Monthly Archives: June 2016

You are browsing the site archives by month.

eBooks – global market and trends – Part I: Print and digital publication in the global context

In recent years, a global industry of electronic books (ebooks) has emerged, with great force in the English language market and remarkable strength in the United States. There are indicators showing a race between traditional publishing industries and also global players such as Amazon and non-traditional ones, such as authors publishing individually and independently. A recent report published last April, divided into four major sections, presents detailed statistics on the production and market of ebooks from large and medium companies throughout the world, which are the debates and key factors that are shaping the legal and pirate markets, and it also includes a “yellow pages” section, with more than 350 companies dedicated to various services and components in the electronic book chain edition. Read More →

Zika Fast Track

How can scientific journals assist in the response to Public Health Emergencies? The journal Memórias do Instituto Oswaldo Cruz has innovated by creating a fast track for manuscripts submitted on the topic of the Zika Virus. The fast track procedure allows manuscripts to be posted on-line within 24 hours of submission making the data within them available to reader scrutiny and sharing while the manuscripts undergo peer-review. The journal is already reaping some benefits from this approach. Read More →

The best of both worlds

Quality is an ill-defined concept with regard to scholarly literature. Some aspects of quality can be assessed reasonably objectively, and immediately, such as the quality of presentation. But some cannot be readily determined, and need time and ‘digestion’ by the scholarly community, such as the scientific quality of an article. And then there is the quality of a journal’s service to authors, of particular importance for open access publishing that is supported by Article Processing Charges. Also relevant is the question whether a strong focus on quality and excellence is indeed beneficial to science, or not. I am providing a link to an article on that most interesting topic. Read More →