News: Academic Publishing Weekly

Nelson Memo pushback, new AI grant funding, and forthcoming reads for fall

Posted on August 30, 2024 in News

Pushback against the Nelson Memo

The OSTP’s Nelson Memo is in hot water as members of Congress raise concerns over author rights, publishers worry about the embargo’s impact on profit, and librarians share a petition to federal agencies over author compliance issues. In particular, the Senate and House Appropriations Committees underscored that researchers “should not be forced to disseminate their research in ways or under licenses that could harm its integrity or lead to its modification without their express consent.” Academic librarians are surfacing issues of compliance, rallying for the use of the federal purpose license that “gives federal agencies that funded the publication of research ‘the royalty-free, nonexclusive and irrevocable right’ to reproduce, publish or otherwise use the work.” On the publishing side, publishing groups criticized the memo’s influence on their ability to “recoup the significant investments and expenses required” to produce open access works. In response, Dave Hansen, executive director of the Authors Alliance, questioned how publishers will approach business models going forward. [Inside Higher Ed]

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The NEH and Yale Issue AI Funding

The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) awarded five institutions a combined total of $2.72 million in grant funding for AI. As explained by the NEH, the grants will enable the universities to “create new humanities-led research centers that will serve as hubs for interdisciplinary collaborative research on the human and social impact of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies.” Awarded institutions include the University of California, Davis, Bard College, North Carolina State University, and more. The grants will also support several research endeavors and are part of NEH’s Humanities Research Centers on Artificial Intelligence program. Yale University also announced funding to support AI, totaling over $150 million. According to Yale Provost Scott Strobel, the five-year funding commitment “will support key areas, including compute infrastructure, community access to secure generative AI tools, targeted faculty hires, seed grants, and opportunities for interdisciplinary collaboration.” The investment is informed by the Yale Task Force on Artificial Intelligence and will contribute to Yale’s portfolio of graphics processing units (GPUs) and its Clarity platform.

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Project MUSE and D2O Updates

Five new works will be included in Project MUSE’s Premium Journal Collection next year. The titles include Early Medieval China, Historical Studies in the Natural Sciences, Literary Imagination, National Review of Black Politics, and Phoenix. Project MUSE also announced a Subscribe to Open OA model for 2025, noting that “with more than 100 journals from 28 publishers, all current-year articles from participating journals will publish open access if that year’s subscriptions to MUSE Journals Collections meet our revenue sustainability threshold.” The MIT Press is looking to continue its Direct to Open (D2O) monograph program into the new year. The Press noted the positive impact of D2O, citing an increase in citations and benefits for humanities and social sciences researchers. Libraries can sign up to support D2O until November 30, and will “not only contribute to opening frontlist titles, but they also receive exclusive and tangible local benefits including term access to a backlist collection of over 2,400 titles.”

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University of South Carolina Publishing Partnership and Plans to Support OA

Although some academics are critical of the Nelson Memo, a new partnership between the Authors Alliance and SPARC aims to clear up legal confusion around the memorandum. In particular, the collaboration will spur the development of several white papers, a “framework for universities looking to recover rights for faculty in their works,” and provide updates to the SPARC Author Addendum to clarify ways to retain author rights. The partnership will also address the “Federal Purpose License” and rights for backlist titles. Next up, the University of South Carolina has entered an OA publishing collaboration with the Public Library of Science (PLOS). Under the three-year agreement, researchers at the University of South Carolina can publish OA in PLOS journals free of charge. Amie Freeman, University Libraries Assistant Head of Acquisitions and Scholarly Communication, commented that, “This agreement with PLOS gives our researchers more avenues to provide their work to the public, and, in doing so, increases readership and opportunities for societal impact.” 

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How is AI Impacting Hiring at Universities?

As colleges gear up for the new semester, artificial intelligence appears to be top of mind. The Chronicle of Higher Education recently spoke with several university administrators, finding increased pressure to hire faculty with AI experience. Motivations include competing for research grants, facilitating interdisciplinary research, and preparing students to enter the tech-heavy workforce. The Chronicle explained that colleges are offering incentives for potential hires, in addition to partaking in cluster hires based on departmental needs. Other institutions are creating AI centers and focusing on upscaling current faculty. As for who’s funding these hiring efforts, The Chronicle pointed to strategic funds and donors. [The Chronicle of Higher Education]

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New Titles to Kick Off Fall

Is anyone else ready for cozy fall reading? Kirkus Reviews previewed 150 forthcoming titles, including fiction, nonfiction, history, and the autumn classics—thriller and mystery. Topics range from climate justice, the legal system, and the women of Wall Street. Yale University Press’s The Genetic Book of the Dead: A Darwinian Reverie by Richard Dawkins is featured. Literary Hub shared 13 forthcoming titles including topics on book banning and queer parenthood, along with several biographies. You can find Tate Paulette’s In the Land of Ninkasi: A History of Beer in Ancient Mesopotamia from Oxford University Press on the list.

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