The Brief

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End of a Bargain

Issue 50 • February 2023

Springer Nature ends deposit of articles in PubMed Central, NIH’s new public access policy, cOAlition S ends support for Transformative Journals, and the RRS tries to route around prohibitions. Plus, gender diversity on editorial boards and whether ChatGPT can “author” a paper.

Chat

Issue 49 • January 2023

Was this month’s issue of The Brief written by ChatGPT? Find out within. Springer Nature ramps up its acquisitions and the first post-Nelson Memo public access policy from a US federal agency is released.

Services Services Services

Issue 48 • November 2022

Wiley spins off its services into a stand-alone division, but where will it find customers? MDPI’s relentless optimization for market conditions continues. Publishers are embracing sustainability topics as SDG-related scientific outputs are rapidly increasing. And a look at the numbers from this month’s RELX investor seminar.

Journalesque

Issue 47 • October 2022

eLife’s bold experiment attempts to change research journals into review services. Springer Nature offers its first-ever report on high level financial performance. cOAlition S launches its Journals Comparison Service. De Gruyter acquires Ubiquity Press. And an update on the OSTP’s Nelson Memo.

Narnia

Issue 46 • September 2022

Silverchair announces a major investment from Thompson Street Capital Partners (TSCP). The central tension in OA publishing comes to the fore with the resignation of four editors of a prominent journal. The new OSTP open science policy continues to dominate the conversation. Firms focusing on Author Experience (AX) are gaining competitive advantage over those that are moving more slowly.

Zero Embargo

Issue 45 • August 2022

This special single-topic issue of The Brief analyzes the August 2022 public access memorandum issued by the US Office of Science and Technology Policy. We review the memorandum itself, its accompanying impact statement, and its likely implications for publishers and societies.

Brand Extension

Issue 44 • July 2022

The Lancet’s long-term strategies come to fruition. Clarivate simultaneously expands the impact factor (to more journals) while reducing it (down to a single decimal place). Does success in scholarly communications require disruption?

Transformative?

Issue 43 • June 2022

A year into its Transformative Journals route to compliance, cOAlition S revises its requirements. Does the list price for a journal subscription really mean anything anymore? An open data policy without monitoring and enforcement is not really an open data policy. And have postdocs finally recognized the realities of the academic job market and fled elsewhere?

The Permanent Record

Issue 42 • May 2022

Meeting presentations are increasingly being recorded, preserved, and made publicly available in perpetuity. But do some things work better when they’re ephemeral? CCC’s purchase of Ringgold offers a contrast between the benefits of open, community-owned infrastructure and the speed and robustness of private efforts. And almost ten years after its release, just what does it mean to become a DORA signatory?

Fragmentation

Issue 41 • April 2022

Publishers navigate Russian sanctions and make hard decisions in an increasingly fragmented market for scholarly content. BOAI at 20: new recommendations and a continued anti-commercialism. cOAlition S releases a new toolkit. Elsevier buys Interfolio. Wiley has a new ticker. Annual Reviews embraces S2O. James Daunt is succeeding.