Danny Kingsley

Why metascience matters A story of India’s misplaced investment priorities in R&D

MISDIRECTION - a story about India's choice to spend the equivalent of its research budget on subscription costs to commercial publishers. Some public institutions don't have reliable internet - meaning many academics can't access the articles
researchonresearchinstitute.substack.com/p/why-metasc...

📚 Meet Danny Kingsley, DOAB Ambassador for Australia 🇦🇺
Danny shares insights on the global open books landscape, why local expertise matters, and the growing need to support open infrastructure in scholarly communication.
🔗 Read the interview: buff.ly/zPPDTHT
#OA #OAbooks #OpenScience #DOAB

Out of context that skeet is… odd.
But loving the birding loving obvs.

- the government’s mixed public messaging on AI & copyright is hindering licensing
- the government should make a clear public statement that AI companies operating in the UK need to license their training data (which is the law)

4/5

The use of impact factors in the evaluation of researchers has contributed to the distortion of scientific publishing practices and research practices, noted France's CNRS as it walked away from Web of Science, using $$$ saved to promote #OpenScience & #OpenData. www.cnrs.fr/en/update/cn...

We're especially looking for folks experienced in records management, metadata standards, & digital preservation.

Most state records these days are digital. If you like the challenge of how a government preserves, organizes, & makes accessible its vast digital self, this'd be a great fit.

But they are worried about your child Chris.

EVERYTHING IS FINE! I don’t know what the problem is here. Universities *want* to give money to commercial publishers while free riding on open infrastructure. Stop complaining.

ANALOGY in fitness industry: as we dumbed down choreography we deskilled participants - the future instructors coming through the system. Now all anyone can teach is a single exercise repeated for 30 secs. The ability to choreograph or make training mentally interesting is dying, soon lost.

Guest Post — Cultivating Serendipity and Protecting Night Science - The Scholarly Kitchen As AI-driven search reduces friction in information-seeking, what happens to serendipity, frustration, and “night science”?

LOSS: what happens when you get exact answers for your query? Losing stumbling upon something else.
scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2026/03/05/g...
"... frictionless research processes do not reflect the reality of academic inquiry & will not prepare the next generation of researchers to engage in it"

A two-column status table titled "Stage" and "Start Date" tracks the timeline of a manuscript submission from its preliminary data submission on October 8, 2025, to its eventual withdrawal on March 2, 2026. The log reveals a lengthy and repetitive administrative process, particularly between October 26, 2025, and February 19, 2026, where the status cycled more than ten times between "Contacting Potential Reviewers" and "Waiting for Reviewer Assignment," suggesting significant difficulty in securing peer reviewers. Following these numerous failed attempts to move into the active review phase, the final entry shows the manuscript was officially withdrawn on March 2, 2026, at 09:08:18.

My first paper had to be mailed to Stockholm, Sweden, and then mailed to reviewers around the world. Everything by mail! It was submitted, reviewed, revised, typeset, and published in 3 months. I feel bad for early-career scientists who can't find a single reviewer after 5 months. It's gotta change.

Economic Outlook for Scholarly Communications in 2026 — SSP Pulse Check Report - The Scholarly Kitchen SSP's second Pulse Check survey results paint a picture of an industry in defensive mode — cautious, structurally stressed, but not in freefall.

NOT GREAT: "The data paints a picture of an industry in defensive mode — cautious, structurally stressed, but not in freefall. Scholarly communications faces a genuinely difficult 2026" scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2026/03/02/e...
Interesting perspectives on AI too - mostly remediation of impact

SMOKE & MIRRORS more & more we seem to be using forklifts to lift weights in the gym when the point is not that the weights move up & down. The point in the gym is that the muscles doing the lifting get stronger.

(Note - as a fitness instructor I can always find a fitness analogy for schol comm)

The link is not resolving for me!!

Guest Post — AI Fatigue and Vocational Awe in Academic Libraries - The Scholarly Kitchen Today's guest blogger says academic librarians don't need another class on how to use AI, but an institutional reflection on the emotional and mental cost of rushing innovations.

RESONATES across discussions w sector colleagues "Recent conversations around AI in higher ed highlight how librarians are feeling an obligation to learn more about AI while at the same time being left out of important institutional conversations" scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2026/03/04/g...

