"Under our new guidelines, AI usage can and should be reported [allowing] reports to split out usage by AI from “Regular”, human usage, and from text and data mining activity, “TDM”. @tashamc.bsky.social www.researchinformation.info/analysis-opi...
Just watched higher ed in the US turn into a sad farce, as the right destroys academic freedom for all save bigotry, moving to bankrupt any uni that still allows their staff and students to demand racial justice, protest war crimes or defend the trans community. Now Labour is on the same ugly track.
American Society of Mechanical Engineers outsource much of their journals publishing oeprations to Wiley, retaining books www.asme.org/about-asme/m...
Liverpool University Press partners with Wiley who will manage their submissions, screening, and peer review www.researchinformation.info/news/liverpo...
Bloomsbury restructure, losing >50 roles: three verticals (1. Academic & Professional, 2. Consumer, 3. Team America), each with its own editorial, sales, marketing and publicity, rights, and audio functions. Operations & Finance consolidated. www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/...
DEGREES OF DANGER e S TROUBLING times for UK universities with outposts in Dubai, as students are warned to stay indoors and study online due to what campus leadership is variously describing as, ahem, "regional developments" (De Montfort University) and "the ongoing circumstances" (Middlesex University). De Montfort's campus at Dubai's Internet City has been shut since early March, when missile debris fell nearby, thanks to what it calls, er, "heightened regional tensions". It has reassured students that "UAE maintains strong security infrastructure" and reminds them to rely only on announcements from the UAE government, the university or their home country's foreign affairs advice. "Avoid sharing or acting on unverified information circulating on social media," it warns. Middlesex likewise has encouraged students to stick to the "guidance" issued by state authorities not to photograph or share images of any incidents
or debris to "avoid unnecessary concern or confusion". But there's no mention from any of the UK universities of the risk of arrest, under UAE's harsh "cybercrime" laws, for sharing any information about missile and drone activity, which has seen hundreds of people detained for as little as private messages reassuring family that they're safe after an incident.
UK Universities with campuses in West Asia issue student warnings (minus "war") via Private Eye magazine
And further, by these, my son, be admonished: of making many books there is no end; and much study is a weariness of the flesh.
Universities of the Netherlands seek a new publication culture that emphasises quality over quantity, greater diversity and inclusivity ... as a prelude to a broader “national” open access strategy..." www.openscience.nl/en/cases/ope...
Speaking to Research Professional News, Marcus Munafò, deputy vice-chancellor and provost at the University of Bath, said: “I think there’s a risk we could end up in a situation where some technologies or certain disciplines fall off a cliff—go past a certain threshold because they don’t have a critical mass of funding to support them. “That bit seems to be missing from the debate; we need to think about the research ecosystem as national capability and infrastructure that we need to keep healthy to allow us to react to unknown scenarios in the future.”
There's definitely a reshaping of UK research going on
Some of it is intentional - govt encouraging unis to specialise, UKRI directing funds for applied R&I to industrial strategy areas
Some of it isn't - unis taking individual decisions to save costs that add up to impact on national capacity
🧵
Bloomsbury is cutting around 55 roles across its UK and US operations as part of a significant restructure that will see the company reorganised into three independent business units 👇 #BookSky
THORNY: "we inhabit a continually shifting, lawless terrain, where ethics and integrity are at constant risk of being sacrificed for the benefit of productivity and commodity. The onus falls to us—the publisher—to put in place guidance on the acceptable and responsible use of generative AI"
Bristol University Press has appointed Kathryn Earle as chief executive officer, effective 20th July 2026 👇 #BookSky
Survey on the evolving relationship between research libraries and academic publishers says the former looking for metrics from the latter to justify budget decisions alongside accessibility and trust/integrity as key themes sr.ithaka.org/blog/what-do...
Institute of Chartered Financial Analysts of India complete OA deal with Taylor & Francis www.researchinformation.info/news/ifhe-st...
