March 3, 2020
Historian Aileen Fyfe, in an [insightful Open Science Talk podcast](https://septentrio.uit.no/index.php/OSTalk/issue/view/450) on learned societies and publishing: > The commercial model of publishing, the sales-based model of publishing, is not inevitable or...
March 2, 2020
The indispensable Richard Poynder, [interviewing PLOS CEO Alison Mudditt](https://poynder.blogspot.com/2020/02/plos-ceo-alison-mudditt-discusses-new.html) on PLOS's ["pure publish" deal](http://blogs.plos.org/plos/?p=9059) with the University of California: >...
March 2, 2020
[Lead story in today's *Chronicle* ("At the Precipice")](https://www.chronicle.com/article/At-the-Precipice-6-in-10/248110): > Over all, about 60 percent of public and private institutions responding to the survey missed their enrollment goals...Sixty-seven percent of...
February 27, 2020
Dane Kennedy, [in a *Chronicle* commentary](https://www.chronicle.com/article/The-Disneyfication-of-a/248015) [paywall] on the Disney Institute deal with George Washington University, where he teaches: > Our president is rumored to have forked over $3 million to $4...
February 26, 2020
Gary Hall and Janneke Adema, in an [interview for Open Insights](https://www.openlibhums.org/news/356/) on their [Community-led Open Publicaiton Infrastructure for Monographs](https://copim.pubpub.org/pub/3x691fzn) project ([funded by Research...
February 21, 2020
From my [just-published piece on the inequalities wrought by read-and-publish OA deals](https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/2020/02/21/read-and-publish-open-access-deals-are-heightening-global-inequalities-in-access-to-publication/): > So there are lots of...
February 19, 2020
Liz Morrish, [reflecting on](https://academicirregularities.wordpress.com/2020/02/16/pdr-in-the-disneyfied-university/) recent reporting that the George Washington University had [put senior staff through training from the Disney...
February 12, 2020
Eva-Maria Swidler, in a [follow-up blog post](https://academeblog.org/2020/02/07/what-will-be-left-after-the-purge/) to her [remarkable *Academe* article](https://www.aaup.org/article/purge-higher-education#.XjNJYGhKgdU) on the plight of liberal arts colleges—a piece...
February 11, 2020
From the Center for Open Science's [press release](https://cos.io/about/news/new-measure-rates-quality-research-journals-policies-promote-transparency-and-reproducibility/) announcing its new journal-rating measure, the [TOP Factor](http://cos.io/top/): > TOP Factor...
February 10, 2020
Susan Campbell Baldridge, Susan Shaman, and Robert Zemsky, [in a *Chronicle* essay](https://www.chronicle.com/interactives/20200207-will-your-college-close) [paywall], adapted from [their new book *The College Stress...
February 7, 2020
[Superb article](https://www.aaup.org/article/purge-higher-education#.XjNJYGhKgdU) by Eva-Maria Swidler on the plight faced by small, non-elite liberal arts colleges in the U.S.: > Simultaneously, elite institutions are increasing their wealth in what Brian Rosenberg,...
February 6, 2020
Mariëlle Prevoo, Ron Aardening, and Ingrid Wijk, [writing for the Scholarly Kitchen](https://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2020/02/04/guest-post-a-plea-for-fairer-sharing-of-the-true-costs-of-publication/), on the idea to shift from APCs paid out for publication, to...
February 5, 2020
Bennett Leckrone, in a [recent *Chronicle* piece on a qualified backlash against the "return-on-investment" (ROI) analysis of U.S. colleges](https://www.chronicle.com/article/Is-It-Fair-to-Judge-a-College/247955): > Recent headlines proclaiming the long-term payoff of...
February 5, 2020
Christiaan De Beukelaer, in a [nice essay for *Times Higher Ed*](https://www.timeshighereducation.com/blog/argument-reading-more-and-writing-less) on over-publication driven by competitive careerism: > The importance of reading brings up the paradox of writing: the...
February 4, 2020
[A new paper](https://crln.acrl.org/index.php/crlnews/article/view/24227) by Allison Langham-Putrow and Sunshine J. Carter on subscribe-to-open (S2O). It's an excellent overview—and well-timed, given Berghahn's [recent...
February 3, 2020
From Elsevier's ["open access mirror journals"](https://www.elsevier.com/about/open-science/open-access/open-access-journals/mirror-journals) page: > To meet the evolving needs of our community and expand our open access publishing options, we are piloting the concept...
February 3, 2020
Scott Carlson, in a [*Chronicle* piece [paywalled]](https://www.chronicle.com/article/The-Oddsmakers-of-the-College/247947) on a new book, [*The College Stress Test*](https://jhupbooks.press.jhu.edu/title/college-stress-test): > And what’s wrong with higher education,...
January 30, 2020
Bradley Metrock, writing on the Digital Book World blog: It is our absolute privilege to ban all Macmillan employees from attending or speaking at Digital Book World until the company's library embargo is lifted and they fully comply with the requests of the American...
January 30, 2020
Inside Higher Ed: Two Democrats in the U.S. Senate have asked five companies that help colleges and universities manage their online academic programs for information about their contracts and relationships with the institutions. [...] The letters, which went to chief...
January 29, 2020
Interesting interview with the co-founder of scite, an AI software that judges scholarly citations as supporting, contradicting, or mentioning. The scite co-founder used the "citation context" language, an echo of Henry Small's classic elaboration of...
