December 16, 2019
The American Mathematical Society's Robert Harington, in a [genuinely weird Scholarly Kitchen post](https://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2019/12/16/politics-and-open-access/): > Rumors have been circulating in recent weeks of an impending US Executive Order focusing on...
December 16, 2019
From software firm Atypon's [press release for Manuscripts](https://www.atypon.com/news/atypon-launches-manuscripts-a-collaborative-authoring-tool-that-speeds-publication-and-lets-researchers-integrate-code-data/), a [new web-based version](https://manuscripts.io) of...
December 12, 2019
punctum books co-director [Vincent W.J. van Gerven Oei](https://punctumbooks.pubpub.org/pub/here-is-what-you-can-do-with-your-overhead-punctum-books): > As punctum books over the last few years has tried to develop a sustainable model of scholar-led open-access...
December 12, 2019
Tim Wu, in [*Times* op-ed](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/11/opinion/textbook-prices-college.html): > Teaching is a profession with its own ethical duties; students are both our charges and a captive market. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with assigning an...
December 12, 2019
[Björn Brembs takes Elsevier](http://bjoern.brembs.net/2019/12/elsevier-now-officially-a-predatory-publisher/) through the [new, five-part "predatory journal" definition](https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-03759-y): > So as far as this exercise goes, at least...
December 12, 2019
[*Inside Higher Ed*](https://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2019/12/11/ratings-agencies-post-mixed-outlooks-higher-education) on the latest [U.S. higher ed ratings...
December 9, 2019
Annie Waldman and David Armstrong of ProPublica, in a [background story for the *Chronicle*](https://www.chronicle.com/article/Many-Public-Universities/247667) about their new ["Dollars for Profs" conflict of interest...
December 6, 2019
The accelerating stratification of U.S. universities, *Inside Higher Ed* Quick Take edition:
December 5, 2019
Mike Neary, who is [spearheading the effort to establish a federated cooperative university in the UK](https://www.co-op.ac.uk/blog/why-a-co-operative-university-now): > The idea to set up a Co-operative University in the UK goes back to the late 19th century, but it...
December 5, 2019
Speaking of private equity. [*Inside Higher Ed*](https://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2019/12/05/canvas-parent-company-go-private): > Instructure, the publicly traded company behind the learning management system Canvas, is going private. The company announced a...
December 5, 2019
Kieren McCarthy, [writing for *The Register*](https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/12/03/internet_society_org/), on the Internet Society's (ISOC) sale of the .org domain-name registry to a private equity firm: > ISOC is supposed to act in the interests of the internet...
December 3, 2019
Ithaka S+R's Roger Schonfeld, in a [Scholary Kitchen post](https://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2019/12/03/publishers-announce-plug-leakage/) on the publishing oligopolists' new ["GetFTR"](https://getfulltextresearch.com) initiative: > Backed by the American Chemical...
November 30, 2019
Aileen Fyfe, unearthing a 1963 publishing code for the UK's Royal Society: The Code was written at a time when the presence of commercial publishers was becoming more apparent in the world of scientific journals, and concerns were being raised over ownership and...
November 30, 2019
Sarah Darley, writing for in The Guardian: Going on strike is never an easy decision. I hate causing disruption to the team I work with and losing eight days’ pay, especially so close to Christmas. Striking is particularly hard for staff in precarious employment...
November 28, 2019
The imitable Heather Morrison, in a just-released-study updating David Solomon and Bo-Christer Björk's 2010 APC paper: The average APC reported by Solomon & Björk was 906 USD; the average in 2019 for the 739 journals for which we have APC data for both years is...
November 26, 2019
David Michaels, author of the new The Triump of Doubt: Dark Money and the Science of Deception, in a Chronicle interview: At minimum, academic institutions should require professors to disclose conflicts of interest. Institutions should report these conflicts to the...
November 26, 2019
F. King Alexander, in an Inside Higher Ed opinion piece: Of late, several organizations have produced a raft of studies that endeavor to derail investment in public education while lauding the virtues of for-profit and private education. Such studies have produced an...
November 22, 2019
Lindsay McKenzie, in the Chronicle: The Carnegie Mellon deal covers the open-access publishing costs of 100 percent of articles published in Elsevier journals where a Carnegie Mellon academic was the corresponding author. The university currently publishes around 175...
November 14, 2019
Lisa Janicke Hinchliffe's Scholarly Kitchen post is ostensibly on the absurd idea of regional geofencing. But the post, weirdly, turns to doubt-casting on the viability of open access itself: Even if there is enough money in the system to transform subscriptions for...
November 12, 2019
From the latest Social Sciences & Humanities Open Cloud (SSHOC) newsletter: [I]t's now possible to catch a glimpse of what SSHOC plans to offer to SSH researchers and institutions, and how the project connects to EOSC [the European Open Science Cloud]. It's been a...
