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Daily Archives: October 25, 2021

Article – Current market rates for scholarly publishing services

Current market rates for scholarly publishing services [Free version 2; peer review: 2 approved] F1000 Research, 1 July 2021. Alexander Grossmann, Björn Brembs. https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7824-7650 – “For decades, the supra-inflation increase of subscription prices for scholarly journals has concerned scholarly institutions. After years of fruitless efforts to solve this “serials crisis”, open access has been proposed as the latest potential solution. However, also the prices for open access publishing are high and are rising well beyond inflation. What has been missing from the public discussion so far is a quantitative approach to determine the actual costs of efficiently publishing a scholarly article using state-of-the-art technologies, such that informed decisions can be made as to appropriate price levels. Here we provide a granular, step-by-step calculation of the costs associated with publishing primary research articles, from submission, through peer-review, to publication, indexing and archiving. We find that these costs range from less than US$200 per article in modern, large scale publishing platforms using post-publication peer-review, to about US$1,000 per article in prestigious journals with rejection rates exceeding 90%. The publication costs for a representative scholarly article today come to lie at around US$400. These results appear uncontroversial as they not only match previous data using different methodologies, but also conform to the costs that many publishers have openly or privately shared. We discuss the numerous additional non-publication items that make up the difference between these publication costs and final price at the more expensive, legacy publishers.”

The Law of AI

Jotwell Review by Margot Kaminski: Michael Veale and Frederik Zuiderveen Borgesius, Demystifying the Draft EU Artificial Intelligence Act 22(4). Computer L. Rev. Int’l 97-112 (2021). [h/t Mary Whisner] “The question of whether new technology requires new law is central to the field of law and technology. From Frank Easterbrook’s “law of the horse” to Ryan Calo’s… Continue Reading

Winners of the 2021 Close-Up Photographer of the Year Competition

Kottke.org: “Contestants from 55 countries entered over 9000 photos in the Close-Up Photographer of the Year competition for 2021 and now the winners have been announced. I’ve included a few of my favorites above (from top to bottom): Pål Hermansen, Johan De Ridder, Håkan Kvarnstrom, and Bruno Militelli. Over 9,000 pictures from 55 countries were… Continue Reading

Securing your digital life, part one: The basics

Ars Technica – Sean Gallagher: “I spend most of my time these days investigating the uglier side of digital life—examining the techniques, tools, and practices of cyber criminals to help people better defend against them. It’s not entirely different from my days at Ars Technica, but it has given me a greater appreciation for just… Continue Reading

Here’s the FBI’s Internal Guide for Getting Data from AT&T, T-Mobile, Verizon

Vice: “The newly obtained document shows in granular detail the sort of data that the country’s carriers keep, and for how long. Much of the information reiterates what we already knew about law enforcement access to telecommunications data—how officials can request location data from a telecom with a warrant or use court orders to obtain… Continue Reading

A whistleblower’s power: Key takeaways from the Facebook Papers

Follow-up to previous posting – Whistleblower: Facebook is misleading the public on progress against hate speech, violence, misinformation – See Also the Washington Post – “Interviews with dozens of current and former employees and a trove of internal documents show how the social media company inflamed real-world harms.A trove of internal Facebook documents reveals that the… Continue Reading

Proclamation on Advancing the Safe Resumption of Global Travel During the COVID-⁠19 Pandemic

White House Presidential Action – “…In light of these facts and circumstances, I have determined that it is in the interests of the United States to move away from the country-by-country restrictions previously applied during the COVID-19 pandemic and to adopt an air travel policy that relies primarily on vaccination to advance the safe resumption… Continue Reading

This climate does not exist

“ThisClimateDoesNotExist.com is an AI-driven experience based on empathy, allowing users to imagine and vizualize the environmental impacts of the current climate crisis, one address at a time. Climate change does not impact everyone equally. For the planet to tackle the climate crisis, we all need to act as though our homes were directly affected. We… Continue Reading