Aardvark et al.: Quality Journals and Gamesmanship in Management Studies    

Publication in quality journals has become a major indicator of research performance in UK universities. This paper investigates the notion of `quality journal' and finds dizzying circularity in its definitions. Actually, what a quality journal is does not really matter: agreement that there are such things matters very much indeed. As so often happens with indicators of performance, the indicator has become the target. So, the challenge is to publish in quality journals, and the challenge rewards gamesmanship. Vested interests have become particularly skilful at the game, and at exercising the winners' prerogative of changing the rules. All but forgotten in the desperation to win the game is publication as a means of communicating research findings for the public benefit. The paper examines the situation in management studies, but the problem is much more widespread. It concludes that laughter is both the appropriate reaction to such farce, and also, perhaps, the stimulus to reform.

Macdonald, Stuart and Jacqueline Kam. Journal of Information Science (2007). Articles>Publishing>Management>Research

Bridging the North-South Divide in Scholarly Communication in Africa    

This article takes a broad, general perspective of scholarly communication in Africa, using a simple systems model based on the Lasswell formula. The model identifies and analyses the following components: Creators, Contents, Mediation, Users and Infrastructure. It recognizes that these are to be studied in their cultural, political, economic, legal and ethical contexts. Taking each component in turn, a number of critical issues and problems relevant to the North-South/South-North divide are identified and some observations are made on the position and roles of libraries. The article presents a list of desiderata and emphasizes that scholarly communication has both digital and analogue dimensions. It is a complex phenomenon that needs to be addressed holistically.

Lor, Peter Johan. IFLA Journal (2007). Articles>Publishing>Research>Africa

The Internet's Impact on International Knowledge    

With data from a national telephone survey, the current study examines the comparative and synergistic influence of the internet on international knowledge. Independent and interactive media effects are considered in terms of four medium-specific measures of international news attention. Internet news attention had the most positive effect on international knowledge of any of the news measures. In terms of the other three news attention measures, the effects of newspapers and cable TV were positive, while that of network TV was non-significant. In addition, the interaction of internet news attention and network TV news attention positively predicted international knowledge. In contrast, the interaction of newspaper news attention and network TV news attention negatively predicted international knowledge. These findings indicate the positive comparative and synergistic influence that the internet can have on international knowledge development in the United States.

Beaudoin, Christopher E. New Media and Society (2008). Articles>Knowledge Management>Publishing>International

Mediatization or Mediation? Alternative Understandings of the Emergent Space of Digital Storytelling    

This article reviews the social potential of digital storytelling, and in particular its potential to contribute to the strengthening of democracy. Through answering this question, it seeks to test out the relative strengths and weaknesses of two competing concepts for grasping the wider consequences of media for the social world: the concept of mediatization and the concept of mediation. It is argued that mediatization (developed, for example, by Stig Hjarvard and Winfried Schulz) is stronger at addressing aspects of media textuality, suggesting that a unitary media-based logic is at work. In spite of its apparent vagueness, mediation (developed in particular by Roger Silverstone) provides more flexibility for thinking about the open-ended and dialectical social transformations which, as with the printed book, may come in time to be articulated with the new form of digital storytelling.

Couldry, Nick. New Media and Society (2008). Articles>Web Design>Publishing>Online

Search Engine Optimize Your Blog Posts to Increase Your Readership

When you search-engine-optimize your blog posts, you can increase your blog’s subscribers in a long-term way. You don’t have to stiffen your prose to apply search engine optimization — you just have to apply keywords in the right places.

Johnson, Tom H. I'd Rather Be Writing (2008). Articles>Publishing>Search Engine Optimization>Blogging

A Voyage to Maturing Usability  

In this article, the chief editor of the recently published book Maturing Usability: Quality in Software, Interaction and Value reports her experiences, from the very beginning when the book project was conceived to the time when the book was delivered.

Law, Effie Lai-Chong. Journal of Usability Studies (2008). Articles>Usability>Publishing

The Publishing House: An Exploration of the Internet Publishing Revolution

This paper will discuss the state of new media before describing solutions to the problems introduced by instant publishing. Two prolific sources of information, news articles and research, are the focus of this paper.

Mercurytide (2005). Articles>Publishing>Online

A. Stanley Higgins and the History of STC's Journal  

A profile of Stan Higgins, one of the first editors of STC's journal. Based on archival research and an interview with Higgins. Includes a table of journal titles (e.g., TWE Journal, STWE Review) and names of editors.

Malone, Edward A. IEEE PCS (2008). Articles>TC>Publishing>History

How to Publish Without Perishing

One could imagine the book, venerable as it is, just vanishing into the ether. It melts into all the other information species searchable through Google’s most democratic of engines.

Gleick, James. New York Times, The (2008). Articles>Publishing>Online

Magazine Content Management System Revolution: From Turnkey to Open Source, Publishers Taking a Fresh Look at CMS

Choosing the right CMS is about making the technology support a company's business needs and not vice-versa. "The software or solution doesn't set your business rules," says Eric Shanfelt, president and founder of Colorado-based eMedia Strategist Inc. "You should know what it is you want it to do first and then find the right solutions that will get the job done." Here's a look at how three very different publishers are tackling their CMS needs.

Ambroz, Jill. Folio (2007). Articles>Content Management>Publishing>Case Studies

What Do Movable Type and XML Have in Common?    

