Category: Academic Publishing

Moneyball for Academics: network analysis methods for predicting the future success of papers and researchers.

Drawing from a combination of network analysis measurements, Erik Brynjolfsson and Shachar Reichman present methods from their research on predicting the future success of researchers. The overall vision for this project is to create an academic dashboard that will include a suite of … Continue reading

The evidence fails to justify publishers’ demand for longer embargo periods on publicly-funded research.

Due to disciplinary differences in the “half-life” or relative demand of a scholarly article, some publishers are looking to enact longer embargo periods before an article can be made openly available on archives and repositories, in order to protect against … Continue reading

Judging a book by its URLs: accurate and concise digital references are central to academic rigour and credibility.

Central to the quality of academic scholarship is its rigour. Footnote references are integral to this process. If generating accurate and fully comprehensive footnotes is to be maintained in online spaces, coherent and longterm URLs must be part of this … Continue reading

Academic publishers must sort out their outdated electronic submission and review processes.

With the advent of electronic and online publishing workflows, why is the submission process still so exasperating? Dorothy Bishop finds that with each publisher re-inventing senseless bureaucratic online forms, things appear to be getting worse for academic authors, rather than … Continue reading

Data Citation and Sharing: What’s in it for me?

Research funders, data managers, librarians, journal editors and researchers themselves are calling for a change in the culture of research to ensure formal data citation is the norm, rather than the exception. Sarah Callaghan looks at the reasons for and against … Continue reading

Preprint posting, predatory journals and peer review: our top five posts on Open Access

The on-going discussion over open access to scholarly research was a regular feature this year on the Impact of Social Sciences blog. The top posts in this category came from a range of voices in higher education, from researchers and … Continue reading

Continuous Publishing and the rise of the Open-Source Academic

Mark Carrigan shares excerpts from the academic blog written by Professor of Philosophy and University Chancellor, Daniel Little and reflects on the professional development and rising influence of the open-source academic. For both Little and Carrigan, the integration of blogging … Continue reading

The best Open Access policies put researchers in charge, and recent EU Horizon 2020 and COST policies support this.

COST (European Cooperation in Science and Technology) – an intergovernmental framework supporting cooperation among scientists and researchers across Europe – recently supported an independent Strategic Initiative to better understand issues pertaining to open access publishing across a range of disciplines. Here COST … Continue reading