Communications

2011

• PEER Behavioural Research: Final Report on authors and users vis-a-vis journals and repositories
  This study, which was a qualitative look at researchers' attitudes to OA, has just been published. There are some interesting differences in the attitudes and awareness across subject fields. Most of the attitudes are quite conservative, and there is a clear expression of the necessity of retaining journal articles; whatever types of OA are considered.

• OA Rhetoric, Economics, and the Definition of“Research" - In The Scholarly Kitchen, librarian Rick Anderson expresses his concerns about the popular phrase “access to publicly-funded research,” which overlooks the large and expensive gap that lies between the completion of a scientific and the creation of a publishable product based on that research.
• Journal Article Mining: a Research Study into Practices, Policies, Plans . . . and Promises - This study was commissioned by Publishing Research Consortium and offers the first comprehensive look at what publishers and others are doing, and plan to do, in both data and text mining of the scholarly – mainly journal – literature. The report contains a great deal of fascinating detail from a number of viewpoints – from 29 interviews and 190 detailed responses to a survey.
• STM Press Release - Guiding Principles for Document Delivery
• STM Press Release in Response to the Hargreaves Report: Review on Intellectual Property: Digital Opportunity

2010

• On December 10th the AAP filed comments in response to a Notice of Inquiry (“NOI”) from the U.S. Department of Commerce seeking public comment “on the challenges of protecting copyrighted works online and the relationship between copyright law and innovation in the Internet economy.” The NOI provided an opportunity to argue the need for strong federal action to attack online piracy and the essential role of copyright in spurring innovation in a knowledge-based economy. The Department has assembled an Internet Policy Task Force which will report its findings after review of the comments received.
• patientINFORM Slideshow: To view the presentation, scroll down the “About patientINFORM” page to the section entitled Why patientINFORM? Display on ‘Slide Show’ to view the presentation most effectively
• A new Tenopir survey funded by the PRC shows the importance of journal ‘brand’ to readers. Research Publication Characteristics and Their Relative Values: A Report for the Publishing Research Consortium
• STM Launches Two Videos on Publishers' Role in Scholarly Communication
  Networking Knowledge Videos
• Journal Access: Frequently asked questions

2009

• More than 4,000 researchers respond to the largest ever international peer review survey. Sense About Science in collaboration with Elsevier presented the initial findings to scientists, journalists and the public at the British Science Festival at Surrey University in September. Should peer review detect fraud and misconduct? What does it do for science, and what does the scientific community want it to do? Will it illuminate good ideas or shut them down? Should reviewers remain anonymous? What is the future of peer review? Read the preliminary findings and learn more about this exciting investigation at the heart of scholarly publishing.
• A new study, The Future of Scholarly Journals Publishing Among Social Science and Humanities Associations, has just been released by the National Humanities Alliance and posted on their website http://www.nhalliance.org/bm~doc/hssreport.pdf
  
  This first-ever study of the financing of humanities and social science journals compares these journals to those in STM journal publishing and reports on their differences.
  
  It examined the financing of flagship journals published by eight societies including American Anthropological Association, American Academy of Religion, American Economic Association, American Historical Association, American Political Science Association, American Sociological Association, American Statistical Association and the Modern Language Association. 
  
  The study was conducted by Mary Waltham and funded by a grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to the American Anthropological Association.  It was undertaken at the initiative of a task force of the National Humanities Alliance as part of their exploration of how free access to published scholarly research may impact journals publishing in the humanities and social sciences, and what financial models might be sustainable in the future.
• A newly-announced partnership between the International Association of Scientific, Technical and Medical Publishers (STM) and the UN World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) will provide access to a range of core research technical journals to patent offices in more than 100 developing countries, including all the 50 Least Developed Countries.  Access to Research for Development and Innovation (ARDI) has been formed to increase resources available to patent offices in some of the poorest countries in the world where encouraging local innovation is a key element in the development of national economies. For more information http://www.stm-assoc.org/news.php?id=243

2008

• Publishers and scholarly societies sign letter to Obama-Biden Transition Project in support of copyright protection for scientific, technical and medical journals publishing
• BISG is pleased to announce the release of version 1.0 of the BookDROP technical specification. BookDROP is a standard intended to support the search and discovery of digital book content on the Web and was developed jointly by the Book Industry Study Group and the Association of American Publishers.  For information click here
• New ‘Research4Life’ Umbrella Brand Launched
• Medical Publishers Donate Books to Aid First OB/GYN Residency in Afghanistan
• Medical Publishers Donate Books to aid First OB/GYN Residency in Afghanistan - Photos
• Medical Publishers Send over 3,000 Much Needed Books to 20 Medical Colleges in Iraq
• Help us to understand the challenges facing your society. SAGE invites you to contribute to an international survey which aims to provide greater insight and understanding of the challenges facing scholarly societies across the world in the 21st century. See the results of the survey here
• Publishers Urge More Consultation on Implementation of NIH Public Access Policy