Friends:
The July Feeding the Elephant blog has many items of interest to H-Scholar subscribers so I am re-posting it in full.
You can find the original post at
https://networks.h-net.org/node/1883/discussions/10546720/elephant-roundup-july-2022
Open Access Publishing
Joseph Esposito, Revisiting — Return of the Big Brands: How Legacy Publishers Will Coopt Open Access, The Scholarly Kitchen (blog), June 29, 2022.
Joseph Esposito takes a look back on a post from 2015 about the emerging relationship among open access journals and legacy publishers, pointing out how larger, more prestigious journals with high rates of rejection have created families of open access journals that provide publication options for rejected articles and new revenue streams for the parent companies.
Haseeb Irfanullah, Some Observations on Research4Life’s New Strategic Plan for Vision 2030, The Scholarly Kitchen (blog), July 11, 2022.
Research4Life, which has brought together UN agencies, publishers, universities, and technicians, has announced its strategic plan through 2030, which includes support for the Global South and diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives. Haseeb Irfanullah analyzes the plan.
Internet Archive Seeks Summary Judgment in Federal Lawsuit Filed By Publishing Companies, Electronic Frontier Foundation (press release), July 8, 2022.
Internet Archive has asked a federal judge to rule in its favor in a lawsuit filed in 2020 by Hachette, HarperCollins, Wiley, and Penguin Random House. The publishing houses alleged that Internet Archive’s Controlled Digital Lending policy violated their copyrights, but Internet Archive begs to differ.
Rick Anderson, Revisiting: Will the Future of Scholarly Communication Be Pluralistic and Democratic, or Monocultural and Authoritarian? The Scholarly Kitchen (blog), July 12, 2022.
The article, initially published over two years ago argues against making any form of publishing – including open access – the norm, instead supporting a free market of publishing practices where scholars determine the venues through which they wish to publish.
Scholarly Communications
Charlie Rapple, Start-up Stories: Mindscape Commons — or, How VR is Helping Develop Medical Students’ Communication Skills, The Scholarly Kitchen (blog), June 30, 2022.
Will virtual reality offer a new venue for training scholars and practitioners? Charlie Rapple delves into the use of VR technology to train medical students with patient care and developing empathy and provides some lessons learned for other prospective start-up businesses with similar goals.
Alice Meadows, Implementing DEIA in Scholarly Publishing — A Call for Papers, The Scholarly Kitchen (blog), July 5, 2022.
The Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers is seeking to put together a special issue of its journal, Learned Publishing, that addresses what has (and hasn’t) worked for improving diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility among those involved in scholarly publishing. The goal, Alice Meadows writes, is to discuss “how to move from talking about change to making it a reality.”
Peter F. Lake, How to Protect Faculty Members From Outside Attacks, The Chronicle of Higher Education, July 7, 2022.
Academic institutions, Peter F. Lake argues, must come up with plans for how to protect themselves and academic freedom in the digital age, paying close attention to media law.
Lee Brewer Jones, A Catfish in Wolf’s Clothing, Inside Higher Ed, July 11, 2022.
Lee Brewer Jones recounts being catfished by a person pretending to be The Guardian critic Matt Wolf. The imposter asked only for Brewer Jones to answer questions, perhaps to write an essay to sell to students online.
Katherine C. Epstein, Irina Dumitrescu, and Rafael Walker, Is Twitter Bad for Scholarship? Does social media destroy thinking or nurture community? Three professors weigh in. The Chronicle of Higher Education, July 11, 2022.
Is visibility of a scholar’s work and engagement worth some of the downsides? Opinions among these three scholars differ.
Whitney Trettien, Book Review: Cut/Copy/Paste: Fragments from the History of Bookwork, LSE Review of Books, July 9, 2022.
Whitney Trettien explores how seventeenth-century English publishers cut up and reassembled paper media into radical, bespoke publications, arguing that this ‘bookwork’ contributes to understanding digital scholarship and publishing today. Through its magnetic prose that narrates weird and joyous entanglements with the printed word, Trettien reveals that the lives of books are longer and stranger than we imagine, writes Sam di Bella.
