News: Academic Publishing Weekly

India's massive journal subscription deal, reflections on two years of ChatGPT, and the best books of 2024

Posted on December 6, 2024 in News

India Makes Sizable Commitment to OA Research

India is hot on the scholarly publishing scene after announcing a multi-publisher subscription deal that provides access to almost 13,000 journals. The three-year deal is part of India’s One Nation One Subscription program and aims to expand journal access to 18 million students, researchers, and faculty. Beginning in January, India will pay 30 publishers a sum of roughly $715 million. Of interest, Devika Madalli, director of the coordinating agency for One Nation One Subscription, shared that a portion of the money will cover article processing charges. Aniket Sule from the Homi Bhabha Centre for Science Education further noted that specialists will benefit from the access to materials beyond their discipline. Nonetheless, several academics pushed back against the deal, suggesting that India turn to alternative OA business models instead of “continuing to spend public money on journal subscriptions.” [Science]

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Academics Reflect on Two Years of ChatGPT

In commemoration of ChatGPT celebrating its second birthday in November, Nature spoke with several academics on their chatbot usage. Scientists noted benefits of the large language model (LLM) including freeing up time to work on more advanced tasks and aiding those for whom English is not their first language. Nature also highlighted a project led by AI researcher James Zou on a virtual lab where “different LLMs play the part of scientists in an interdisciplinary team, with a human scientist giving high-level feedback.” On the flip side, scientists stressed several drawbacks of ChatGPT, namely privacy concerns and shortcomings when it comes to conducting literature reviews. Nonetheless, Nature shared that a minimum of 60,000 papers published last year are “estimated to have been written with the assistance of a large language model.” [Nature]

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New Publishing Acquisition, Altmetric Adds Bluesky as an Attention Source, and the Conclusion to the Internet Archive Lawsuit

In acquisition news, last week Emerald Publishing purchased the academic publisher Information Age Publishing (IAP). Emerald Publishing will gain more than 2,600 titles and several peer-reviewed journals under the acquisition. Next, Digital Science’s Altmetric has included Bluesky as a research attention source following academics’ migration to the social platform. Altmetric explained that it “tracks Bluesky attention in real-time, detecting posts, reposts and quotes that contain a direct link to a scholarly output.” The platform has identified 395,000 conversations about research on Bluesky thus far. Lastly, the Hachette Book Group v. Internet Archive lawsuit has finally come to a close. Publishing Perspectives underlined that the Internet Archive did not file a “cert petition” with the Supreme Court, marking the end of the court case. Publishing Perspectives also covered celebratory comments from the Association of American Publishers (AAP), who stated, “publishers have achieved a decisive and broadly applicable victory for authors’ rights and digital markets.” Not sure if everyone feels the same…

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The Latest State of Open Data Report

Digital Science, Figshare, and Springer Nature have published The State of Open Data 2024 special report: Bridging policy and practice in data sharing. The report examines authors’ data sharing practices around the globe, finding an uptake in open data policies. However, disparities remain based on discipline and institutional resources, and “even where policies are in place, there is not necessarily a significant rise in repository sharing.” Looking at the United States, the report revealed that researchers are motivated by funder requirements over citations when it comes to sharing their data. The report also includes a set of recommendations involving the “consistent introduction of a four-step process of change (policy, mandate compliance and measurement)” and greater collaboration and training. [Digital Science]

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Editor Compensation Survey and Recommendations for Equitable OA

KnowledgeWorks’ KGL Consulting has published its annual Editorial Compensation Benchmark Study. Looking at 213 journals, the study analyzes factors impacting editors’ wages, operations, and the gender makeup of the industry. KGL Consulting found that women make up only 30 percent of editors-in-chief, but did not report large pay gaps based on gender. KGL Consulting also revealed that almost “a third of journals reported instances of fraudulent submissions, with more than half now having staff roles dedicated to safeguarding research ethics.” In other news, the Open Access Scholarly Publishing Association (OASPA) released several recommended practices on equitable OA publishing. As explained by OASPA, “Five headline goals urge publishing organisations, and those who pay for, purchase, and invest in publishing services, to evolve practices, build trust through greater transparency, and coordinate efforts to enable open access for all scholars, regardless of their location, affiliations or other circumstances.” The set of recommendations can be accessed here.

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The 2024 Outstanding Academic Titles and Let the Best Books of the Year Lists Begin

End-of-year book lists are in full swing, just in time for holiday shopping. First up, NPR revealed its annual “Books We Love,” featuring over 300 titles. The list includes standard categories of nonfiction and memoir and interesting topics such as “It’s All Geek to Me” and “No Biz Like Show Biz.” Make sure to keep an eye out for several university press titles that dot the list. Next up, Library Journal shared its “Best Books 2024,” with 144 recommendations in crime fiction, fantasy, poetry, and more. Titles from Yale and Princeton University Press grace the nonfiction category, and A.B. Spellman’s Between the Night and Its Music: New and Selected Poems, edited by Lauri Scheyer from Wesleyan University Press, made the poetry list. Finally, Choice’s 2024 Outstanding Academic Titles are here! For weekly updates, you can sign up for the OAT newsletter to receive list snippets of the top scholarly titles reviewed by Choice during the past year.

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