Open access to academic research has never been a hotter topic. But it's still held back by myths and misunderstandings repeated by people who should know better. The good news is that open access has been successful enough to attract comment from beyond its circle of pioneers and experts. The bad news is that a disappointing number of policy-makers, journalists and academics opine in public without doing their homework.Pew releases an update to its' tablet and ebook ownership report and there continues to be overlap between eBook and tablet buyers. (Pew)
As China tries to take its seat at the top table of global academia, the criminal underworld has seized on a feature in its research system: the fact that research grants and promotions are awarded on the basis of the number of articles published, not on the quality of the original research. This has fostered an industry of plagiarism, invented research and fake journals that Wuhan University estimated in 2009 was worth $150m, a fivefold increase on just two years earlier. Chinese scientists are still rewarded for doing good research, and the number of high-quality researchers is increasing. Scientists all round the world also commit fraud. But the Chinese evaluation system is particularly susceptible to it.
Is there a Brit Invasion underway in publishing or is it just a PR excuse? (io9)
Why are so many British publishers coming to America right now? And why are there so many smaller imprints coming out of the U.K.?
I think it’s pure economics. The book industry in Britain is not great at the moment. We’re struggling through the recession with very poor sales. So obviously we’re looking to see where they can make money, and America is five times the size [of] the market in the UK. So it does seem to me that if you’re a small nimble company that you can do this much easier perhaps than the bigger boys. If you’re a big company setting up in America, it automatically becomes a much bigger thing.Professor wants to know what's going on with is book (Chronicle):
You can't push on a rope" is a bit of folk wisdom from my rural upbringing. The phrase is about feeling powerless over a process in which you think of yourself as an equal, indispensable partner. Your end of the rope is firmly in your grasp; the other end has gone slack. It's an apt description of what it's like to have a manuscript accepted for publication, the contract offered and signed, a proper final edit completed, the final product delivered for typesetting, and then ... nothing. For more than a year, I've been holding the rope and waiting for someone to tug back on the other end.
Uncertainty is one big obstacle holding publishers back from outsourcing their distribution, observes CEO Gareth Cuddy of ePubDirect. “As the marketplace shifts, margins are squeezed on print, and industry reports showing e-book prices for bestsellers continue to average between $2.99 and $7.99, publishers are cautious about entering the e-book market. But distribution services such as ePubDirect not only share the digital publishing expertise but also allow publishers to access new markets, grow sales internationally and ultimately sell more books.”From the ALPSP blog an excellent set of notes from my session (thanks!)
And publishers do have a much stronger appetite to sell content directly to consumers nowadays, says executive director of publishing services Walter Walker of code-Mantra, attributing it “to either the U.S. Department of Justice’s decision on e-book price-fixing or simply the astonishing level of activities in the e-book retail business. But the XML-first mandate is one that many publishers find intimidating, and our goal is to use highly efficient plug-ins and templates at the prepress stage without disrupting the traditional Word-to-InDesign authoring environment.”
It's complicated. Apple iOS has 6 different size/resolution combinations. HTC has 12. Even within these platforms there is significant deviation. And it is getting more complicated with the introduction of Microsoft and Asus tablets.And this one from the Frankfurt Bookfair blog:
Cairn's advice on how to do RWD right starts with understanding your users and how they access and use your content. Prioritise your content based on the above, then build a site architecture that answers to these priorities. Design a site that provides content for users across device-types and contexts, with grids and typography and images that adapt.
What is responsive web design? It is where you maintain one website that services all devices and screen sizes. It provides complete support for all web pages and features, regardless of the device or screen size. And it enables you to implement changes across all devices.
As Bruce Lee said, “when you pour water in a cup, it becomes the cup. When you pour water in a bottle, it becomes the bottle.” So should be your online strategy…or so Michael Cairns, COO, Online Division at Publishing Technology, says.From Eoin Purcell on the fair itself: (Blog)
In the “Pixel Imperfect: Serving an Online Audience with Responsive Content” presentation at CONTEC Frankfurt today, Cairns and Michael Kowalski, Founder, Contentment, discussed the need for publishers (both book and magazine) to create mobile-enabled content for the rising mobile reader. As one of those readers who is reading increasingly on my phone and less on my computer, tablet, or ereader, I appreciated that someone was trying to figure out something to fix all of those books, sites, and magazines I so love so I can read them on the go and not fumble through poorly-converted web-focused content.
