Delta Think has been studying article processing charges (APCs) applied by a sample of major and significant publishers since 2016. The latest release of their findings show that the highest price point for fully OA journals remains at $8,900. A couple of dozen or so fully OA (“gold”) journals charge above $5,300. The highest price for a hybrid journal is now $11,690, up from $11,390 last year.
In a case study of Hindawi special issues, Dorothy Bishop studies the impact of paper mills that charge authors to place fraudulent papers in the academic literature. Publishers have been slow to tackle the problem, but are now starting to devise methods for identifying paper mill products. However, little attention has been paid to the topic of complicit editors, who can take over special issues of journals and then publish many fraudulent articles.
The authors explain that APCs are mainly applied to articles in biology and medical research. 30% of articles in these fields and having an author affiliated with a French research organization are APC-based. For humanities and social sciences, articles with APCs represent 1% of all articles published.
Publishers are testing prototypes of automatic systems to flag submitted manuscripts bearing the hallmarks of paper mills — businesses that produce fake research papers.
The tools, which will eventually form part of an online integrity hub, are the result of a year-long collaboration between 24 publishers and scholarly analytics providers. Together, the companies are trying to stamp out the growing scourge of fabricated scientific articles.
COPE (the Committee on Publishing Ethics) together with STM has researched and produced a report that looks closely at Paper Mills — how they work, their history, their scale, and areas of particular concern. The report also offers concrete recommendations for addressing them moving forward.
Research Square Company (RSC) comprises American Journal Experts (AJE), which provides best-in-class AI-powered and professionally delivered author solutions, and Research Square, the world’s number one multi-disciplinary preprint platform. After a long partnership and period of partial ownership, Springer Nature has increased its investment in RSC to take full ownership.
The acquisition reflects the shared ambition of the two companies to provide faster, better, quality-assured author solutions. This includes helping authors improve their manuscripts prior to submission and share their research both before and after publication.
In May 2022, Springer celebrated 180 years of supporting researchers to advance discovery. Now, a new report, Springer: Serving the global research community, explores Springer’s evolution from its humble beginnings to the high-impact publisher it is today. This blog takes a look at some of the key highlights.
Nicola Nugent is the strategic lead for quality and impact across journals and books at the Royal Society of Chemistry. She provides her reflections on Peer Review Week 2022, which took place from 19-23 September, celebrating the theme of “Research Integrity: Creating and supporting trust in research.”
Read also the Peer Review Week blog series and the Research Information blog posts series about this event.
Frankfurter Buchmesse is back with plenty of events, conferences, readings, talks, performances and exciting surprises for publishing professionals and literary enthusiasts from around the globe. The 74th Frankfurter Buchmesse (19–23 October 2022) reaffirmed its position as the most important international meeting point for the book and media industry: 4,000 exhibitors from 95 countries and 180,000 visitors, the fair was well frequented.
All videos of events can be accessed in their media library and on the Frankfurter Buchmesse YouTube channel.
The ISSN IC Sales team was present for 2 days.
The report details the investment made by the company in new products and solutions for researchers, teachers, students and clinicians, faster and more efficient publishing systems, projects to drive sustainability and DEI initiatives, and training and development for its workforce. The Annual Progress Report builds on the recent Fully OA report and the Sustainable Business report, and is part of increased openness from Springer Nature into its activities.
