HighWire and Rievent team up to deliver enhanced CME/CE product

November 1, 2012

HighWire and Rievent have partnered to provide a new continuing education (CME/CE) solution designed to provide a superior online learning experience for accredited activities. The combination of the two capabilities includes intuitive production, administrative, and reporting tools for publishers and societies.

Since 1998, HighWire has offered CME/CE products to publishers, integrating seamlessly with their HighWire-hosted journal articles, book chapters and study guides. The new HighWire-Rievent CME/CE product will build on the current features, with its mobile-optimized interface and email alerts, enhanced with Rievent’s outcomes analysis, powerful metrics reporting and analytics, and flexible ecommerce options.

“HighWire is pleased to offer our publishing partners a more efficient and integrated solution for their professional education programs,” noted Tom Rump, HighWire’s Managing Director. “Rievent’s technology will expand our current CME solution, making it easier for societies to increase their appeal to members, manage accreditation compliance and create new marketing opportunities.”

HighWire/Rievent-affiliated publishers will leverage their high-quality online content with advanced educational technologies. This innovative product will allow publishers and societies to fulfill their educational mission objectives, improve the user experience for their members and subscribers, and simplify their workflow.

“We are excited to enter into this partnership with HighWire to help our mutual customers gain flexibility and control with CME programs and reporting, and improve their member’s online experience,” said Randall Rienerth, Chief Executive Officer and Founder of Rievent. “Our goal is to help publishers benefit from a better process for CME and contain costs.”

British Library leads the way for sharing research data in the UK as five major institutions sign up to DataCite

October 31, 2012

Five major research centres have expanded their commitment to make data more accessible through the British Library’s DataCite service, a global initiative which addresses the problem of how to find, access and re-use the results of research. The Archaeology Data Service, the UK Data Archive, the Natural Environment Research Council, the Science & Technology Facilities Council and the Chinese genomics institute BGI have signed up to the service and are the first institutions to work with the British Library on this initiative.

Data from the participating organisations, which spans information derived from ice cores to gene sequences, cultural heritage to current populations, will be marked with DOIs (Digital Object Identifiers) to enable it to be identified and cited, a system which has been widely used to provide persistent links to academic journal articles. This initiative provides a practical solution to one of the most significant challenges facing researchers today – access to data – an issue highlighted by the Royal Society in a report published in June this year, ‘Science as an open enterprise’, which recommended that scientists should communicate the data they collect in fieldwork and research more widely.

The benefits for researchers include:

Confidence that the link to the data (or information about the data) will be persistently and uniquely identified
Increased ease of citing data which will, in turn, increase its discovery and access, enabling others to verify the results and validate their own research
Access to a myriad of new research opportunities which have been out-of-reach until now
Acknowledgement and credit for sharing data and having it cited

“Enabling researchers to cite data, along with journal articles and other references, is becoming increasingly important, and DataCite has the potential to transform the way scientists communicate their research.” said Dr Lee-Ann Coleman, Head of Science, Technology and Medicine at the British Library. “As an institution dedicated to providing information, as well as practical support to researchers, we believe that the British Library DataCite service is addressing some of the barriers to data sharing. We hope that the decision of these five institutions to participate will attract others to become involved, and will mark an important step towards changing community norms about sharing resources.”

Professor Julian Richards, Director of the Archaeology Data Service, one of the newly signed-up data centres, said: “Digital archives are the primary record of many archaeological sites now destroyed, but researchers seeking to verify interpretations have been faced with a mountain of unpublished grey literature fieldwork reports and archives, which it has been impossible to access and reference. The decision to use DataCite is a significant step forward to resolving this problem, and will be transformational in getting archaeological research out to more people.”

RSC supports Marblar: crowdsourcing ideas for unused science

October 31, 2012

The RSC has teamed up with an Oxford University spin-out to sponsor six challenges on Marblar – a radical new online platform for finding applications for unused scientific discoveries.

More than 95% of technologies developed in universities never make it to market, leaving publicly or philanthropy-funded research collecting dust on the shelf. Often, given that academic research can be so ahead of its time, the commercial relevance of these technologies isn’t immediately obvious.

Marblar aims to remove this bottleneck by crowdsourcing ideas for real-world applications from the global science and technology community, with the ultimate goal to create new products and new companies that will drive job creation around these innovative discoveries.

Marblar was founded by four PhD student entrepreneurs from Oxford University, Kings College London and Imperial College London. They have developed an innovative idea to gamify the traditional technology transfer process by posting interesting science in the form of challenges and asking ‘Marblars’ (users) to find clever new directions for these technologies. Marblars are rewarded with online points, badges and cash prizes, as well as the possibility to join any fledgling start-ups that might arise from their ideas.