If I was to put my finger on one key root cause though, I think that what’s going on is that publishers have, as an industry, come to terms with the fact that they are in the midst of a great disruption, one that they cannot individually predict the long term outcome of (and Michael Bhaskar spoke eloquently on this on Wednesday). There is general acceptance too that while individual companies retain huge power over their own destinies, the technology giants who have moved heavily into the content and media space, the rise of self-publishing and the general shift of digital distribution means that publishers are no longer the only forces in publishing and that increasingly they accept that they are not even the preeminent force in publishing.From the Chronicle of Higher Education, as people return from summer vacation perhaps they are finding their libraries significantly changed. This is not a new story:
Talk of digital revolutions and bookless libraries notwithstanding, academic libraries around the country are feeling the squeeze as legacy collections outgrow shelves, and shelves give way to learning commons and shared study areas. Those twin pressure points—too many print books plus new demands on library real estate—have spurred academic libraries to try a set of state and regional experiments to free up library space to suit modern learning styles and still make sure that somebody, somewhere, hangs onto books that make up part of the intellectual record, even if those books haven't circulated in years.(No mention of NY public library)
For such experiments to succeed, librarians say, they should build off existing relationships among libraries, and they should draw on solid data—on persuasive and detailed analyses of what's in a collection and how it's used and whether those books are available somewhere else. The streamlining of collections has to be handled in a way that doesn't enrage faculty members who still cherish access to physical books. Many disciplines, especially the sciences, favor electronic resources, but print still holds powerful appeal for a lot of scholars
Step back and look at books in a wider context, though, and the picture changes. If you’re in the business of selling journalism, moving images, or music, you have seen your work stripped of value by the digital revolution. Translate anything into ones and zeroes, and it gets easier to steal and harder to sell at a sustainable price. Yet people remain willing to fork over a decent sum for books, whether in print or in electronic form. “I can buy songs for 99 cents, I can read most newspapers for free, I can rent a $100 million movie tonight for $2.99,” Russ Grandinetti, Amazon’s vice president of Kindle content, told me in January. “Paying $9.99 for a best-selling book—paying $10 for bits?—is in many respects a very strong accomplishment for the business.” At the individual level, everyone in the trade—whether executive, editor, agent, author, or bookseller—faces threats to his or her livelihood: self-publishing, mergers and “efficiencies,” and, yes, the suspicious motives of Amazon executives. But the book itself is hanging on and even thriving.From Twitter
“The data from this sting operation reveal the contours of an emerging Wild West in academic publishing,” Mr. Bohannon wrote in Friday’s issue of Science.What the magazine got wrong: Guardian
For now, however, allegations of flaws—at least in the way the magazine promoted the piece, if not how the study was constructed from the start—are commanding the bulk of the attention.
Mr. Bohannon offered his fake science submission only to open-access journals, a growing model in which published articles are made freely available rather than restricted to readers with a paid subscription. More than a dozen critiques have been posted to various news sites and blogs, some of them suggesting a bias by Science, which charges for subscriptions, against the open-access model.
The pique is less about Mr. Bohannon’s 4,200-word article, which suggests he confirmed a problem throughout academic publishing, than his magazine’s 200-word press release (read it here; scroll down to see it), which repeatedly emphasized his findings as an indictment of the open-access model. The sting operation, Science said in its promotion, “exposes the dark side of open-access publishing.”
