Academic publishing

The decision to make the prestigious journal Nature Communications fully open access amounts to a “flag in the ground” on the issue

UCL/King’s College London team to consult broadly on future of monographs, open access, peer review, publishing and more

Open letter from researchers decries AAAS journal’s high fees and points to Anderson’s combative views on open access

Fears about how much research funding is being wasted on fraudulent projects may be overstated.

Open access science articles are read and cited more often than articles available only to subscribers, a study has suggested.

The bookseller is taking on upstart competitors at their own game, says its digital director

Synergy can help university publishers cut prices, argues Felipe Fernández-Armesto

Finding at Queen’s University Belfast follows criticism of pro vice-chancellor for citing an unpublished work

Accurate scientific translation is vital, say Meredith Root-Bernstein and Richard Ladle

David Mould on fine-tuning the work of a global group of novice researchers

Journal’s editors withdraw threat to resign after publisher apologises for obstructing report critical of industry practices

The head of the online academic social network discusses open goals and communal joys

Citation in high-impact journals valued more than scholarly assessment

Editorial board of journal could quit after debate on publishing suffers delay

Lawyers achieve goal but Coventry academic still linked to second publication on ‘blacklist’

Mining memories on the anniversary of the South Wales Miners’ Library

A publisher has launched a pilot with 21 UK universities to reduce their subscription costs in proportion to the amount of open access fees they pay

A climate scientist has distanced himself from newspaper suggestions that his paper on global warming was rejected by a journal for political reasons

Discoveries by laypeople are rare but free access to research results would increase the likelihood, says Richard Price

RCUK rules may mean UK scholars seeking to publish abroad lose out, report warns

By Carl Straumsheim, for Inside Higher Ed

Academic seeks to gather examples of cases where open access article fees have been paid but content remains behind a paywall

There’s an abundance of serious material outside the academy so why not use it, says Karen Harris

Will a low-cost, user-friendly open access journal steal the traditional publishers’ lunch?

Research funders worried about high open access fees charged by “hybrid” journals could refuse to pay fees above a set threshold, a report suggests.

Veteran academic authors share their hard-won tips

SMEs need tools as well as content to pinpoint research ‘nuggets’, says Elsevier chief

An eccentric approach helped build the Oxford University Press empire, argues Felipe Fernández-Armesto

Hope that ‘pioneering’ project could help solve gold problems

Academic publishers have launched their scheme to allow free access to research journals at public libraries

Publishers should encourage adoption of gold open access by reducing individual universities’ subscription charges as they pay more in article fees.

Cost-conscious institution rejects publisher’s ‘big deal’ on more than 1,000 journals

Loughborough academic alleges ‘process problem’ with journal’s trust-based system

Hefce launches review of digital publishing in the arts and humanities

The hardcore group of academics who print books on subjects sidelined by mainstream publishers

New libel laws come into force today that aim to protect academics from the threat of legal action when writing peer-reviewed material in journals

Publishing arm aims to disseminate research and ease budgetary pressures

Nobel laureate Randy Schekman has pledged to stop publishing in “luxury journals”, which he believes contribute to the “disfigurement” of science.

Adequate funding has been allotted for universities to meet the cost of open access, the government has maintained

Review rejects MPs’ criticisms of gaps in its data

‘Resurrecting the Book’ conference hears support for printed word

A formal body should be set up to coordinate efforts to implement open access, the Finch Group has recommended.

UK researchers should be permitted to publish in top international journals even if those journals are not compliant with open-access mandates.

Edinburgh University Press has bought Dundee University Press for an undisclosed sum.

Committee points to ‘gaps in qualitative and quantitative evidence’ for Finch report recommendations

A preference for gold open access over green is misguided and is due to multiple gaps in the evidence gathered for the Finch Report, MPs have said.

Advantages to making research freely available are still limited when publication is via gold journals

Half of scientific papers published in 2011 can be accessed online for free, a new study has suggested. 

In a significant victory for data miners, the open access publisher BioMed Central is to waive all copyright over datasets it publishes.

Fresh light on how academic libraries in low- and medium-income economies are contributing to universities has been shed in a new report.

By Scott Jaschik, for Inside Higher Ed

The UK funding councils have narrowed the scope of their proposed open access mandate for the post-2014 research excellence framework.

A library-focused effort aims to take monographs off the analogue shelf

Academics invited to publish papers, solicit reviews on new scholarly site

Michael Billig on the weaknesses of a discipline’s usage

The number of journals denied an impact factor for taking part in citation cartels has risen sharply this year, pushing up the total number of excluded journals.

Universities deciding mechanisms to apportion RCUK cash

Open access is a utopian pipe dream, says Richard Hoyle

Science ministers from the G8 group of the world’s richest countries have jointly endorsed the need to increase access to publicly-funded research.

Transition is both desirable and inevitable, Gabriel Egan argues