The RSC has selected six promising technologies that have been published in RSC journals and is sponsoring a Marblar challenge for each one. Two of these challenges launch today and they will be open for ideas from the community for the next three weeks. Users will be able to vote on the most promising ideas and the RSC will award cash prizes of £700 to each of the winning proposals, as well as £200 for each of the crowd favourites.

David James, RSC Executive Director Strategic Innovation said: “Working with Marblar is a very exciting and interesting opportunity for the RSC.

“This innovative new platform presents a novel way for the RSC to facilitate links between academia and the commercial sector, as well as providing an additional route for us to support RSC authors by publicising their research.”

Dan Perez, CEO of Marblar and an Oxford biochemistry PhD student said: “We’re absolutely thrilled to be partnering with the RSC on these challenges. Our goal at Marblar is to clickstart a science revolution and move forward this pool of unrealized potential and we are delighted to have the RSC’s support to do this.”

Chicano Database™ Now Available via EBSCOhost®

October 31, 2012

Information designed to explore the broad dimensions of class, race and gender within the Chicano and Latino U.S. experience is now available through EBSCOhost^® from EBSCO Publishing (EBSCO). Chicano Database^™,a bibliographic index formerly available via First Search from OCLC, furthers research, teaching and scholarship for Chicano studies programs and broader ethnic studies curricula.

Produced by the Ethnic Studies Library at the University of California, Berkeley, Chicano Database covers a wide range of materials focused on the Mexican-American and Chicano experience as well as the broader Latino experience of Puerto Ricans, Cuban Americans and Central American immigrants since 1992.

Chicano Database content includes nearly 60,000 records from more than 2,400 journals and other resources including newspapers, books and book chapters. The database provides extensive depth with coverage dating back to the 1960s and selective indexing dating back to the early 1900s. Chicano Database also includes The Spanish Speaking Mental Health Database covering psychological, sociological and educational literature.

The expansive content in Chicano Database enables subject coverage to be wide-ranging in scope — including art, bilingual education, education, labor, literature, mental health, law, poetry, politics and sociology.

COAR report “The Current State of Open Access Repository Interoperability (2012)” released

October 31, 2012

COAR is pleased to announce publication of the report, The Current State of Open Access Repository Interoperability (2012). The report provides an overview of the current interoperability landscape in terms of the types of services that are now possible because of recent research and development efforts from throughout the Open Access community, and it presents interoperability initiatives in connection to these services.

The intended audience includes institutions and repository managers operating at different points in terms of infrastructure, resources, and institutional support. For institutions new to Open Access and repositories, the report aims to provide guidance for getting started and indicates which interoperability initiatives are necessary to implement in order to achieve specific services. For institutions and repository managers already involved in OA and repositories, the report may provide ideas for additional functionality to add to your repository or further services that are possible to provide to your community.

The report covers seven areas of focus for current interoperability initiatives, and it provides overviews of nineteen key interoperability initiatives.

Click here to read the complete report.

Elsevier Collaborates with the OSTI to Increase Access to and Visibility of Research

October 31, 2012

Elsevier, a world-leading provider of scientific, technical and medical information products and services, has incorporated 300,000 full-text technical reports from the Office of Scientific Technical Information (OSTI) at the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) into its free scientific search tools, SciVerse Hub and Scirus.

This addition will enable the global research community to search full-text documents from laboratories affiliated with the DOE on Elsevier’s widely-used platforms. The OSTI collects, preserves, and disseminates DOE-sponsored research results from R&D projects or other funded activities at DOE labs nationwide, and from grantees at universities and other institutions.

“We at OSTI are committed to ensuring the Department of Energy’s R&D results are made broadly accessible so that scientific discovery is advanced,” said Dr. Walter Warnick, OSTI Director. “This collaboration with Elsevier certainly helps meet our goal.”

Full-text documents provided through OSTI cover topics related to DOE’s mission, including physics, chemistry, materials, biology, environmental sciences, energy technologies, engineering, computer and information science, renewable energy, and more.

“This collaboration will provide both Elsevier and OSTI users with more comprehensive results and improved discoverability of information,” said Olivier Dumon, Managing Director for Elsevier’s Academic & Government Research Markets. ”We believe the quality content from each source will greatly enhance our offerings.”