GLOW-UP: the branding of both DOAB and OAPEN have been updated and if I say so myself* they are looking pretty good!
@doabooks.bsky.social + @oapenbooks.bsky.social

(*Disclosure - I act as a voluntary Ambassador for the organisations)
www.doabooks.org/en/article/d...

The ‘case’ about codeine in breastmilk being potentially fatal could well be the germ of the ‘paracetamol in pregnancy’ fallacy currently being peddled. That would take it from dis- to malinformation.

In the first of a series of interviews with leaders from SCOSS-funded open infrastructure organizations, we asked about their perspectives on open infrastructure for open science. @scossfunding.bsky.social @datadryad.bsky.social @researchdataall.bsky.social

👉 makedatacount.org/read-our-blo...

It seems easier for academic institutions to hand over billions to commercial publishers than for them to give small amounts to scholar led presses #CopimConference

Developing Inclusive collections information card, white RLUK logo and text against a yellow background.

RLUK is delighted to publish the Developing Inclusive Collections guide on reflective practice, providing a framework for colleagues at all career stages

This guide is useful to those working or aiming to work in collection-based decolonisation + build on existing knowledge+skills

bit.ly/INC-COLL

DOAB logo - dark version

Have you noticed something different?

We're delighted to unveil our new look! Fun and friendly, we hope you enjoy interacting with a refreshed DOAB.

Read all about it in this press release: doabooks.org/en/article/d...

Yes in the UK it was decidedly helpful that OA was a govt policy position related to funding. When I started at Cambridge I shared a report to both the UL and the Head of the Research Office.

Are AI-generated summaries suitable for studying and research? Despite didactic, ethical, and environmental concerns, the use of GenAI is on the rise in academia. For most applications, the jury is still out on whether and how they will benefit education and rese...

This is one of the most reasoned & persuasive arguments for not allowing LLMs anywhere near reading & writing intensive classrooms. We can 100% choose not to outsource our reading & writing labor to a bot, and model for our students why they should do the same. #EduSky

www.tue.nl/en/our-unive...

Two reasons. First, authors still aren’t depositing their work, for the reasons I mentioned. Second, libraries have been timid and confused about what they’re allowed to do. Librarians worry endlessly about copyright and publisher permissions, even though in most cases the authors have every right to self-archive their own peer-reviewed manuscripts. I’ve had librarians at Southampton suppress articles I deposited because they weren’t sure we had permission, even though we didn’t need it. This is the “curation” that people talk about at the institutional level. It’s not quality control or peer review, which librarians can’t do anyway. It’s just conservative librarianship applied to a collection of articles that have nothing in common except that the authors all work at the same institution.

NOT WRONG: katinamagazine.org/content/arti... "Why Stevan Harnad Has Been Dreaming of Chatbots All Along" - two reasons why green OA didn't take off -
1. Academics couldn't be bothered sharing their work and
2. Librarians obsessed over copyright

Much of this (clearly AI-generated) post is terrifying and probably true re jobs. LLMs are going to unleash all economic hell.

But to claim that "knowledge is essentially free now" is nonsense. New knowledge cannot be synthesised just from all that is. True new knowledge has a labour cost.

Formalizing our commitment to code sharing In support of open science, PLOS Biology routinely asks authors to openly share their research code before publication. We are now formalizing this practice with a mandatory code sharing policy and…

In support of #OpenScience, we routinely ask authors to openly share their #research #code before publication.

We are now formalizing this practice with a mandatory #CodeSharing policy and clarifying what we mean by code sharing.

Repost if your account is a safe space for the trans community. 🏳️‍⚧️

AGREED - see outcome of a study looking at whether monographs are being used for T&L katinamagazine.org/content/arti...

Generative AI is not just a tool for learning. It shapes how students think Framing this technology as a helpful ‘tool’ disguises how much it guides every element of critical thinking that academics seek to cultivate, says James Garvey

IMPORTANT POINT: Framing AI as a 'tool' makes AI’s role in actively shaping our thoughts harder to see. We stop asking important questions about the moral responsibilities of the companies and programmers that design and market these systems. www.timeshighereducation.com/opinion/gene...

YouTube video by The UWI, Cave Hill Campus “Who Owns Our Knowledge?” Sidney Martin Library Open Access Week Webinar – Tuesday, October 21, 2025

WATCH my presentation as part of a Sidney Martin Library Open Access Week Webinar to the University of the West Indies. Held online 21 October 2026, I talked about: “It’s publishing, but not as we knew it”. youtu.be/0_4ErfMBV0s