David Crotty

Capped | Clarke & Esposito NIH proposes APC caps, journals require Gold OA for compliance, “Google Zero” concerns

Why the NIH's proposed price caps on publishing costs are bad news for fully OA journals and good news for the largest commercial publishers www.ce-strategy.com/the-brief/ca...

Also, 30,000 fake papers out of 1 million+ does not indict or threaten science as a whole. This entire "science is in crisis from within" narrative is a right-wing myth.

tl;dr. I think fake articles in fake journals are a different (and much lesser) problem than fraud in real articles in real journals. The former is growing a lot because of new technology. No technology is needed for the latter, and I know of no strong evidence it's growing.

Capped | Clarke & Esposito NIH proposes APC caps, journals require Gold OA for compliance, “Google Zero” concerns

Interesting post from @brieferyet.bsky.social on the impact of transformative agreements on NIH intentions to introduce APC price caps.. www.ce-strategy.com/the-brief/ca...

Capped | Clarke & Esposito NIH proposes APC caps, journals require Gold OA for compliance, “Google Zero” concerns

“none of the [article cap] options offered reaches the calculated cost per paper by EMBO…many journals would be required to publish NIH papers at a loss” www.ce-strategy.com/the-brief/ca... 1/2

Unintended but fully foreseeable consequence.

For compliance with the new NIH OA policy, those publishers that publish the large majority of NIH-funded papers will now charge those authors an APC.

So, that 'free access' policy will now cost a TON, money that could have been better spent elsewhere

New issue of our newsletter out today that looks at (among other things like the NIH's proposed caps on researcher spending) publisher policies on NIH compliance. Our list of publishers requiring APC payment for compliance covers 73% of last year's NIH-funded articles.

On the last, a v good explainer on how to think about RAG! And also why integrity of library search is so important.

Capped | Clarke & Esposito NIH proposes APC caps, journals require Gold OA for compliance, “Google Zero” concerns

New issue of @brieferyet.bsky.social out today. Why the NIH's proposed price caps are both a bad idea and one that likely won’t work, a list of journal policies on NIH compliance (73% of 2024 NIH-funded papers would have required APC payment), and does "Google Zero” matter to scholarly publishers?

As Richard says, it really comes down to what problem one is trying to solve. I've always felt the academy should control their own communications system, and that where profits are generated (and they are deserved for the hard work of publishing), they should be channeled back into the community.

Perhaps worth considering how the APC model was pushed largely by non-profits while many commercial publishers resisted it for as long as they could...

Beyond Labels - Does the Type of Business Matter? - The Scholarly Kitchen The superficial distinction between non-profits and for-profits bears scrutiny. What are the true differences? Is either structure innately superior?

Perhaps worth considering whether tax status is the right frame for this argument. A good post here (a recommended read, not an endorsement of the post's author) discusses a lot of the myths and misconceptions around "non-profit" status scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2017/08/08/f...

Social media accurately predicted in one Peanuts strip from 1956.

Yes, so much. This is at the core of my concerns about Colossal.

Thread:

Been a while! On the plus side I know I will be in San Diego next May....

YouTube video by triple j Soccer Mommy covers Pavement’s ‘Gold Soundz’ for Like A Version

Fantastic Pavement cover by Soccer Mommy youtu.be/TJ3ozMQpXl0

Spotify lost $100 million this quarter, look up their earnings report if you’d like to see how many ways that can be described as a positive development

‘Congress has your back’: US senators tell scientists they want to protect NIH budget Senate budget bill includes small increase for the health-research agency — but faces a long road before being signed into law.

Full story here ⤵️

“Given the alternative, the Senate’s recommendation of a $400m increase for NIH is an indication the agency still has support on Capitol Hill,” says Jennifer Zeitzer of FASEB. “A 40% cut would have been devastating, so this is a good outcome in a tough year.”

The Company of Biologists used to pay peer reviewers a small sum, I think $25 each. They ended this practice at the request of reviewers, who said that the time needed to fill out all the forms required was not worth the amount of money paid.

This is a summary of it - much faster read

www.appropriations.senate.gov/imo/media/do...

2,000 (!) more staff added in the six months to keep the wheels turning www.mdpi.com/about/announ...

I was thinking more Web of Science than DOAJ, as one would think that losing an Impact Factor cause a bigger effect on authorship

No need to encourage them!

Perhaps worth noting that WOR was the choice for only 7% of Wellcome funded research over the last 3 years, so while the most common outlet, still only embraced by a small minority.

I’m not sure I want the US government and current DHHS leadership dictating where, how, and what I’m allowed to publish.

IJMS still has a JIF, although it is in decline (23%fewer articles in 2024 than 2023). I think you mean IJERPH which was delisted and went from more than 17,000 articles in 2022 to around 1700 in 2024.

Opinion | Thinking Is Becoming a Luxury Good

Love this op-ed from the New York Times!! www.nytimes.com/2025/07/28/o... Thinking Is Becoming a Luxury Good. Gift article.

What’s Wrong with Paying for Peer Review? - The Scholarly Kitchen Lots of things are wrong with paying for peer review, according to Tim Vines and Alison Mudditt in the recent R2R conference debate

See also scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2021/06/16/w...

But not enough to actually cover the costs of paying peer reviewers as the estimates only cover the reviewers for accepted papers. If your journal rejects 50% of reviewed paper, then your costs are 2X what is offered here at the proposed rate.