Science Communications in Context

In a letter on Tuesday, [UCLA] campus officials asked faculty members to consider declining to review articles for Elsevier journals until negotiations ‘are clearly moving in a productive direction.’ The letter also asked professors to consider publishing research elsewhere, including in prestigious open-access journals.

Ellis, L. (2018). In Talks With Elsevier, Reaches for a Novel Bargaining Chip: Its Faculty. The Chronicle of Higher Education. Retrieved from: https://www.chronicle.com/article/In-Talks-With-Elsevier-UCLA/245311

…from a report on the ITHAKA Next Wave 2018 conference:

Gen Z students don’t want the same things from college their Millennial predecessors did. Elite colleges will be just fine, but mid-tier campuses without defined niches will face extinction. And Elsevier, the for-profit scholarly communications giant that many librarians and researchers love to hate, will never go away.

Howard, J. (2018). Elsevier Faces Tough Questions About Its Business Model During Library and Publishing Conference. EdSurge. Retrieved from: https://www.edsurge.com/news/2018-12-03-elsevier-faces-tough-questions-about-its-business-model-during-library-and-publishing-conference

The University of California (UC) system is taking a strong stand in their negotiations with Elsevier, as communicated by an open letter published on November 28:

The UC’s efforts to shift its relationship with Elsevier will have implications beyond our University. Indeed, it is part of a global movement to break down paywalls for scholarly journals and to create a more open system of sharing knowledge, facilitating research, and enabling greater global equity of access to knowledge. Much of the action to date has been in Europe, but North American institutions, which represent 42% of Elsevier’s revenue, need to get involved. Because the UC accounts for nearly 10% of all US publishing output and has sizable subscription contracts, we are in a position to lead towards a more open and sustainable scholarly publishing ecosystem.

Smith, M. (2018). Potential Changes to UC’s Relationship with Elsevier in January 2019. Retrieved from: https://www.library.ucdavis.edu/news/potential-changes-to-ucs-relationship-with-elsevier-in-january-2019/

All signs point towards the development of the EOSC in a federated manner, with an emphasis on FAIR data standards:

Latest EOSC developments

Two key documents published on 20 November 2018 provide additional detail:

• Prompting an EOSC in practice (PDF, 44 pages)
• Turning FAIR into reality (PDF, 78 pages)