STM Publishing: A Cross Road or a Cross to Repurpose
March 18, 2020
The coronavirus, officially known as COVID-19, has upended the world. In the face of death, the world has shown its best and worst sides. Despite the global pandemic, society keeps chugging forward and humans are forced to adapt. Humans are washing their hands more and businesses are actively allowing their employees to telecommute. The biggest benefit is that the medical and science fields are actively pooling their knowledge to find a cure and create a COVID-19 vaccine. If profit was the main goal, however, the COVID-19 knowledge would be sold to the highest builder. The Los Angeles Times explains how for-profit science publishing could end, “COVID-19 Could Kill The For-Profit Science Publishing Model. That Would Be A Good Thing.”
Sharing scientific research information in real time is not standard and it is an exception to all practices. The amount information about SARS-CoV-2 (the virus that causes corona virus) on PubMed now amounts to more than four hundred articles. More information its supposed to help in a crisis.
The US government, however, does not follow the belief that more information is better. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention canceled a briefing with infectious disease expert Nancy Messonnier. The CDC Web site also removed information about the number of people tested for corona virus. It is helpful to know how many people have been tested and infected to determine how fast it is spreading.
The COVID-19 shows how information circulates among medical professionals in a crisis:
“What’s most intriguing about the effect of the COVID-19 crisis on the distribution of scientific research is what it says about the longstanding research publication model: It doesn’t work when a critical need arises for rapid dissemination of data — like now.
The prevailing model today is dominated by for-profit academic publishing houses such as Elsevier, the publisher of such high-impact journals as Cell and the Lancet, and Springer, the publisher of Nature. But it’s under assault by universities and government agencies frustrated at being forced to pay for access to research they’ve funded in the first place.”
Publishers Springer, Elsevier, and other commercial scientific publishers have suspended their paywalls on corona virus information. They explain that the open access will only last the length of the outbreak and will not apply to other research. Researchers, however, want open access for everything be available.
The publishers explain the reason for paywalls and keeping information under lock and key, but researchers, librarians, scientists, and other experts want scientific information shared. Not sharing information, especially about diseases, is not beneficial. China cracked down about the corona outbreak in its media and also locked up its scientific research. This prevented the rest of the world from knowing the true extent of the pandemic and even about the virus origins.
STM publishing? Does the future embrace the models refined since the 17th century?
Whitney Grace, March 18, 2020
STM Publishers: The White House, NAS, and WHO Created a Content Collection! What?
March 17, 2020
DarkCyber is not working with a science, technology, or medical professional publishing outfit. Sure, my team and I did in the pre-retirement past. But the meetings which focused on cutting costs and boosting subscription prices were boring.
The interesting professional publisher meetings explored changing incentive plans to motivate a Pavlovian-responsive lawyer or accountant to achieve 10-10-20 were fun. (That means 10% growth, 10% cost reduction, and 20% profit.)
I am not sure how I got involved in these projects. I was a consultant, had written a couple of books, and was giving lectures with jazzy titles; for example, “The Future of the Datasphere,” “Search Is a Failure,” and “The Three R’s: Relationships, Rationality, and Revolution.” (Some of these now wonky talks are still available on the www.arnoldit.com Web site. Have at it, gentle reader.)
Have professional publishers of STM content received the millstone around the neck award?
This morning I hypothesized about the reaction of the professional publishing companies selling subscriptions to expensive journals to the news story “Microsoft, White House, and Allen Institute Release Coronavirus Data Set for Medical and NLP Researchers.” I learned:
The COVID-19 Open Research Dataset (CORD-19), a repository of more than 29,000 scholarly articles on the coronavirus family from around the world, is being released today for free. The data set is the result of work by Microsoft Research, the Allen Institute for AI, the National Library of Medicine at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the White House Office of Science and Technology (OSTP), and others and includes machine-readable research from more than 13,000 scholarly articles. The aim is to empower the medical and machine learning research communities to mine text data for insights that can help fight COVID-19.
The most striking allegedly accurate factoid from the write up: No mention of the professional publishers who “create” and are the prime movers of journal articles. Authors, graduate students, academicians, scholars, and peer review ploughmen and plough women. Yes, professional publishing is sui generis.
