News: Academic Publishing Weekly

Twitter and scholcomm, the citational justice movement, and Duke University Press union news

Posted on March 25, 2022 in News

By Choice Staff

Twitter and Scholarly Communication

As COVID-19 spread in 2020, researchers took to social media to discuss new findings, debunk inaccurate papers, and connect with fellow academics. In response, some researchers have gained a dedicated (non-academic) following, particularly through explaining academic papers in layman’s terms. Jeffrey Brainard at Science explores how Twitter has impacted scholarly communication and false information, and what (if any) effects this newfound fame can have on academic careers. Brainard spotlights specific researchers’ stories and studies on the difficulty scientists have in cultivating consistent Twitter engagement. Plus, at the very end, there’s a few tips for all the #Twitter novices out there. [Science]

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Duke Press Welcomes Union

This week the National Labor Relations Board recognized the Duke University Press Workers Union, paving the way for negotiations to begin with Duke management. This news comes close to a year after press workers first organized the union, citing issues of inadequate pay, frequent turnover, and insufficient benefits. Of the news, the union stated: “We also hope that this victory will inspire workers from across Duke’s campus, Durham, and the academic publishing industry to organize their workplaces.” [The Chronicle]

Ultimately, we want to create a conversation that encourages people to actually stop and think about their citational politics, the choices that they’re making and the consequences of those choices.

Christen Smith, Cite Black Women Collective

Looking at Citational Justice

The citational justice movement works to end discriminatory and exclusionary practices in academic citations. This week, Diana Kwon at Nature highlights the work of groups like the Cite Black Women collective, which seeks to expose inequities in citations and the impacts on career paths and scholarship. Kwon surfaces several studies that track citation trends, revealing higher citation rates for men and white scholars, among other findings. In addition, the article touches on developments like coding that tracks race and gender across a citation list, and initiatives from publishers to collect inclusion and diversity information with submissions. [Nature]

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Open Access Agreements and Publisher Award

First up, Cambridge University Press has announced transformative agreements with both NERL and OhioLINK library consortia. This marks a jump in the number of institutions covered by Cambridge, going from 13 in 2020 to 280 today. Next, Elsevier and Jisc have signed a three-year deal, which “will enable authors at Jisc – UK institutions to publish immediate open access across all Elsevier journals.” Currently, “nearly all of Elsevier’s 2,700 journals enable open access publishing, including 600 fully open access journals.” Third, IOP Publishing will enter a three-year agreement with the  Max Planck Society. This will allow Max Planck authors “to publish all of their articles accepted for publication in IOPP’s full portfolio of 18 fully OA journals and 56 hybrid OA titles openly, with no author-facing APC.” Finally, remote access provider OpenAthens hailed De Gruyter the winner of its Best Publisher User Experience (UX) Award, which “puts the spotlight on publishers that strive to put users at the heart of their service design.” This comes after De Gruyter’s “digital transformation,” which included a new website and cloud-based storage.

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In-Person Conferences: Yay or Nay?

Ahead of the upcoming Society for Scholarly Publishing in-person annual meeting, Scholarly Kitchen takes a temperature check (sorry) on how the chefs currently feel about the return to face-to-face conferences. Altogether, the general consensus spoke to the value of human connection. They touch on in-person meetings they’ve already attended in the past year, and share tips for getting back into the swing of business casual. They also disclose various anxieties (COVID, social, or otherwise), and hopes for the event. In addition, the comment section inspired related discussion on equity, and environmental concerns. [Scholarly Kitchen]

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