Compares Gutenberg's invention of the movable type to the creation of XML. But where movable type changed the “economics of a mechanical process,” XML changed the “economics of content authoring, formatting, and customization.”

O'Keefe, Sarah S. Intercom (2008). Articles>Information Design>Publishing>XML

Paid Versus Free Content Is Back in The Headlines

Earlier this year Chris Anderson, who is best known for his book The Long Tail, wrote an article in Wired Magazine called ‘Free’. As the title suggests it is about the “inevitable move towards a price point of zero for content and services on the web.”

SubHub (2008). Articles>Publishing>Financial>Online

The Real State of The Blogosphere 2008

A few weeks ago Technorati came out with their annual State of the Blogosphere 2008 numbers. They revealed that 133 million blogs have been setup since January 2002. That means, on average, over 72,000 blogs have been setup every day since the blogging phenomena started. Staggering numbers!

SubHub (2008). Articles>Publishing>Online>Blogging

The Emergence of Intelligent Content: The Evolution of Open Content Technologies and Their Significance  

This paper traces the history of open content technologies in an effort to understand the nature and significance of intelligent content. What is illustrated is that a common thread runs through SGML, HTML, XML, Web 2.0, the Semantic Web, DITA, and OOXML and that the evolution of open content technologies has enabled the emergence of intelligent content and with it a new form of organizational agility. This whitepaper has been prepared as a corollary to the presentation “Content Fusion: There’s a Piece of Data Lodged in my Document” at Intelligent Content 2009, Palm Springs CA, January 29-30, 2009.

Gollner, Joe. Rockley Group, The (2009). Articles>Publishing>Online>Open Source

Fame vs Fortune: Micropayments and Free Content

The failure of micropayments, both past and future, illustrates the depth and importance of putting publishing tools in the hands of individuals. In the face of a force this large, user-pays schemes can't simply be restored through minor tinkering with payment systems, because they don't address the cause of that change -- a huge increase the power and reach of the individual creator.

Shirky, Clay. Shirky.com (2003). Articles>Publishing>Online>Micropayments

Weblogs and the Mass Amateurization of Publishing

A lot of people in the weblog world are asking "How can we make money doing this?" The answer is that most of us can't. Weblogs are not a new kind of publishing that requires a new system of financial reward. Instead, weblogs mark a radical break. They are such an efficient tool for distributing the written word that they make publishing a financially worthless activity. It's intuitively appealing to believe that by making the connection between writer and reader more direct, weblogs will improve the environment for direct payments as well, but the opposite is true. By removing the barriers to publishing, weblogs ensure that the few people who earn anything from their weblogs will make their money indirectly.

Shirky, Clay. Shirky.com (2002). Articles>Publishing>Online>Blogging

John M. Kinn: IEEE-PCS' First Editor  

Profile of John M. Kinn, a charter member of the IRE Professional Group on Engineering Writing and Speech (now IEEE-PCS) and the first editor of the Transactions on Engineering Writing and Speech (now IEEE T-PC). Includes a table of T-EWS and T-PC editors from 1958 to 2008.

Malone, Edward A. IEEE PCS (2008). Articles>History>Publishing

Time To Change

The landscape of web writing has changed. The value of well-edited and reviewed content is giving way to faster, less-refined posts on blogs, comments and services like Twitter. It is clear from the dwindling number of article pitches that many prefer to draw traffic to their own sites.

Finck, Nick. Digital Web Magazine (2008). Articles>Web Design>Publishing>Writing

The Struggle for Book Access: Amazon

The Kindle2 is a hot topic in the disability field right now. Many print-disabled people (people who are blind, severely dyslexic or a have a physical disability that keeps them from reading regular print books) see electronic books as a dream come true. But, it's a dream that the commercial ebook vendors keep dashing.

Fruchterman, Jim. Benetech (2009). Articles>Publishing>Accessibility>eBooks

Free

Free software is not free - it comes with an implicit obligation that you respect the rights of its creators, and that you give something back from your use of the software, from code libraries to promotion to documentation, to the larger community. It's possible, indeed probable, that this ethos, derived by programmers and engineers to solve some very real problems, may in fact be a sound model on which to build an economy.

Cagle, Kurt. O'Reilly and Associates (2009). Articles>Publishing>Writing>Micropayments

What Colleges Should Learn From Newspapers' Decline

Newspapers are dying. Are universities next? The parallels between them are closer than they appear. Both industries are in the business of creating and communicating information. Paradoxically, both are threatened by the way technology has made that easier than ever before.

Carey, Kevin. Chronicle of Higher Education (2009). Articles>Education>Publishing>Online

University Publishing In A Digital Age

This paper argues that a renewed commitment to publishing in its broadest sense can enable universities to more fully realize the potential global impact of their academic programs, enhance the reputations of their institutions, maintain a strong voice in determining what constitutes important scholarship, and in some cases reduce costs.

Ithaka (2009). Articles>Research>Publishing>Online

Information Overload

Almost 2 million book titles were published in the US alone, compared to more than the 1.3 million books published in the preceding 100 years. This change in the amount of information available for consumption is starting to change the way people read. How do we address the problem of information overload? Through good writing, and good information architecture.

Self, Tony. HyperWrite (2001). Articles>Information Design>User Centered Design>Publishing