Clifford Ando, Princeton Betrays Its Principles, The Chronicle of Higher Education, July 5, 2022.
Considering questions about the end of tenure, Ando discusses the conduct of Princeton University in its recent firing of Joshua Katz, a classics professor. Tenure ends when the president of the university “personally” finds you not to have exercised your right to free speech “responsibly.”
Peer Review
Anne Baillot, Talking peer review series #1: On kindness in scholarly evaluation practices – a guest post, DARIAH Open: Open scholarly practices in the arts and humanities, March 9, 2022.
This new blog that launched in March 2022 addresses how to improve peer review processes, especially since peer review “governs the (re)distribution of resources such as research grants, promotions, tenure and even larger institutional budgets.” This introductory post addresses what open review has to offer.
Alice Meadows, Jasmine Wallace, Tim Vines, and Karin Wulf, Announcing Peer Review Week 2022: An Interview with the Co-Chairs, The Scholarly Kitchen (blog), July 7, 2022.
The chefs talk to Peer Review Week Co-Chairs, Danielle Padula and Jayashree Rajagopalan about this year’s theme of “Research Integrity: Creating and supporting trust in research,” chosen through a poll this spring.
Steven Mintz, The Humanities’ Scholarly Infrastructure is in Utter Disarray, Inside Higher Ed, July 18, 2022.
So why are scholars shying away from peer reviewing articles and monographs, reviewing books, and participating in tenure review? Steven Mintz believes this trajectory maps on to wider trends in U.S. society and suggests some actions universities and departments can undertake.
The Overturning of Roe v. Wade in the Academy
Nell Gluckman, If ‘Roe’ Falls, More Female Students Could Face the ‘Motherhood Penalty’, The Chronicle of Higher Education, May 16, 2022.
“Should Roe be invalidated, new burdens on poorer women could mean the difference between graduating and dropping out,” writes Nell Gluckman. In this article, Gluckman delves into a yet-to-be peer reviewed article that examines how women students of lower socio-economic status often take more breaks from their education to assist in caregiving. Will abortion restrictions exacerbate this trend?
Janet Koven Levit, The Demise of ‘Roe’ Will Weaken American Colleges. The clock is ticking, The Chronicle of Higher Education, June 14, 2022.
“What will our colleges look like when large numbers of our students live with the possibility that local governments will force them to carry an unwanted pregnancy to term, against their will?” Koven Levit points out the issues that may arise on campuses in states where abortion access is restricted, including bounty laws, and what campus and scholars might do to support students.
Katie Rose Guest Pryal, Abortion Is a Higher-Ed Issue. The end of ‘Roe’ will worsen the campus mental-health crisis, The Chronicle of Higher Education, June 30, 2022.
Women in their twenties account for more than 50 percent of all people seeking abortions, and unplanned pregnancies are “the most common reason” young people leave college before earning their degree. What will tighter restrictions on abortion mean for students? What can universities and academic do to support their students?
Nell Gluckman, Will the Fall of ‘Roe’ Change the College-Going Landscape? The Chronicle of Higher Education, June 28, 2022.
Some students are taking into account abortion restrictions when choosing where to earn their degree, but other factors, including tuition and proximity to home, will also continue to figure into the equation. Nell Gluckman suggests that faculty may give abortion restrictions more consideration when accepting jobs.
The Journal of Women’s History, Twitter Post, June 30, 2022.
The journal is making freely available for 60 days select articles on abortion access so readers can better understand the overturn of Roe v. Wade in historical and comparative lenses.
Sylvia Goodman, To Boycott or Not? Academic Conferences Face Pressure to Avoid Abortion-Hostile States, The Chronicle of Higher Education, July 12, 2022.
Immediately following the Dobbs decision, some academics called for boycotts of conferences held in states banning abortions. Sylvia Goodman discusses the response of some organizations as well as some who have argued against boycotts.
ICYMI on the Elephant
- Catherine Cocks, Back in Person: The Association of University Presses 2022 Annual Meeting, July 13, 2022.
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