Allen Press to hold annual event on emerging trends in scholarly publishing in April

January 10, 2014

Allen Press, Inc., will present its annual Emerging Trends in Scholarly Publishing™ Seminar on April 24, 2014, at the Hyatt Regency Washington on Capitol Hill.

The 2014 seminar is titled A Matter of Perspective. Leaders in the field of scholarly and electronic publishing will share their expertise, experience, and analysis on a variety of topics ranging from public access, technology, alternative metrics, and the future of publishing.

Speakers this year include Fred Dylla from the American Institute of Physics, Howard Ratner from CHORUS, and Prue Adler from SHARE, who will provide an understanding of mandating public access to federally funded research. Eric Newman, Simba Information, and Thad McIllroy, The Future of Publishing, will provide a look at current and future landscapes of medical and scholarly publishing in “Double Exposure: The Present and Future of Publishing.”

Peter Brantley from Hypothes.is and Anthony Williams from Chemspider and the Royal Society of Chemistry will cover web annotation and text and data mining in a session titled “Focal Point: Technologies to Watch.”

The day will wrap up with a final session titled “Zoom In on Alternative Metrics,” moderated by David Crotty of Oxford University Press and The Scholarly Kitchen. This panel will focus on the growth in measuring research as new services are being launched to support the needs of researchers. Speakers are Mark Leader from DORA, Andrea Michalek from Plum Analytics, and Melinda Kenneway from KUDOS.

Roundtable discussions, a popular a regular feature of the seminar, will create an opportunity for in-depth conversation with colleagues in an informal setting. Registration includes breakfast and a networking lunch. For more information or to register, please visit http://allenpress.com/events/2014seminar.

The Emerging Trends in Scholarly Publishing Seminar has been held in Washington, DC, since 2001. Allen Press introduced educational seminars for scholarly publishers more than 30 years ago to bring clients, partners, and experts in the scholarly publishing community together to share knowledge and experience that would help others better understand the issues facing the industry.

EBSCO Awards Five Scholarships for Librarians to Attend 2014 ALA Midwinter Meeting

January 9, 2014

In co-sponsorship with American Library Association (ALA),EBSCO Information Services (EBSCO) has awarded five librarians a $1,500 scholarship to attend the 2014 ALA Midwinter Meeting, Jan. 24-28 in Philadelphia. As part of the application process, librarians were asked to write an essay of the topic of “What will your library be like in five years?”

The EBSCO ALA Midwinter Scholarship is an annual award consisting of $1,500 for actual reimbursed expenses designed to allow librarians to attend the ALA Midwinter Meeting. The scholarship recipients will be honored by EBSCO and ALA representatives during the conference at a breakfast on Sunday, Jan. 26.

The scholarship winners are:

Jennifer Grubb, Library Media Specialist, Vine Middle Magnet School, Knoxville, Tenn.
Ben Himmelfarb, Library Clerk, Albany Public Library, Albany, N.Y.
Carlyn Hudson, Circulation Supervisor, Somerset County Library System, Iselin, N.J.
Pauline Nicholas, Head of Section, Loans and Reference, University of the West Indies, Kingston, Jamaica
Annie Pho, Academic Resident Librarian, University of Illinois at Chicago.

All of the librarians predicted that their libraries would be transformed and make significant strides over the next five years. Jennifer Grubb, a first-year librarian at Vine Middle Magnet School in Knoxville, Tenn. wrote, “Our library will be a space that encourages and supports recreational reading as well as research and project based learning through our STEAM magnet program.” The work is already showing results. Last year, half of the seventh-grade students at the school never checked out a book, and in the first month of the 2013-2014 school year, every one of them has checked out a book.

Applications were judged by an ALA-designated jury: jury chairman Julius C. Jefferson Jr.; Anders Dahlgren, Elizabeth Nelson; Dorothy Persson; and Annie Zeidman-Karpinski with Susan DiMattia serving as the ALA Award chair.

EBSCO is dedicated to supporting the professional development of librarians around the world and has a long tradition of co-sponsoring scholarships to ALA conferences, providing funds for conference registration, travel, and expenses.