Several observations:
- Did I miss the forward leaning contributions of the professional publishing community responsible for these STM documents and data sets?
- Are the professional publishers’ lawyers now gearing up for a legal action against these organizations and institutions creating a free content collection?
- Why didn’t one of the many professional publishing organizations, entities, and lobbying groups take the lead in creating the collection? The virus issue has been chugging along for months.
DarkCyber finds the go-getters behind the content collection a diverse group. Some of the players may be difficult to nail with a breach of licensing or copyright filing. If the article is true and the free assertion is a reality, has an important milestone been passed. Has a millstone been strapped to the neck of each of the STM professional publishing companies? Millstones are to be turned by the professional publishing content producers, not by upstarts like the White House and the World Health Organization.
Not as good as a Netflix show but good for a quick look.
Stephen E Arnold, March 17, 2020
Real News for Journalists: Murdoch and the Wall Street Journal
March 11, 2020
DarkCyber spotted the ad below in a recent Wall Street Journal, dead tree edition. We clipped the ad during the week of March 3, 2020. The ad explains that “Journalists don’t just write stories.” That is true.
The image on the left is the ad from the WSJ for the Dow Jones News Fund. Sincere. Nice person. Picture ID. Word salad. (Note: DarkCyber understands that a foundation is different from a real news operation. But …)
Left, a little bit of revisionism. Right, history, a multi-year history at that.
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The ad asserts, “They record history.” No, that is semi true. Journalists make history.
One quick reminder. The article on the right explains a multi year phone hacking operation by a Murdoch entity. Does the Murdoch DNA infuse the Wall Street Journal? DarkCyber is in the dark.
Whom does DarkCyber believe, the ad for the Dow Jones (Murdoch owned) entity, or the report in CNN whose headline reads:
UK Phone Hacking Scandal Fast Facts?
What’s DarkCyber take? History is history. Journalists who generate confections about the wonders of certain publishing enterprises may want to know history. One cannot restate it or reinvent it without a glimmer of awareness of who, what, when, where, and why?
Oh, the why? Money.
Stephen E Arnold, March 11, 2020
Fast Company Offends DarkCyber
March 6, 2020
The write up is “These Are the Reasons Why You Find Something Offensive.” Several facets of the article offended DarkCyber, an entity not known for its keen sensitivity and heightened empathetic responses.
Here’s what offended us in the write up:
- Judgment spelled this way: “judgement”. Ah, the editorial acumen of Planet Fitness.
- The insight that in-group solidarity accepts and possible encourages offensive language.
- The use of the term “foreseeability expectations” in a publication aimed as the Silicon Valley types who did not take sociology in college.
But the major offender is the inclusion of this passage in the write up:
You may not like what others are saying, but the chances are you can take some comfort from knowing that what has offended you might be rooted in the many different experiences and worldviews we all have. If you don’t see any code above, please get new code from the Advanced tab after you click the republish button. The page counter does not collect any personal data. More info: http://theconversation.com/republishing-guidelines –>
What code above? What’s the tab? What’s the dead link thing?
Talk about great editing is unlikely to include the Fast Company approach.
Stephen E Arnold, March 6, 2020
New Speak: Editorial Control Becomes Custom Results
March 5, 2020
Just a small thing. Newspapers, magazines, and book editors (well, once in a while) once exercised editorial control. The idea was simple: Reasonably well-educated people who were sober (one hoped) would screen and select content to appear in their respective content outputs. A “content output” in the Okay, Boomer hay day were printed artifacts: A daily paper (no reminders about yellow journalism, please), magazines (no snide comments about multi-year renewal offers a few weeks after a new subscription was started, and books (please, no remarks about samizdat).
“Pinterest Is Combating Corona Virus Misinformation with Custom Search Results” says:
The company told The Verge it’s introducing a “custom search experience” to ensure its users can get reliable information when they turn to the platform for information about the epidemic. With the new experience in place, the next time you search for “Corona Virus” and “COVID-19,” Pinterest will surface curated pins created by the World Health Organization.