As such, Elsevier is also including over 100,000 documents from the DOE in Elsevier Biofuel, a research discovery solution tailored to bio-energy and bio-based products. These papers, mostly technical and program reports, contain research, practical information and facts about technology, projects and production around the world.

Green Chemistry and Surface Science set to be the focus of the latest ICE Science journals

October 31, 2012

Two new publications to launch March 2013 – ahead of print articles now available free online

ICE Publishing, the publishing division of the Institution of Civil Engineers, has announced the expansion of its unique ICE Science series with the launch of two topical new journals – Green Materials and Surface Innovations.

Established in 2011, ICE Science is a major series of scientific journals designed to help promote and share innovative research at the intersection of several scientific and engineering disciplines. Following the successful publication of three cross-disciplinary journals, in the areas of materials science, biomaterials, nanotechnology and energy, these latest journals see expansion into the fast moving fields of green chemistry and surface science.

Officially launching in March 2013, ahead of print articles are already available free online. Both topical journals are expected to foster dynamic links between research communities and with free online access continuing throughout 2013, published researchers can expect to be both widely read and cited.

Victoria Rae, Commissioning Editor at ICE Publishing, commented: “New challenges and growing concerns, together with exciting technological opportunities and breakthroughs, are issues arising from 21st century living. It imperative that scientists and engineers collaborate and share ideas in order to ensure the latest materials, chemicals, products and structures are environmentally responsible and resource efficient. The 2013 journals from ICE Science aim to tackle some of these problems and be a part of important discoveries and life-changing innovations.”

The Stage Media Company adopts leading customer insight system to drive customer engagement

October 31, 2012

The Stage Media Company announced today that they have adopted DataSalon’s MasterVision service in order to help develop their marketing efforts. MasterVision has integrated data from different areas of The Stage Media Company’s business including subscriptions, events, dating and jobs. All the source data has been fully merged and de-duplicated so The Stage have, for the first time, a complete view of how each contact interacts with the company.

Over the coming months The Stage’s marketing team plan to use MasterVision to help develop structured email campaigns targeting event attendance, new subscriptions and renewals. They also plan to mine this complete view of their contacts to target new marketing messages to further grow the business.

Staff at The Stage Media Company are using the insights provided by MasterVision to develop different areas of their business. For example, the marketing team are using it to target current subscribers with the aim of encouraging them to renew their subscription. Involved non-subscribing contacts and lapsed subscribers are also being targeted with new subscription offers. MasterVision is also being used to identify prospects for events, and event sign-ups have already increased in the short time The Stage have been using the system. Promoting The Stage’s jobs and dating sites are also key aims for the project. It’s also important to work with an online marketing agency Australia if you want to optimize your campaigns on an ongoing basis.

“It’s very exciting to have gained such a clear and complete view of our customers”, commented Grant Attwell, Head of Marketing at The Stage. “With MasterVision it has become really easy to understand the overlaps between our subscriber, events, dating and jobs databases, and we have very quickly seen a return on our investment through increased event sign-ups. We are now very optimistic about using this new level of customer insight to drive similar increases in newspaper and job site subscriptions too.”

“We’re delighted to be working with The Stage Media Company”, said Nick Andrews, Managing Director at DataSalon. “It’s great to be able to provide a single customer view so that The Stage can now see the full extent of their customer relationships. This single view of The Stage’s data, combined with MasterVision’s fast and friendly analysis tools, means that The Stage can now maximise customer engagement across all areas of its business, so developing new and existing relationships.”

Serials Solutions Summon Service Expands Japanese-language Content with Japan Medical Abstracts Society

October 31, 2012

Serials Solutions®, a ProQuest® business and the Japan Medical Abstracts Society (JAMAS) have dramatically improved access to Japanese-language article abstracts in Ichushi-Web through the Summon® web-scale discovery service. The inclusion of metadata from the JAMAS abstracting and indexing database for more than 5,800 journals covering medicine, dentistry and pharmacy subjects will be available to mutual subscribers of each company’s service.

Researchers will be able to discover a vast collection of Japanese-language materials in physiology, biochemistry, clinical medicine, nursing and social medical fields – alongside their library’s other resources. The expansion of content in the Summon unified index is very valuable for medical libraries. Users benefit from an interface available in more than 32 languages and dialects, advanced native language searching capabilities and language-tuned relevancy for 17 languages.

“The breadth of medical topics in Ichushi-Web supports our mission of providing comprehensive coverage of Japanese-language materials,” said John Law, vice president discovery services, Serials Solutions. “Researchers searching for this authoritative Japanese-language content will value our advanced features which make the discovery experience easier, while delivering more relevant results.”