Scientific American appoints Curtis Brainard as Blogs Editor

January 9, 2014

Scientific American is delighted to announce the appointment of Blogs Editor Curtis Brainard. In this role, Brainard will manage and further develop the Scientific American Blog Network. Brainard will serve as moderator for the community, encourage discussion and facilitate the exchange of ideas with both the bloggers and Scientific American readers.

“Science blogs are a vital part of the modern media industry, and it’s an honor to be joining an organization that has done so much to promote them,” says Brainard. “I look forward to helpingScientific American make its blogging community stronger and more engaging than ever.”

“Curtis is a thoughtful and well respected member of the science writing community,” saysScientific American Editor-in-Chief Mariette DiChristina. “We look forward to working with him to expand our community interactions.”

Prior to joining Scientific American, Brainard was a staff writer at Columbia Journalism Reviewwhere he covered science, environment, and medical news. In 2008, he launched The Observatory,Columbia Journalism Review’s first fulltime department dedicated to critically analyzing science coverage in the media as well as the opportunities and challenges facing science journalists.

Brainard is a member of the National Association of Science Writers and the Society of Environmental Journalists. In 2013, he was elected to serve on the executive board of the World Federation of Science Journalists. Brainard has written for The New York Times, The Washington Post and The New Yorker. He holds master’s degrees in environmental science and journalism from Columbia University in New York City, where he is an adjunct faculty member at the Graduate School of Journalism, home of the Pulitzer Prizes.

Scientific American launched the Blog Network in 2011.

Wiley-Knode Partnership Puts Collaboration at the Center of the Research Experience

January 9, 2014

John Wiley & Sons, Inc., today announced a new partnership with startup technology company Knode to provide customized research expertise portals to learned societies and other academic organizations worldwide.

Designed to foster innovation and collaboration, Knode’s expertise profiling system compiles a “research signature” for users based on their publication history, patents, clinical trials and grants. The resulting profile forms part of a growing ecosystem of research expertise.

Wiley’s cloud-based portal, powered by Knode technology, is populated with more than 20 million documents and millions of expert profiles. Users can search by expertise, name or affiliation, and custom filters allow the results to be tuned according to specific criteria, for example to identify key opinion leaders or rising stars in a particular discipline.

Researchers are using Knode to find experts, identify and connect with collaborators, and promote their expertise to the world. For society executives and institutional research managers, custom analytics provide aggregated views of research expertise and output.

This partnership with Knode reflects Wiley’s commitment to providing new tools and services that meet the real needs of scientists in all phases of the research cycle, from planning to experimentation to publication and beyond.

Established in 2011, Knode was founded to develop breakthrough innovations that promote and enhance collaboration. Based in Boston, U.S., the company has been recognized as a startup to watch by the Boston Business Journal and has forged successful partnerships with several leading research institutions.

“Identifying and promoting expertise and capabilities is a crucial component of research collaboration,” said David Tharp, Head of Business Development, Knode. “Scientific societies and academic institutions lead the way in fostering new links across multiple research organizations and in enhancing connections to industrial R&D. We are pleased to partner with Wiley to bring the Knode platform to this core segment of the worldwide research community.”

“Successful research outcomes depend on effective teamwork and interdisciplinary connectivity,” said Sean Pidgeon, Vice President and Director, Research Solutions, Wiley. “By building a network that emphasizes the broad expertise of scientists rather than narrow measures based on the research literature, Knode has created exciting opportunities to enhance the quality of collaborative research.”

A public beta version of the Knode expertise portal can be accessed here.

Read an interview with David Steinberg, CEO of Knode, at Wiley’s Exchanges Blog

Cengage Learning Implements Adaptive Learning Technology Through Partnership with Knewton

January 9, 2014

Cengage Learning, a leading educational content, software and services company, today announced a partnership with leading adaptive learning company, Knewton. Through this agreement, Cengage Learning will implement Knewton’s application programming interface (API) into select higher education products to provide personalized learning pathways for students and predictive analytics for instructors. Expected to launch in Fall 2015, the technology will be integrated into Cengage Learning’s digital MindTap platform for products in Management and Sociology disciplines.

