Today is the start

 ... for this stage of the project, at least. All the knowledge and lessons have been garnered and will have their moment. But sheer joy right now 😁

 

Location: Porto, Portugal

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London Book Fair 2024: challenges for publishers

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I went to London with a purpose. It’s always good to meet collaborators and friends, but I had other goals with my visit. You see, it’s never good when the decisions that impact us are arrived at without our input. I wanted to bring awareness of my new peer review standards project to those in the publishing industry that can benefit from them. I'm comfortable researching and reviewing, even editing and managing the peer review process, but hearing editors and publishers speak of the big picture issue was an eye-opener. Change is ever present The publishing industry fancies itself as having evolved to explore the heritage and lived experience of minorities, by more frequently placing a spotlight on hidden and undervalued communities. Jonathan Karp, who spoke on the current model of employee ownership that underpins his role as CEO at Simon & Schuster , perfectly exemplified this—with profits now being reinvested in the company, there’s a new collaborative...
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London Book Fair 2024: OA and AI

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In a survey on the trends of academic publishing conducted in 2023, reflecting on the need to reformulate the current business model was front of mind. The need to optimize operational efficiencies may stem from the increased adoption of open access (OA) policies. For those not in the know, OA is a practice that enables research outputs to be distributed online, free of access charges or other barriers, including the ability for copy or reuse, by applying an open license for copyright. The mandates  advocated by the Holdren Memo in the US, the Nelson Memo in the UK, and Plan S for the EU consolidated the view that unrestricted access to research publications is part of an integral right for transparency—we want to view the outcomes of taxpayer-funded research. However, many publishers follow a gold OA model and charge an article processing charge (APC), which is typically paid through institutional or grant funding. This means that readers don't pay, because t...
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I took matters in my own hands

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Yep. I did.  And decided I would write the guidelines for peer review I wish I had been given. In the traditional publishing model, journal editors choose reviewers based on their expertise. Reviewers can now also choose to post comments on preprints that they have a particular interest in, based on their own research experience.  Crowd-sourced models have also begun to flourish. But there is no definition of what a GOOD peer review is and how to recognise it. We aim to provide curated resources for training, define quality standards, and raise pertinent questions that evolved from the current context in the publishing industry.  We want to help maintain integrity in the peer review process, by involving the community in assessing their own training needs.   Together with some colleagues (Gareth and Jo), we came up with a crowdsourced initiative . And we got some ideas, wishes, and plans. We hope to improve transparency and accountability in the peer review ...
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