Institute for Scientific Information reforms
Clarivate Analytics has announced that it is re-establishing the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI) within its Scientific and Academic Research Group. Originally founded in 1960, the ISI created the first citation index for the sciences in 1964, with indexes for the social sciences and the arts and humanities following over the next few decades; these were combined in 1997 into the Web of Science, while the ISI brand gradually disappeared after the business was acquired by Thomson in 1992. Samantha Burridge, Director of Strategy and Transformation at Clarivate, will lead the development of the ISI, with former Chief Scientist at Digital Science, Professor Jonathan Adams, joining as a Director in April. Dr Nandita Quaderi has also joined Clarivate as Editor in Chief of the Scientific and Academic Research group, where her role will include working with the ISI on metrics; she was previously Publishing Director of Open Research at Springer Nature.
SAGE acquires planet
SAGE Publishing has announced the purchase of multidisciplinary statistical data repository Data Planet, comprising 35 billion data points from more than 450 databases across 16 subject categories, available in the form of charts, maps, graphs, and tables. Data Planet is expected to complement SAGE’s existing statistical products, such as SAGE Stats and US Political Stats.
PLOS agrees deals with pre-print server and advertising partner
The Public Library of Science (PLOS) has announced an agreement with Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) in the United States that will allow research articles submitted to PLOS journals to be posted automatically to bioRxiv, CSHL’s preprint server for the life sciences. The aim is to accelerate medical research by enabling researchers to share their work on a reputable platform ahead of peer review. PLOS has also announced a digital advertising partnership with Pub Grade GmbH, which will provide the open access publisher with access to the PubGrade for Publishers advertising platform, following a successful initial six month use period.
De Gruyter reaches landmark, strikes Dutch deal
De Gruyter has made a pair of announcements: not only did the start of 2018 see it reach the landmark of one thousand open access books on its platform, but the 260-year-old publisher will also be distributing English language ebooks published by Amsterdam University Press from now on, in a deal that includes 260 frontlist titles over the next two years, and 470 backlist titles, 250 of which are open access.
New tool and partnership for Digital Science companies
Digital Science portfolio company Overleaf has released a new tool for authors publishing with IEEE. The IEEE LaTeX Analyzer aims to speed up the publishing process by enabling authors to upload articles and validate their article’s LaTeX files prior to submission. It compiles manuscripts within seconds of submission, allowing authors to correct any issues resulting using either Overleaf or another LaTeX editor. Stablemate and research services platform provider Peerwith has announced a partnership with water and environmental publisher IWA Publishing that will see the pair develop a branded marketplace for author services.
New tool from AuthorAID for researchers in the global south
AuthorAID, the project for early-career researchers in the global south run by International development charity INASP has formed a partnership with automated manuscript checking service Penelope that will see a special free version of the service analyse submitted scientific papers and make suggestions on correct structure, reporting ethics and guidelines, referencing, and authorship.
News in brief
Working in collaboration with Hypothesis, non-profit research collaboration platform eLife has introduced open annotation to its website, enabling users who sign in using their ORCiD ID to discuss research articles and posts on-site. Scholastica has launched a new PDF and HTML typesetting service for open access journals. Kopernio, the web-based software start-up created by the founders of Mendeley and Newsflo, has been awarded funding from government agency InnovateUK to accelerate the development of its one-click journal article access technology. The Copyright Clearance Center has launched a new scientific research solution, RightFind Insight, in partnership with Cambridge-based company SciBite, combining semantic enrichment of documents with full-text search to improve the scientific search process.
Atypon has partnered with the American Geophysical Union (AGU) on the Earth and Space Science Open Archive (ESSOAr), a new community preprint server for the sharing of early research outputs in those fields; the project is currently in an open, fully-functioning beta phase. Wiley has announced a deal to provide unlimited access in Brazil to the Cochrane Library, a collection of 7,000 published systematic reviews in healthcare interventions.
Alastair Horne is a PhD student
at the British Library and Bath Spa University