“We are excited to begin working with Knewton, as this partnership will provide an innovative new way to enhance the student experience within our MindTap platform,” said Jim Donohue, Chief Product Officer, Cengage Learning. “We strive to consistently create and update digital products to provide innovative, useful features that students will not only benefit from, but also enjoy using. With the addition of this adaptive learning technology to MindTap, students will be immersed in a highly-personalized learning environment and receive real-time recommendations based on their individual activity in the course, helping to create a more engaged learning experience. We look forward to introducing these products featuring Knewton’s cutting-edge technology and Cengage Learning’s leading authoritative content to our customers.”

As students complete assignments within Cengage Learning’s MindTap platform, Knewton’s technology will analyze their data to determine what concepts they have learned and recommend next steps for optimal learning. Professors, in turn, will receive real-time analytics to detect gaps in knowledge and can then differentiate instruction accordingly.

“Cengage Learning’s outstanding content and strong digital platform make this partnership particularly exciting,” said Jose Ferreira, Founder and CEO, Knewton. “We look forward to working with them to create all-new next generation products that are natively adaptive, powerfully engaging, and improve learning outcomes.”

Cengage Learning joins a growing list of top global publishers, universities, and schools partnering with Knewton to personalize digital courses.

F1000Prime nets its 150,000th article recommendation

January 9, 2014

The 150,000^th article recommendation, published today in F1000Prime (http://f1000.com/prime), identifies an important research article that helps our understanding of how consumption of fish oils could help protect against certain allergies, and demonstrates significant progress in open, post-publication peer review pioneered by F1000.

Submissions of article recommendations to F1000Prime, which launched in 2002, have been rising year-on-year, reaching 16,654 in 2013. The 150,000 article recommendations cover nearly 115,000 different articles, published across more than 3,700 journals, and represent around the top 3% of articles indexed in the largest life science literature database, PubMed.

This wide coverage of the best life science and medical articles in F1000Prime has been possible because of continued growth in the numbers of Faculty Members who select, rate and comment on important published articles. The F1000Prime Faculty now includes nearly 6,000 leading scientists – two of whom in 2013 were honoured with Nobel Prizes – who are supported by nearly 5,000 Associate Faculty Members.

The article identified as the 150,000^th recommendation (http://f1000.com/prime/718226206?key=dFgdNNv8T4mPzo1) in F1000Prime was published in the journal Allergy in November 2013. Dr Linette E. M. Willemsen, corresponding author of the article, said: “I am honoured that our group’s recent article has been selected by Prof Rick Maizels (http://f1000.com/prime/thefaculty/member/7969996891252456) in F1000Prime. The finding that partial replacement of dietary vegetable oil by fish oil protects against allergic sensitization via installation of functional Treg, helps us to understand how minor changes in the diet may impact the susceptibility to develop allergic disease on a mechanistic basis.

“As a researcher and author it is important to know not just that our work is being read, but that it is being read and built upon by other scholars, such as the peer-nominated experts contributing to F1000. We are delighted that our paper was selected to contribute to this and celebrate the establishment of this 150,000^th recommendation,” she said.

F1000Prime Publisher Kathleen Wets said: “We congratulate the authors of the Willemsen paper – and authors of every paper recommended by F1000Prime – on the selection of their article and trust it will help demonstrate the impact of their work in the scientific community. At F1000 we are very grateful for the continued work of our Faculty Members in identifying the best published research through post-publication peer review, guiding researchers and clinicians to the most important papers in the ever-growing sea of literature.”

To find out more about Faculty of 1000 and its new features, please contact Iain Hrynaszkiewicz on +44 (0)20 7079 4888 or email press@f1000.com. For more information, visit http://f1000com/prime

RCN Publishing Company appoints BMJ as international sales partner for its nursing titles

January 9, 2014

RCN Publishing, part of the Royal College of Nursing group, today announced it has appointed BMJ, the global healthcare knowledge provider, as its sales partner for institutional customers outside of the UK. The agreement covers all 10 RCN Publishing owned titles and includes its flagship journal, Nursing Standard.

The arrangement, which starts with immediate effect, builds on the existing partnership between RCN Publishing and BMJ. Evidence Based Nursing, one of RCN Publishing’s specialist journals, is co-owned with BMJ.

BMJ will take responsibility for all institutional sales of RCN Publishing journal titles outside of the UK and RCN Publishing will retain responsibility for serving its customers within the UK. This appointment strengthens RCN Publishing’s global reach and customer support network.