Yikes, adulting. Now let’s use simple words like “selected,” “editorial judgment,” “controls,” etc. “Old speak” still works.
Progress, modest but still progress.
Stephen E Arnold, March 5, 2020
Machine Learning Solution Would Help Keep Wikipedia Entries Updated
February 27, 2020
In a development that could ease the burden on Wikipedia volunteers, Eurasia Review reports, “Automated System Can Rewrite Outdated Sentences in Wikipedia Articles.” Researchers at MIT have created a system that could greatly simplify the never-ending process of keeping articles up to date on the site. Instead of having to rewrite sentences or paragraphs, volunteers could just insert the updated information into an unstructured sentence. The system would then generate “humanlike” text. Here’s how:
“Behind the system is a fair bit of text-generating ingenuity in identifying contradictory information between, and then fusing together, two separate sentences. It takes as input an ‘outdated’ sentence from a Wikipedia article, plus a separate ‘claim’ sentence that contains the updated and conflicting information. The system must automatically delete and keep specific words in the outdated sentence, based on information in the claim, to update facts but maintain style and grammar. …
We noted:
“The system was trained on a popular dataset that contains pairs of sentences, in which one sentence is a claim and the other is a relevant Wikipedia sentence. Each pair is labeled in one of three ways: ‘agree,’ meaning the sentences contain matching factual information; ‘disagree,’ meaning they contain contradictory information; or ‘neutral,’ where there’s not enough information for either label. The system must make all disagreeing pairs agree, by modifying the outdated sentence to match the claim. That requires using two separate models to produce the desired output. The first model is a fact-checking classifier — pretrained to label each sentence pair as ‘agree,’ ‘disagree,’ or ‘neutral’ — that focuses on disagreeing pairs. Running in conjunction with the classifier is a custom ‘neutrality masker’ module that identifies which words in the outdated sentence contradict the claim.”
Note this process still requires people to decide what needs updating, but researchers look forward to a time that even that human input could be sidestepped. (Is that a good thing?) Another hope is that the tool could be used to eliminate bias in the training of “fake news” detection bots. Researchers point out the system could be used on text-generating applications beyond Wikipedia, as well. See the write-up for more information.
Cynthia Murrell, February 27, 2020
An Uncanny Blind Alley
February 24, 2020
I subscribe to the dead tree edition of the New York Times. I spend less time with the expensive reminder of a bygone era than I did when I was an eager beaver working at a nuclear consulting company. One never knew when a hot event (no pun intended) would break like Three Mile Island.
Now to the New York Times Magazine, a pinnacle of content. Am I right? Clarity in titling, hard facts, and helpful analysis based on those facts. Am I right?
I read either “RE: Working the System. In an economy with few protections for employees, how do you gain power on the job? (Very Carefully)” or “the Young and the Restless. Generational consultants believe that Millennial and Gen Z professionals have different values—and that to recruit and keep them, companies need a whole new approach” or “Yaaass! We’re HIRING!”
Note: I think the the “them” in the second odd ball title refers to “employees”, not “values.” Well, maybe not? The notion of a title that makes sense is just sooo! OLD FASHIONED!
If you want to read the story which ran in the NYT Magazine, yep, Sunday”s graphically and bibliographically challenged NYT Magazine, hunt up the February 23, 2020 edition. The story appeared on February 19, 2020, at this paywalled link of which the NYT is quite proud. Note: To keep subscribers, why not put the story online after the dead tree customers receive the newspaper? Oh, right. It’s a generational thing.
Now to the write up.
As soon as I saw the graphics, which continue to baffle me because my mobile phone does not present information in the manner depicted, I thought of Amy Wiener’s best selling book Uncanny Valley, published either by Macmillan Publishers or Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Yep, another outfit which worries not about useless trivia like bibliographic references. You can buy a copy, which I recommend, at a Barnes & Noble if there’s one left in your neighborhood, Google Play, Kobo (what? who?) and the Bezos bulldozer’s book store and policeware company.
The NYT Magazine’s approach lacks three characteristics of Ms. Wiener’s book.