Three weeks ago, Domenic Lippa, a partner at Pentagram Design Consultancy, selected his favourite 10 fonts. His list inspired hundreds of readers to pick their preferred typeface. He says: 'Nowadays we all use fonts: the digital revolution has meant that we can choose from thousands every day. Only 20 years ago, most people wrote correspondence by hand, or used a typewriter, using a font called "typewriter". Typography, once the domain of an elite minority, has now become democratic, and with that comes a voice. The hundreds of examples posted here all have something to inspire. If you want to know which type you are, check out this little game my company created a couple of years ago – it might change your view of fonts…'Why do politicians like writing political biographies so much? New Statesman:
It made for a fine silly-season story to read that Boris Johnson was writing a book about Winston Churchill. Here we see a man, instantly recognisable and quite irrepressible, a master of wit and wordplay, from a privileged background yet with the common touch, always ready to parade his own vices to mock political correctness, and above all a bad party man with ill-concealed ambitions to get to the top. But which man?The question is hardly new. When a living politician is drawn to be the biographer of a great statesman – that is, a dead politician – we are bound to wonder about the motivation. In the past, the usual reason was piety. An eminent former colleague or political disciple, preferably one with some literary bent, had to be recruited as the keeper of the bones of the saint. John Morley’s life of his hero Gladstone is a classic example. What was expected was a work in at least two volumes, as the conventional “tombstone” biography. De mortuis nil nisi bunkum.
Clearly, $750,000 is a very expensive story. On the other hand, what price do you suppose a parent with a young, feverish child might put on these disclosures? As a society we have to find the means to underwrite reporting of this magnitude. Of all the funding ideas that are mainly predictable—foundations, sponsored conferences (a particular specialty of the Texas Tribune), annual appeals, donor buttons on the sites--one notion that deserves far more attention than it has received so far came from Steven Waldman, the author of the Federal Communication Commission's massive 2011 study of the country's news media in the broadband era, including "shortfalls in robust accountability journalism." According to a report by Rick Edmonds of the Poynter Institute, Waldman told the conference that he believes that the tech companies that have grown in scale and revenues to a considerable degree from their distribution of news—Apple, Google, Verizon, AT&T—owe these nonprofit content providers a portion of their massive proceeds. "The winners of the new economy. . . . If they would put just a tiny bit of their wealth into this," Waldman said, serious journalism could thrive.
They are not ignoring new technology, and will offer guidance on "netiquette": when to put a smiley face or kisses on an email (never in the workplace) and why you should never text the boss unless they have texted you first. Debrett's developed its programme on "social intelligence" for under-30s after a survey of business leaders threw up some serious issues around young people entering the modern workplace. "Manners, social intelligence, personal presentation and impact can be as important as academic qualifications," says Debrett's. "With so much focus on exam results and the hectic informality of modern family life and technology, social graces can be a casualty."Personally, I could suggest one or two of my past managers for training (or brainwashing depending on your view) and they would need suggesting since they live in complete ignorance of their appalling behavior. (that's enough -ed). Coincidentally, the NYT published an opinion piece over the weekend that also touches on office behavior:
Along with a slew of other surveys, including one by YouGov today which says that half of employers find graduates they are employing are not "work ready", the Debrett's research flags up rising concerns among business people about the employability of graduates and school leavers who have been tested to the maximum academically, but have no notion of what to expect from a job. The accusation is that schools and universities are so focused on academic targets that they are failing to produce rounded graduates. Instead they are turning out young people who are shy and awkward after spending all their time on the internet or mobiles, who lack the ability to spell or write a letter, and are unable to get through a day without regular online checks on what their friends are up to.
As the book and her columns make clear, open-plan offices, designed in the name of cutting costs and encouraging collaboration, have become dens of intense irritation. Walls and doors can no longer protect workers from unwanted visits, along with various odors, shouts, coughs, sneezes, popping of gum, belches and spitting. It’s also clear that many employees are uncertain where their professional life ends and their personal life begins — a confusion abetted by technology that enables them to take their work wherever they go, and to conduct personal business while at work.In an interview, Ms. Martin deplored the “pseudosocial events” that many businesses arrange in the name of teamwork. You should be collegial with co-workers, “but they’re not friends,” she said. If you genuinely become friends with someone in the office, by all means spend time with them, she said. But too many managers are dragging entire groups to retreats, dinners and after-work drinks, and to events where some people mistakenly think they should be able to behave just as they would at a normal party, she said. Ms. Martin suggests that workers who dread attending social events try to bow out by saying that they have work to do.