BMJ is now responsible for selling the following RCN Publishing journals to institutions outside of the UK:

• Nursing Standard
• Cancer Nursing Practice
• Emergency Nurse
• Mental Health Practice
• Learning Disability Practice
• Nurse Researcher
• Nursing Children and Young People
• Nursing Management
• Nursing Older People
• Primary Health Care

Commenting on the new development, BMJ Publishing Director Peter Ashman said: “I’m delighted that RCNP has chosen BMJ as their partner to develop their institutional sales. RCNP has a portfolio of excellent high quality publications, and we very much welcome the opportunity to bring these to a wider global readership and help support patient care.”

Rhonda Oliver, Managing Director of RCNP commented: “We are very excited about this development. BMJ have an excellent track record in providing access to professional content in the institutional sector worldwide. We cannot think of a better partner to be working with to help our journals reach a broader, global audience.”

IOP Publishing and the American Astronomical Society launch Astronomy Image Explorer

January 8, 2014

IOP Publishing (IOP) and the American Astronomical Society (AAS) are pleased to announce the launch of the Astronomy Image Explorer (AIE).

The AIE provides researchers with quick and easy access to hundreds of thousands of images, illustrations, graphs, charts, and videos that have been published in peer-reviewed journals. The AIE has tools designed to aid researchers in their discovery and use of all types of graphic resources and is available free online to scientists and the public alike.

“The new Astronomy Image Explorer is just the latest example of the leadership shown by the AAS and its publishing partners in keeping the astronomical literature at the forefront of electronic publishing,” says AAS President David Helfand (Quest University Canada).

The AIE has been designed as a convenient and efficient tool for researchers to find graphics that have appeared in the Astrophysical Journal and the Astronomical Journal, which IOP publishes for the AAS. “It has been exciting to work with IOP on the creation of the Astronomy Image Explorer,” says Chris Biemesderfer, AAS Director of Publishing. “We’re pleased to offer a new service for the community that can enhance researchers’ explorations in the literature.”

Users can easily search using any combination of author, journal, citation, format, and keywords. Convenient tools are available to generate PowerPoint slides, download high-resolution images, obtain permissions and reuse information, or view the image in the context of the originally published research.

New images are added daily as journal content is published. Resources made available through the AIE are for academic use by the research community. Copyright information is embedded in each file downloaded from the site, along with the journal reference to facilitate proper citation.

“The AAS journals have always been leaders in both the research they publish and the tools and technologies they use,” says Anne Cowley, AAS Publications Board Chair. “The Astronomy Image Explorer is another exciting example of our journals setting the bar higher for the astronomical literature.”

Jacob Klerman Named New Editor of Evaluation Review

January 8, 2014

Abt Principal Associate and Senior Fellow Jacob Klerman has been named Editor of Evaluation Review (A SAGE Journal). The journal serves as an interdisciplinary forum for researchers, planners, and policymakers who develop, implement, and utilize studies designed to improve the human condition.

“I am honored to be named editor of this prestigious journal,” said Klerman, a widely respected economist who brings more than 25 years of years of experience in social policy research to the position. “My goal is to continue Evaluation Review’s tradition of being the most respected forum for publishing the latest research on applied evaluation methods used in a wide range of disciplines.”

Evaluation Review covers a variety of topics such as education, public health, criminal justice, child development, mental health, social work, public administration and environmental studies. Additionally, it presents the latest applied research issues, as well as quantitative and qualitative methodological developments.

“We are very pleased that Jacob Klerman will be taking over the editorship of Evaluation Review along with Robert Boruch,” stated Bob Howard, Vice President of Journals at SAGE. “Evaluation Review has a long history of publishing high-quality social science work with significant policy implications, and Jacob’s prominent record as a researcher and evaluator will help further the journal’s mission.”

Klerman is an expert in both experimental (i.e., random assignment) and quasi-experimental evaluation of social programs. Prior to coming to Abt in 2007, he was a Senior Economist at the RAND Corporation and Director of RAND’s Center for the Study of Social Welfare Policy.

Klerman has published widely in academic journals, including the American Economic Review, Journal of the American Medical Association, Health Affairs, Health Services Research, Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, Journal of Human Resources, and Journal of Labor Economics.