Pearson and Bertelsmann agree consumer publishing partnership deal

October 31, 2012

Pearson and Bertelsmann today announce an agreement to create the world’s leading consumer publishing organisation by combining Penguin and Random House.

The combination brings together two of the world’s leading English language publishers, with highly complementary skills and strengths. Random House is the leading English language publisher in the US and the UK, while Penguin is the world’s most famous publishing brand and has a strong presence in fast-growing developing markets. Both companies have a long history of publishing excellence, and both have been pioneers in the dramatic industry transformation towards digital publishing and bookselling.

Under the terms of the agreement, Penguin and Random House will combine their businesses in a newly-created joint venture named Penguin Random House. Bertelsmann will own 53% of the joint venture and Pearson will own 47%. The joint venture will exclude Bertelsmann’s trade publishing business in Germany and Pearson will retain rights to use the Penguin brand in education markets worldwide.

Bertelsmann will nominate five directors to the Board of Penguin Random House and Pearson will nominate four. John Makinson, currently chairman and chief executive of Penguin, will be chairman of Penguin Random House and Markus Dohle, currently chief executive of Random House, will be its chief executive.

In reviewing the long-term trends and considerable change affecting the consumer publishing industry, Pearson and Bertelsmann both concluded that the publishing and commercial success of Penguin and Random House can best be sustained and enhanced through a partnership with another major international publishing house. They believe that the combined organisation will have a stronger platform and greater resources to invest in rich content, new digital publishing models and high-growth emerging markets. The organisation will generate synergies from shared resources such as warehousing, distribution, printing and central functions. Pearson and Bertelsmann intend that the combined organisation’s level of organic investment in authors and new product models will exceed the total investment of Penguin and Random House as independent publishing houses.

The two companies believe that the combination will create a highly successful new organisation, both creatively and commercially, with the breadth and investment capacity to deliver significant benefits. Readers will have access to a wider and more diverse range of frontlist and backlist content in multiple print and digital formats. Authors will gain a greater depth and breadth of service, from traditional frontlist publishing to innovative self-publishing, on a global basis. Employees of the new organisation will be part of the world’s first truly global consumer publishing company, committed to sustained editorial excellence and long-term investment in a rich diversity of content. And shareholders will benefit from participating in the consolidation of the consumer publishing industry without having to deploy additional capital.

The combination is subject to customary regulatory and other approvals, including merger control clearances, and is expected to complete in the second half of 2013.

In 2011, Random House reported revenues of €1.7bn (£1.48bn) and operating profit of €185m (£161m). Penguin reported revenues of £1.0bn and operating profit of £111m with total assets of £1.0bn. After completion, Pearson will report its 47% share of profit after tax from the joint venture as an associate in its consolidated income statement.

Under the terms of the agreement, neither Pearson nor Bertelsmann may sell any part of their shareholding in Penguin Random House for three years. To protect Pearson’s interests as a minority shareholder, if Bertelsmann declines a Pearson offer to sell its entire shareholding, Pearson may require a recapitalisation by which Penguin Random House raises debt of up to 3.5x EBITDA, with a dividend distributed to shareholders in line with their ownership. In addition, from five years after completion, either partner may require an IPO of Penguin Random House.

Marjorie Scardino, chief executive of Pearson, said: “Penguin is a successful, highly-respected and much-loved part of Pearson. This combination with Random House – a company with an almost perfect match of Penguin’s culture, standards and commitment to publishing excellence – will greatly enhance its fortunes and its opportunities. Together, the two publishers will be able to share a large part of their costs, to invest more for their author and reader constituencies and to be more adventurous in trying new models in this exciting, fast-moving world of digital books and digital readers.“

Thomas Rabe, chairman and CEO of Bertelsmann, said: “With this planned combination, Bertelsmann and Pearson create the best course for new growth for our world-renowned trade-book publishers, to enable them to publish even more effectively across traditional and emerging formats and distribution channels. It will build on our publishing tradition, offering an extraordinary diversity of publishing opportunities for authors, agents, booksellers, and readers, together with unequalled support and resources.”

Credo Reference Adds “Librarian Connect” to its Literati Solution

October 29, 2012

Credo Reference, a company that believes the world would be a better place if more decisions and ideas were powered by knowledge, today announced it has added “Librarian Connect” to its Literati solution. Powered by Mosio, Inc. the new service offers texting capabilities along with chat and email.

