1. Navigating the Big Deal: A Guide for Societies
Shifts in how publishers market and sell journal packages have significant implications for society journal valuations over the long term. These same shifts may also be setting some societies up for publisher "lock-in" - making it difficult to change publishers in the future, notes Michael Clarke, in his post in the Scholarly Kitchen Blog.
The blog post says (quote): When a society's publishing contract is nearing its end, many societies choose to issue a "Request for Proposals" (RFP) to multiple publishers to ensure they are continuing to receive a competitive financial deal. The problem is that in many cases, direct subscriptions - the primary source of revenues for many journals - have declined. Hence the journal's value in the market declines. This can lead to publisher lock-in, where so much of the value of the journal is tied to non-transferable revenues from a specific publisher's packages. The incumbent publisher in such cases knows that other publishers are not likely to field offers that exceed what the society is earning now. Therefore, the incumbent publisher can make a more modest offer to renew the society's contract than they otherwise might have made if more of the journal's revenue was portable………(unquote)
The full entry can be read Here.
2. Addressing the unharmonised metadata of RSS feeds would support research discovery and speed up science
RSS feeds allow academics and others to keep track of the latest papers to publish in a chosen selection of research journals. They are machine-readable and aggregable, thus presenting a potentially simple solution for promoting content awareness on a large scale. However, Andreas Pacher, in his post in the LSE Impact of Social Sciences Blog, flags a handful of problems which continue to limit the effectiveness of RSS feeds; namely a lack of metadata, a lack of harmonised metadata, and a more general lack of awareness.
The blog post says (quote): The lack of awareness does not only pertain to the journals and publishers, but also to the broader open science movement. Top scientometric journals have not discussed RSS in years; Crossref's work on RSS basically ended in 2009; the venerable DOAJ contains a list of 16 best practices for open access journals, ranging from online marketing to aspects of scholarly communication, but does not mention RSS – hence the strange outcome that almost none of the few open access political science journals have RSS feeds. Only JournalTOCs occasionally lobbies for a more consistent use of metadata, leading to their recent success of integrating clear labels identifying open access articles in RSS feeds among some publishers………(unquote)
The full entry can be read Here.
3. Funder involved in all aspects of most industry-funded clinical trials
In most industry funded trials reported in high impact medical journals, all aspects of the trial involved the industry funder, finds a study published by The BMJ. The results show that, although both funder and academic authors were involved in the design, conduct, and reporting of most trials, few industry funded trials were completely independently conducted by academics, and sometimes industry involvement was downplayed or omitted, discusses a post in the BMJ Blog.
The blog post says (quote): Collaboration between industry and academics is common in the development of vaccines, drugs, and devices, as it can be mutually beneficial, but the degree of independence and the roles of academics and industry vary across trials. There is also some evidence that industry funders may influence how trials are designed and reported, sometimes serving financial rather than public interest. To better understand the nature of these collaborations, researchers set out to determine the role of academic authors, funders, and contract research organisations (CROs) in industry funded trials of vaccines, drugs, and devices and to determine lead academic authors’ experiences with industry funder collaborations. The researchers analysed the most recent 200 trials of vaccines, drugs, and devices with full industry funding, at least one academic author, published in one of the top seven high impact general medical journals………(unquote)
The full entry can be read Here.
4. Discoverability of open access books: How do we ensure that your research has the widest possible reach?
Open access (OA) books need to be easily found through search engines and websites – whether looking for a specific title, or through related keyword searches – and that all OA content needs to be clearly marked as such so that readers know it is free to download and re-use. Christina Emery, in her post in the BMC Research in Progress Blog, looks at how Springer Nature aids the discoverability of its open access books.
The blog post says (quote): Springer Nature recently entered into a new partnership with the OAPEN Library, a central repository for hosting and disseminating OA books, providing another discovery route to the OA books. They provide a "Metadata Downloader Tool" with an OA filter to libraries free of charge, thereby increasing discoverability of the books for end users. Libraries using MARC records find their eBook usage may be increased by as much as 50 percent. By including OA research on these sites, the visibility and discoverability of the OA books is enhanced. OA books are also automatically included in the eBook Collections at no additional charge to ensure maximum distribution………(unquote)
The full entry can be read Here.
5. Societies, Mission and Publishing: Why One Size Does Not Fit All
Posted by Robert Harington in the Scholarly Kitchen Blog, this post argues that academic societies need to balance mission and business more effectively. There is nothing wrong with developing a mixed publishing economy that best suits a range of communities and types of business.
The blog post says (quote): The American Mathematical Society (AMS) does not play the "Big Deal" game. Two of the journals have separate journal open access spin-offs that use the Gold open access (OA) model. In the AMS OA model, a mathematician's paper is considered for publication by the parent journal editorial board, and following acceptance, the author is given the option to publish in the subscription journal, or its open access sibling. This separates the editorial decision from the business decision, and yet is not a hybrid offering as the two journals are independent entities. While they exist as an option for those mathematicians who are mandated to publish OA, there really has been little take-up, even with heavily discounted APCs. The reality is that the culture of mathematics is different from other fields. Approximately 25 percent of AMS authors receive research funding from a federal agency, with the result that there are limited funds available for Gold OA author-pays model publishing………(unquote)
The full entry can be read Here.
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