First, the humor in the NYT Magazine missed its mark with me. I was not sure if “phigital” was a joke or a real-live word used in the Big Apple. For me, the jury’s out or hung.
Second, the examples used to characterize the different “generations” identified in the article struck me as outliers. Ms. Wiener offered context. Consider the NYT example of a person who wanted a day off and lied about the death of a relative. When the boss found out, it was like you really sort of okay. (I would not advise trying this approach at Bain, BCG, Booz Allen, or McKinsey when a deadline is fast approaching.) Not funny, by the way, that death lie.
Third, the author who lets me know that he/she is a member of one of these generations learned how to do term papers, not write in a manner as compelling as Ms. Wiener’s. There are references to hot consulting firms like GenGuru and academic-sounding books like “The Remix: How to Lead and Succeed in the Multigenerational Workplace,” and presumably validated statistics. For instance, I did not know nor do I necessarily believe that Gen Zers live below the poverty line. I thought this members of this group live with their parents or used the old fogies as a meatware infused automatic teller machines. Source of the number? Nope. Sample size? Nope. Context of the survey? Nope. Oh, well, it is the New York Times. “Yaaass!”
Now don’t get me wrong. DarkCyber reads, filters, and pays attention to a wide range of content. This particular article struck the team as an attempt to ride the interest in Ms. Wiener’s book, who writes for the often highly regarded New Yorker Magazine. That outfit usually uses one title on an article and restrains absolutely too-hip graphics professionals from creating an article with three possible titles for librarians and the wizards at Google to index. And the colors? Don’t rev DarkCyber’s engines, please.
Several observations:
- Originality is a useful characteristic of some writing. Would this ingredient be useful at the NYT? Maybe less “Yaaass”?
- Quasi clever is okay on a blog or a TikTok video. Maybe not so much in the Gray Lady’s venerable magazine? Techno-viral fluency? Less “Yaaass”?
- The graphics consume more space than the article itself. Maybe three pages of content, data, and analysis. Maybe less “Yaaass”?
DarkCyber noted this statement in the article:
“Until, that is, these generations start to see the forest and not just the trees.”
Trees become wood pulp and some facilitate the dead tree NYT’s goals.
Stephen E Arnold, February 24, 2020
Amazon Revealed by the BBC: Analysis and News about the Bezos Bulldozer
February 18, 2020
The BBC is a subsidized news outfit. As a person who lives in America, I don’t understand the approach taken to either obtaining money or to programming. I do miss the Lilliburlero tune. Also, wouldn’t it be helpful to be able to locate BBC audio programs? Well, maybe not.
DarkCyber noted “Why Amazon Knows So Much about You.” The write up is notable for several reasons. First, it uses one of those Web layouts that are popular: Sliding windows, white text on black backgrounds, and graphics like this one of Mr. Bezos, zeros and ones, and a headline designed to make the reader uncomfortable:
Second, the article is labeled as news, but it is more of a chatty essay about Amazon, its Great Leader, and the data the company gathers via the front scoop of the Bezos bulldozer. But news? Maybe one of those chatty podcasts which purport to reveal the secrets of some companies’ success.
Third, the write up seems long. There are plenty of snappy graphics, dialog which reads a bit like the script for the video program Silicon Valley, and embedded video; for example, Margreth Vestager:
Note that this image is in close proximity to this image of Mr. Bezos and his friend. Happenstance? Sure.
The write up goes deep into Amazon history with details about a snowy, cold, and dark night. The stage setting is worthy of Edward Bulwer Lytton, the fellow who allegedly coined the phrase “the pen is mightier than the sword.” Is the BBC’s pen mightier than an Amazon sword, available in the US for $23.70 with free shipping for Prime members:
With that in mind, what is “Why Amazon Knows So Much about You?”
The most straightforward way to respond to this question is to look at what the write up covers. Here’s the general layout of the almost 5,000 word “semi news” story:
Introduction with the author’s personal take on Amazon
The early days (the meeting in the mountains) of “planning to suck data”
Amazon’s approach to business: Slippery, clever, and maybe some Google-style deflection
The Ring moment when the Shark Tank people proved they were not qualified to work for Mr. Bezos
Amazon is just like those other American monopolies and the sky is falling because staff are complaining about many things
Amazon’s big ideas for making even more money.