“Literati is much more than an e-book platform or search interface. It is all about providing customizable services, tools and technologies that help libraries affordably keep pace with the progressive ways that end-users are discovering and using information. Furthermore, Literati promotes the value of the library’s resources over their non-authoritative open web counterparts,” said Mike Sweet, CEO of Credo Reference. “By integrating “Librarian Connect” in the Literati platform, we are able to provide a very important additional service: Connecting end-users to their librarians at the point of need.”

Literati’s new “Librarian Connect” service includes the following functionality:

Integrated within the Literati platform for a seamless end-user experience.
Pre-loaded with the library’s customized educational videos and tutorials created by the Literati team for easy, on-demand distribution.
Web-Based Live Chat – Enables librarians to offer real-time assistance.
“Text a Librarian” via SMS – Allows librarians to be accessible to end-users everywhere.
Schedule Text (SMS) Alerts – Increases mobile engagement through scheduled alerts and updates.
Email Response Management – Provides the ability to coordinate replies to ensure patrons receive consistent answers.

“The Literati solution is taking off to the tune of over 500 libraries signed within a nine month timeframe,” said Noel Chandler, CEO of Mosio. “We are very excited to bundle our services in a solution that is enabling so many libraries to better serve the needs of their patrons.”

About Literati

Literati delivers a unique blend of technology, content and services that enable research effectiveness and digital and information literacy.

Technology:

The Literati solution includes embedded tools that guide the user; integration of the library’s existing resources and discovery services (extending their value); tools that measure what works and what doesn’t; and a growing collection of nearly 10,000 Topic Pages. Topic Pages alone are valued at over $3.5 million. Additional technologies such as the Mind Map provide a powerful way to visualize and understand the research process.

Content:

Literati can be packaged with a growing reference database of more than 3.6 million XML-enriched entries with over 500,000 images, videos and audio clips that enhance learning.

Services:

What makes Literati truly unique are the customized and complementary services provided by on-staff instructional librarians and educators. These services integrate faculty and student outreach, multimedia instruction and assessment tools. Instructional materials such as tutorials, modules and guides are developed based on the library’s strategic goals and are not limited to Credo products.

For more information visit www.credoreference.com/corp.

Maney Publishing acquires Left Coast Press, Inc. journals

October 29, 2012

In an innovative partnership, Maney Publishing has acquired the journal publishing division of Left Coast Press, Inc. (LCP). The 13 journals centre around a strong group of archaeology and anthropology titles, including California Archaeology, Ethnoarchaeology, and Lithic Technology, which complement one of Maney’s key subject strengths. A further group of titles, including Journal of Museum Education, broaden Maney’s activity in heritage and museology, whilst a group of significant titles on qualitative research and education add a new dimension to Maney’s list.

Maney and LCP will enjoy a marketing partnership to promote the LCP books to Maney’s worldwide audience for journals, whilst LCP markets the journals within its book program, thus allowing both publishers to reach a wider customer base.

Both independent publishers have a strong commitment to scholarly publication and great strengths in archaeology, heritage and museology which will be furthered by this new partnership. The LCP journals will benefit from Maney’s global marketing and publishing technologies, and bring the total number of journals in its archaeology and heritage collection to over thirty.

The acquisition and partnership exemplify Maney’s recent growth in North America marked by the recent opening of its Philadelphia office. For LCP, this deal represents the chance to focus more firmly on the publication of its dynamic and highly-respected booklist.

Mitch Allen, President of Left Coast, is excited by the new partnership: “The publication of journals has evolved in a way that favors larger publishers with elaborate systems for sales, search, and electronic delivery. I’m delighted that we have found a compatible partner, one who specializes in our areas of strength, who can effectively provide these kinds of services for these journals. I look forward to working with Maney on cooperatively marketing our complementary lists of publications to audiences worldwide.”

Michael Gallico, Maney’s CEO, is delighted with the outcome: “I have been in discussion with Mitchell Allen for many months whilst we developed a strong understanding of each other’s ethos and the prospects for the LCP journals. I am grateful for the appreciation and understanding that Mitch has given to these plans and believe that we can carry forward this outstanding list of journals that LCP has so carefully developed. We look forward to working with a new high-profile list of American clients in what we see as one of our most exciting developments ever.”

The parties were introduced and the acquisition guided by Michael Margotta of Maverick Publishing Specialists, the trans-Atlantic strategic consulting and operational outsource services organisation for the publishing industry (www.maverick-os.com). Previously, Michael also initiated the discussions that led to the sale to Maney of J. Ross Publishing’s journals earlier this year.

For more information please visit Maney’s Archaeology Spotlight at www.maneypublishing.com/archaeology.