ALPSP has released a report on academic journal publishers' policies and practices in
online publishing. This international survey, the fourth in this research series from
ALPSP, was undertaken to establish current scholarly publishing
practices and assess changes in practice and policy across the industry.
More than 300 publishers took part, including more than 180 small
publishers (ie 1 - 10 titles). For the first time, the ALPSP survey
included societies who have outsourced their publications to a
publishing partner.
For one thing, staff and students have been surprisingly reluctant to abandon print.A better article about the digital transformation in education publishing comes from Education Week which profiles the approaches taken by the big three K-12 education publishers.
Nearly 80 per cent of students surveyed by the National Association of College Stores say they prefer print to e-books, and academics assign digital texts in only 14 per cent of courses. In focus groups conducted by the Center for Studies in Higher Education at the University of California, Berkeley, faculty said they were concerned about whether the authors of OER textbooks were adequately paid, whether the quality was sufficient and whether the content was objective. OER textbooks do remain limited in scope and number. OpenStax, supported by grants from sources including the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, provides titles for just five introductory courses. Nevertheless, OpenStax estimates that it will save 40,000 students a collective $3.7 million this year, or an average of $92.50 per student.
Mary Jane Tappen, the deputy chancellor for curriculum, instruction, and student services for the Florida Department of Education, says that as districts in her state transition to digital curricula, schools want to pull the very best content from multiple sources—some they might buy, the rest might be free.From Twitter this week:
"We're moving away from one book per content area per grade per student," she says. With digital capabilities already in development, Florida will be able to track what pieces of content are the most successful with students. Tools providing a rating for pieces of digital content will be visible on each teacher's desktop, allowing the teacher to sort the material by standard and the best rating.
...
Tammy McGraw, the director of educational technology for the Virginia Department of Education, says one way for big textbook publishers to figure out what K-12 educators want and need is to work more closely with teachers and administrators.
Several years ago, as iPads were just starting to be used in schools, McGraw says, she approached the major publishers and asked them to think about how to deliver textbooks through a browser. Some publishers ended up partnering with the Virginia department to convert their print textbooks to apps, and both educators and publishers learned a lot about what students liked and didn't, says McGraw, and about the difficulties in digitizing print textbooks. Students, for example, didn't like to use the browser on the iPad—they wanted the textbook to be accessible using an app. Students liked the interactive media and the electronic note-taking and highlighting features, and they loved to quiz themselves and do assessments on the fly. Many of those features ultimately became integrated into the products offered by the publishers, according to Tammy McGraw.
He had in fact a grand theme, which he nibbled at in book after book: the ruinous postwar overbuilding of the Florida Gulf Coast. (It even runs, much subdued, through the McGee series.) MacDonald knew the landscape well; it was where he lived for most of his adult life, and he was horrified by what he saw happening to it. He wasn't a passionate environmentalist, and he spared his readers any laments for drained swampland. He had no objection to sensible development as such. But he saw the mechanics of the Florida land boom from the inside; he was able to write knowledgeably about county boards and real-estate investment trusts, building codes and rezoning applications. He was fervently certain that the countless petty instances of greed and corruption and fecklessness and indifference and incompetence were sooner or later going to add up to a disaster, and he was right. When Hurricane Andrew destroyed a large swath of Florida in 1992, six years after MacDonald's death, the catastrophe was multiplied several times over by the astonishing shoddiness of the housing there, of whole communities constructed in open defiance of the building codes, almost exactly as MacDonald had described.The New Republic is publishing reviews of banned books (New Repub): Here is Slaughterhouse 5 reviewed by Michael Crichton
