springer Nature is aiming to shape the future of book publishing and reading. Progress in natural language processing is advancing fast, and new technologies around Artificial Intelligence offer promising opportunities for generating scientific content automatically with the help of algorithms. Hence, they decided to develop and publish their first machine-generated research book. This prototype is designed for all interested audiences, such as researchers, master and PhD students, reviewers, academic writers and decision-makers in science education. By providing a structured excerpt from a potentially huge set of papers, it is supposed to deliver an overview of a specific subject area or topic, saving time and effort. With this prototype we would also like to initiate a public debate on the opportunities, implications and potential risks of machine-generated content in scholarly publishing........(unquote)
The full entry can be read: Here.
5. Learned Societies, the key to realising an open access future?
Plan S, a funder led initiative to drive open access to research, will have significant impacts on the ways in which academics publish and communicate their research. In this post, Alicia Wise and Lorraine Estelle explore this issue and provide an update from the first phase of the SPA-OPS project that has been tasked with assessing the options available for learned societies to make the transition to open access.
The blog post says (quote): Generally learned societies have begun their open access (OA) journey by publishing hybrid open access journals, usually funded by payment of author publishing charges (APCs). However, the announcement by cOAlition S, an international grouping of research funders, that as part of Plan S they would no longer fund publication in hybrid open access journals (without a transformative agreement), has presented significant challenges to learned societies and the business models that support their activities. The key issue for societies contemplating this transition being that there is unlikely to be sufficient funding for all authors seeking to publish in their journals to pay APCs at levels that will sustain their current activities.........(unquote)
The full entry can be read: Here.
6. Stanford University Press and the Wrong Lesson of the Humanities
The fate of Stanford University Press (SUP), its Stanford University funding imperiled, seems like a parable of the fate of the humanities. And it may yet be, though maybe not, and maybe not for the reasons we think, discusses Karin Wulf, in her post in the Scholarly Kitchen Blog.
The blog post says (quote): SUP’s clashes with the Stanford administration have been widely reported and discussed, here on the Scholarly Kitchen, in higher ed media, and mainstream media, including on KQED, San Francisco’s NPR station. The SUP total annual budget is $7.7 million, with $5 million in revenue. The university’s subsidy, it has been pointed out, is a tiny fraction of the overall university budget. Some have suggested that the Provost meant to shutter the press entirely, though she has denied that. Without clearance until very recently to do the kind of fundraising that underwrites presses at universities with extraordinary wealth comparable to Stanford’s, the loss of that subsidy, whether immediate or over a few years, would be devastating to the press’s operations..........(unquote)
The full entry can be read: Here.
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