LexisNexis: Expanding Its Cyber and Policeware Capabilities
February 10, 2020
LexisNexis, once holder of an exclusive with the New York Times, has been working to retain its government and commercial customer revenue. The cyber online business is booming, but legal information remains a difficult business. Lose a Top 50 US law firm as a client, and the canny marketers have to convert a couple of hundred smaller outfits. Why’s this sector difficult? Free or lower-cost legal content and Reed Elsevier’s principal competitor Thomson Reuters.
LexisNexis has not been standing still, but it has been chugging along in the cyber security sector and policeware markets for many years. Oh, you didn’t know? Well, LexisNexis marketing is on a par with Google’s ad group. That’s the creative team which delivered an ageing parent downer to a Super Bowl audience.
LexisNexis announce on February 2, 2020:
[Its] Risk Solutions, part of RELX, today announced it has entered into an agreement to acquire Emailage®, a global provider of fraud prevention and risk management solutions. Emailage will become a part of the Business Services group of LexisNexis Risk Solutions. Founded in 2012 and based in the Phoenix metro area with offices across the globe, Emailage helps organizations reduce online fraud by building multi-dimensional profiles associated with customer email addresses to render predictive risk scores.
DarkCyber interprets this a helping entities deal with phishing. The reference to predictive analytics is in line with other companies offering alert services.
We noted this statement from the new LexisNexis human resource:
Rei Carvalho, CEO of Emailage, said, “LexisNexis Risk Solutions is laser-focused on providing its customers a 360 degree view into an identity, which aligns with our mission to help customers who seek fast, low-friction, global digital identity fraud solutions to combat fraud without sacrificing consumer experience. We are thrilled to be recognized as a pioneer in email intelligence-based fraud risk scoring solutions and look forward to aligning our solutions to help organizations fight fraud on a more comprehensive level.”
The “360” references a customer’s ability to see “around” an issue, not from the point of view of other “360” cyber security vendors. LexisNexis has a large collection of content upon which to draw. Cyber security services could be a larger, more sustainable market than the pursuit of search licenses from law firms. There are many lawyers, but not many spend for online as they did in the good old days. Today’s clients often cap research fees. Fear and must have defense are more potent tools in the security sector than the glories of online search when an “answer” may not be found.
For information about this cluster of services, navigate to www.relx.com.
Stephen E Arnold, February 10. 2020
Why Sci Tech Publishers Fight Online Innovation: Money
January 10, 2020
Who reads academic papers? Give up.
Answer: Other academics, students, and curious people with an interest in often arcane research.
Here’s another question: What characteristic do many of these journal readers share?
Answer: A desire to zoom through information without paying.
“The Unstoppable Rise of Sci Hub: How Does a New Generation of Researchers Perceive Sci Hub?” explains:
Interestingly, Sci-Hub’s attraction, unlike RG’s, is not its social media features (it has none), but that it offers free and relatively easy access to millions of papers harvested (illegally) from publishers’ websites. It is an open one-stop full-text warehouse, which is thought to be more convenient to use than clunky heavily regulated library platforms. There is another, possibly, more important explanation for Sci-Hub’s popularity and that is it speaks to ECRs’ sharing beliefs and open access (OA) sympathies.
The write up closes with this statement:
The bigger question is whether in the longer term Sci-Hub will still exist? The answer is: not in its current form, but, as Napster was for music, it might be the precursor to the collapse of the status quo. However, unlike ResearchGate [this is a European commercial online site for sci tech types to share information] However, unlike RG, Sci-Hub does not have the opportunity to sell its platform, there is no advertising, or ‘social networking’ to obtain vital user data that it can monetize; it is a pure and unashamed ‘pirate’.
The write up is worded in a polite way. The message seems clear, even in rural Kentucky: Professional database publishers are likely to face continued pressure from journal readers who want to cut the cost of information.
What will professional publishers do? Their historical behavior: Raise prices. Innovative? The approach has worked before.
Stephen E Arnold, January 10, 2020
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