Only the commercial explanation, which is really no more than a simple observation of verifiable fact, holds water; the others are demonstrably wrong. For example, nearly all fictional forms have come from pulp, or its equivalent in previous generations. The majority of "classic" authors were very popular in their day. And when one surveys the great triad of pulp writing—science fiction, westerns, and detective fiction—from the early part of this century, the results are interesting. Westerns, being closest to the heart of American mythology, have been almost entirely absorbed by the ubiquitous tube. Detectives have done well in films, less well on television; in straight fiction their standards have been raised markedly, partly because "real" authors like Conrad and Graham Greene have dabbled in the form and partly because talented writers have been drawn to it—Raymond Chandler, David Cornwall, and Georges Simenon. But science fiction has remained impervious to such influences. It is still as pulpy, and as awful, as ever.Inside Higher Ed considers a A Google E-Learning Ecosystem (IHEd)
Up until the edX - Google deal it would have been difficult. Smarter people than me were able to get Course Builder (the platform that Google is putting into maintenance) to work, but for mere mortals (read non-programmers), Google never really had any platform that was workable for online course development and teaching. Now the edX Open platform is going to evolve and improve, as Google is putting developer and infrastructure resources behind the project. Nobody from edX is saying that edX open or MOOC.org is intended to be an LMS replacement. Why pick that fight? But it makes perfect sense. Why wouldn't a school want to use the same platform for their campus (private) courses as their open courses? Wouldn't it make sense to easily be able to designate some parts of a course that are open (such as the course content, formative assessment or public discussion boards), and wall-off other parts of the course (such as internal discussion boards or graded assignment areas) for only those matriculated (and tuition paying) students?Is there a lesson for big name authors in the actions of the All Things D staff? (CJR)
These new franchise raise the important question of whether and by how much power is shifting in journalism from publishers to authors. I’d argue that these franchises are to a large extent sui generis and not indicative of a generalized power shift in journalism. In fact their high visibility tends to distort our view of the author-publisher, that is to say, labor-management, power balance. First, it’s important to note that these particular franchises were (for the most part) all nurtured within big, traditional news organizations, which provided salaries, health insurance, tech support, legal backup, etc. etc., plus and importantly the imprimatur of their brand names built up over decades. So these are not autonomous operations, but in fact highly dependent ones. It’s significant, for instance, that when Nat Silver moved his Fivethirtyeight franchise in July (which prompted Jay’s post), it wasn’t to go off on his own but to join another big company, in this case, Disney. In that sense, his move wasn’t so different from past jumps by media stars such, as, say, in 1984 when Mike Royko left the Sun-Times after Murdoch bought it and joined the Tribune. True, Silver was already a success before he went to the Times in 2010—he was on one of Time’s most influential of 2009. But the Times’s perch certainly helped to propel him to new prominence, and his next destination, even if it’s not his last, turns out to be within the MSM. People wonder if Andrew Ross Sorkin will ever make his DealBook independent. Not only is there no sign of that, in order to expand his influence, he took a second job at another MSM outlet.From twitter this week
Latest CHORUS Updates (posted 9/10/13)
Read the complete CHORUS Proof of Concept as presented to signatories, agencies and other stakeholders beginning August 30. This conceptual design report, presented by CHORUS Director of Development Howard Ratner, was the first milestone met in the rollout plan. Any questions, email info@publishers.org
Want to know How CHORUS Works? Check out this infographic.
So, take out Hachette’s 30 titles, cut HarperCollins’ list by half and factor in the likely rationalisation of Random House and Penguin’s publications following their July global merger, and it’s hard to avoid the conclusion that fewer Kiwi writers will end up in print. Unless they slap a self-published text on Amazon and embark on the difficult task of self-spruiking. “I think it will mean that,” says International Institute of Modern Letters director Damien Wilkins. “The idea that you could become a writer is absolutely mainstream now and that’s been a huge change over the past 20 years. But you have that at the same time as these eroded outlets and potential for getting your work to readers. So it’s a very curious paradox.”The need for bandwidth is stressing out many college campus CIO's (IHE)
Howard’s experience is far from the norm. Many CIOs, facing tight budgets and pressure to keep costs from rising, are using their funds merely to replace aging hardware once it powers down for good or is rendered technologically obsolete. “I have an adequate budget to replace 20 to 25 percent [of access points] every year,” Rowe said. In other words, if she spends part of her $90,000 budget to increase the number of access points on campus, fewer will be replaced. “In the meantime, I expect bandwidth demand and drain on the access points to continue.”
