Subscribe to newsletter Hello fellow journalologists, On Thursday I wrote to explain that (1) Journalology will soon become a paid subscription product and (2) I will start a separate, shorter, newsletter, called The Jist, that will be free to read. If you missed that announcement, you can catch up here. I received many replies to Thursday’s email, probably more than to all of the 120 newsletters combined. The responses were incredibly supportive and generally fell into two camps: “Good for...
10 days ago • 23 min read
Hello fellow journalologists, On Sunday some of you will receive the Journalology newsletter for the last time. Let me explain. Starting next week (i.e. in ~10 days’ time) there will be two versions of this newsletter: A paid newsletter (called Journalology) that follows a similar format to what you’ve been receiving up until now, containing links to all the news and opinion alongside my thoughts on what the stories mean (JB: you know, commentary like this). A free newsletter (called The...
14 days ago • 2 min read
Subscribe to newsletter Hello fellow journalologists, This issue is slightly delayed, so there’s a lot to catch up on. We start off with two stories about research integrity sleuths and then delve into the implications of the NIH access policy. Oh, and the first Springer Nature AGM was held last week, which provides a fascinating insight into how a management team at a commercial publisher is incentivised by its shareholders. But first, please take a look at the message from this week’s...
22 days ago • 17 min read
Subscribe to newsletter Hello fellow journalologists, Some weeks are slow news weeks. Last week was not one of them. But before we get to the news, here’s a message from Scholastica, which is kindly sponsoring Journalology over the next four issues. Thank you to our sponsor, Scholastica Looking for a better journal submission and editorial management system? There’s no need to settle for expensive, complex legacy software. The Scholastica Peer Review System has the features you need for...
about 1 month ago • 16 min read
Subscribe to newsletter Hello fellow journalologists, The SSP (Society for Scholarly Publishing) annual meeting starts on Wednesday; many companies have been announcing partnerships and new products, ready for discussion at the jamboree. I’ve grouped those together, at the end of the news section, to help you quickly see whether any of the new initiatives can help you to improve your journal or portfolio. Another way to produce better journals is to get one-to-one support via the Journalology...
about 1 month ago • 16 min read
Subscribe to newsletter Hello fellow journalologists, There’s a lot of ground to cover in this week’s issue and I’ve been playing catch up after a trip to the USA, so let’s get straight to it (after a short piece of self promotion; closed mouths don’t get fed). A workshop testimonial from Emerald Publishing James delivered two insightful train-the-trainer workshops one month apart that focused on positioning our journals programme for increased growth. His approach was thoughtful and...
about 2 months ago • 15 min read
Subscribe to newsletter Hello fellow journalologists, I tend to write these newsletters quickly and sometimes I make a mistake. Last week I said: Pablo Gómez Barreiro’s commentary was published on March 23 and presumably hadn’t been seen by Stefan Tochev, the MDPI CEO, by the time he published his latest newsletter on April 30, which used the original graphs. Somehow I missed this sentence from Stefan’s newsletter: An alternative approach, using weighted average by publication volume, shows...
about 2 months ago • 9 min read
Subscribe to newsletter Hello fellow journalologists, Normal service returns this week, with a plethora of news, opinion and journal articles for your delectation. Share and enjoy. A coaching testimonial from an Editor-in-Chief I can recommend the coaching program without reservation. It’s been invaluable to be able to discuss the many issues that come up for editors. James is not only insightful but also well-organized so that the coaching is a great investment. Professor Kathryn Phillips...
about 2 months ago • 13 min read
Subscribe to newsletter Hello fellow journalologists, There’s two weeks’ worth of news to catch up on, as I was on vacation with my family over Easter. So I’ve adopted the same format as the previous issue, primarily to make this newsletter as concise as possible. As before, the text that follows has been pasted from news sources and is not my own. I’ve mixed in a few opinion pieces that I enjoyed and grouped similar topics (research integrity, AI etc.) together. But first, I hope you’ll...
2 months ago • 12 min read