He received a B.S. in Economics-Applied Mathematics from Brown University and his M.A. in Economics from the University of Chicago.

Elsevier unveils new generation SciVal

January 8, 2014

Elsevier, a world-leading provider of scientific, technical and medical information products and services, today announced the launch of the new generation SciVal. SciVal will allow research organizations to analyze the world of research, enabling them to establish, execute and evaluate their research strategies by revealing insights based on Scopus data. Users can benchmark their research performance accurately and meaningfully against any other institution or group of researchers in the world.

The research landscape is facing increasing globalization and competition, and there is growing recognition and evidence for the role that scholarly research plays in driving sustainable economic development. All academic, government and industrial research facilities are experiencing greater pressure to optimize their resources to excel in unique ways in an increasingly crowded market place. The current international research economy is so vast and complex, with more than 7 million researchers worldwide, that an evidence base is increasingly required to supplement insights drawn from personal knowledge and peer review.

To serve research institutions better in generating hard facts to support their evidence-based decision making, Elsevier has fully integrated the analytical capabilities of its first generation SciVal solutions, SciVal Spotlight and SciVal Strata, and has enhanced the tools to make them more comprehensive and intuitive.

“The new generation of SciVal has been developed following years of close co-operation with leading research institutions globally,” said Dr. Nick Fowler, Managing Director of Academic and Government Institutions at Elsevier. “We hope that research leaders will view the result as a significant step forward in helping them to monitor and manage their institution’s research strategies.”

The new tool enables users to configure, visualize and export information according to their personal needs and preferences, so that they can benchmark with meaning and accuracy to understand their position relative to their peers, as well as relative to global and domestic standards. The results can be used to help answer the enormously diverse questions that are increasingly faced in the management of research, such as identifying research strengths, uncovering current collaborations and finding potential new partners, and enabling scenario modeling. The results are also a powerful communication tool to showcase the distinctive strengths of research institutions to students, academics and funders.

This broad range of needs is addressed by SciVal providing unprecedented flexibility and power to view and analyze vast amounts of data, quickly, and to generate charts and tables on-demand. This is enabled by Reed Elsevier’s High Performance Computing Cluster (HPCC) Systems, one of the most advanced technologies available in the area of deriving analytics from big data to address large-scale, complex challenges. Users of SciVal can query more than 75 trillion metrics values, refreshed every week, as well as define their own entities on-the-fly.

SciVal is part of the Elsevier Research Intelligence portfolio of products and services which serve research institutions, government agencies, and funders. – See more at: http://www.elsevier.com/about/press-releases/science-and-technology/elsevier-launches-the-new-generation-scival,-providing-dynamic-real-time-analytics-and-insights-into-the-global-research-landscape#sthash.ctgaEjJ5.dpuf

NISO Releases Draft Open Access and Metadata Indicators Recommended Practice for Comments

January 7, 2014

The National Information Standards Organization (NISO) is seeking comments on the draft recommended practice Open Access Metadata and Indicators(NISO RP-22-201x). Launched in January 2013, the NISO Open Access Metadata and Indicators Working Group was chartered to develop protocols and mechanisms for transmitting the access status of scholarly works, specifically to indicate whether a specific work is openly accessible (i.e., free-to-read by any user who can get to the work over the internet) and what re-use rights might be available. This draft recommended practice proposes the adoption of two core pieces of metadata and associated tags: <free_to_read> and <license_ref>. The first tag would indicate that the work is freely accessible during the specified timeframe (if applicable). The second tag would contain a reference to a URI that carries the license terms specifying how a work may be used.

“Currently publishers provide articles that are free-to-read under a wide range of re-use terms and licenses,” explains Cameron Neylon, Advocacy Director, PLOS, and Co-chair of the NISO Open Access Metadata and Indicators Working Group. “It is unclear to readers when an article is freely accessible and what their re-use rights are. Funders are unsure if the publication of an article complies with their open access policies. Aggregators and platform or knowledgebase providers have no consistent mechanism for machine-processing metadata and identifying the accessibility or rights status. Adoption of these two common metadata designations will allow both humans and machines to assess the status of content.”

“Use and re-use rights can be difficult to explain in metadata,” states Ed Pentz, Executive Director, CrossRef, and Co-chair of the NISO Open Access Metadata and Indicators Working Group. “By publishing URIs for applicable licenses and including these URIs in the metadata for the content, more detailed explanations of rights can be made available. The <license_ref> metadata can also be used to express how usage rights change over time or point to different licenses for particular time periods, for example when an embargo applies.”

“The recommended metadata tags can easily be incorporated into existing metadata distribution channels, encoded in XML, and added to existing schemas and workflows,” states Greg Tananbaum, Consultant at SPARC and Co-chair of the NISO Open Access Metadata and Indicators Working Group. “Publishers and platform providers can use the <free_to_read> tag to automate the display of appropriate status icons to users. The combination of <free_to_read> and <license_ref> metadata provides a mechanism for signaling or determining compliance with most funder and institutional policies that allow compliance through the article publisher’s site.”

“In addition to the recommendations, the Working Group has defined the most common use cases,” states Nettie Lagace, NISO’s Associate Director for Programs. “For each use case, the current situation and applicable stakeholders are described and the extent to which the recommendations will solve the situation is explained. The group has also identified several issues for further follow-up, such as the incorporation of the recommended metadata into existing formats, such as ONIX.”

The draft recommended practice is open for public comment through February 4, 2014. To download the draft or submit online comments, visit the Open Access Metadata and Indicators webpage at: www.niso.org/workrooms/oami/.

EU favours licensing over copyright reform for libraries in latest international negotiations

January 7, 2014

The 26th meeting of the Standing Committee on Copyright & Related Rights (SCCR) closed just before midnight on Friday 20th December, following five days of discussion of copyright protections for broadcasting, exceptions and limitations for libraries and archives, and for education.

This was the first meeting during which exceptions and limitations for libraries and archives were discussed in depth by Member States, with two days dedicated to going through topics in working document SCCR/26/3.

At the end of the two days, key supporters of a legally binding instrument on copyright exceptions for libraries and archives had emerged, particularly within GRULAC (Latin America and Caribbean countries) and the African Group, while developed countries, like the EU and Central Eastern European and Baltic States, expressed strong opposition to focus on this area.

As discussions on conclusions for SCCR 26 stretched late into the evening on December 20th, the treaty on broadcasting emerged as the preferred priority for SCCRs in 2014 among developed countries. Nonetheless, a number of countries, particularly Brazil, Ecuador, Venezuela, Algeria, Egypt, India and Trinidad & Tobago, worked hard to ensure that exceptions for libraries and archives, and for education, remained firmly on the agenda for discussion at SCCRs in 2014.

Recognising the importance of ongoing attention to copyright exceptions and limitations for libraries and archives, GRULAC and the African Group supported the convening of an intersessional meeting on this topic between the 27th and 28th meetings of the SCCR in 2014. This proposal was endorsed by South Africa, India and Brazil, alongside other delegations. However, final agreement on the proposed intersessional specifically for libraries and archives has been postponed until the 27th meeting of the SCCR.

The conclusions reached with respect to libraries and archives indicate the SCCR continues to work towards submitting recommendations on limitations and exceptions for these sectors to the General Assembly by the 28th session of the SCCR (July 2014). You can read conclusions in full on the topic of libraries and archives from SCCR 26 here.

The major disappointment for libraries at SCCR 26 has been the refusal of the EU and Central Eastern European and Baltic States to engage substantively in discussion of exceptions and limitations for libraries and archives, or entertain the possibility of an instrument in this area. While the European Commission invites views at the regional level on the adequacy of copyright exceptions in the digital environment, at SCCR the EU has already made up its mind: only licensing solutions will be palatable. This position willfully disregards the failures of the recent Licences for Europe consultation, which demonstrated emphatically that a solely license-based approach to new uses and technologies is not the way forward. Libraries and archives in the EU must work together to push for a more flexible EU position at WIPO.

The United States also expressed support for the inclusion of licensing on the SCCR’s agenda at future meetings.

While IFLA is disappointed to see broadcasting take precedence in 2014 over exceptions and limitations for libraries and archives, library delegations will be working hard with their regional communities to produce effective and targeted information to assist negotiations, and advocate at the national level.

IFLA’s statement on copyright exceptions and limitations for libraries made during SCCR 26 is available here.