“There is a massive difference between faculty in their own departments determining that programs are no longer viable — which has been the usual way program closure has been initiated in the past — and such closure decisions being made solely by administrators."
dailyorange.com/2026/04/facu...
“A lot of the tools that vendors are making available to us are on research integrity. That is an incredibly small fraction of the problems facing journals and where we need to be focusing.” scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2026/04/08/a...
"We have observed more pronounced enthusiasm for generative AI from some of our editors in the hard sciences than we have typically seen from the humanities side, which is more reliant on longform writing and qualitative analysis" networks.h-net.org/group/discus...
Some research-intensive universities have been hoovering up students from other institutions, even if they don’t have enough accommodation to house them.
Read my new @hepi-news.bsky.social report on the financial sustainability of the HE sector:
bit.ly/4mBraMN
Amazon are ending tech support for their older Kindle devices… “soft-bricking millions of still functioning devices … this could amount to 2 million devices rendered obsolete according to some estimates, potentially generating over 624 tons of e-waste" www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
Paid internship at @universitypress.cambridge.org training and working as an Editorial Assistant and on textbook development careers.cambridge.org/jobs/vacancy...
"...incredibly relaxed about standards, if not outright predatory." www.the-geyser.com/the-oa-movem...
NISO update their "Transfer Code of Practice" which regulates the process for when titles move between publishers. librarytechnology.org/pr/32404/
Surveys examine the impact of zero-click search on libraries, librarians, content usage, and publisher responses." www.researchinformation.info/news/crocodi...
"The open access movement was bold and promising, but ultimately disappointing ... We want to see the academic publishing industry change in a way that benefits science, not just profits." Cancer Research, UK news.cancerresearchuk.org/2026/04/01/w...
To...ASSESS manuscripts? Like, to decide on...quality?
Because one time I made ChatGPT write "the worst story it could" and it made something truly putrid, badly written, poor grammar, etc etc. Then I copied that story into a new ChatGPT instance and asked it to assess the story.
Guess what!!!
Do we need a national strategy to end the ‘gridlock’ in achieving open access for books?
A @britishacademy.bsky.social report calls for a joined-up approach, as "the systems are not currently in place to make it work".
www.researchprofessionalnews.com/rr-news-uk-o...
Edinburgh University Press has acquired the goodwill and assets of Agenda Publishing.
Nicola Ramsey, CEO, has said that we are 'very much look forward to welcoming [Agenda's] authors and editors to the EUP community.'
Read more:
edinburghuniversitypress.com/news/post/eup-acquires-a...
![The word blurb was coined in 1906 by American humorist Gelett Burgess (1866–1951).[2] The October 1906 first edition of his short book Are You a Bromide? was presented in a limited edition to an annual trade association dinner. The custom at such events was to have a dust jacket promoting the work and with, as Burgess' publisher B. W. Huebsch described it, "the picture of a damsel—languishing, heroic, or coquettish—anyhow, a damsel on the jacket of every novel".
In this case, the jacket proclaimed "YES, this is a 'BLURB'!" and the picture was of a (fictitious) young woman "Miss Belinda Blurb" shown calling out, described as "in the act of blurbing." The name and term stuck for any publisher's contents on a book's back cover, even after the picture was dropped and only the text remained.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:xymlowc32o3pc6g2xalek4s4/bafkreieugzwvjwchmqn4y6jhr5isznq6q4vfsnsbbafxht75qgxmumchaa)
The word blurb was coined in 1906 by American humorist Gelett Burgess (1866–1951).[2] The October 1906 first edition of his short book Are You a Bromide? was presented in a limited edition to an annual trade association dinner. The custom at such events was to have a dust jacket promoting the work and with, as Burgess' publisher B. W. Huebsch described it, "the picture of a damsel—languishing, heroic, or coquettish—anyhow, a damsel on the jacket of every novel". In this case, the jacket proclaimed "YES, this is a 'BLURB'!" and the picture was of a (fictitious) young woman "Miss Belinda Blurb" shown calling out, described as "in the act of blurbing." The name and term stuck for any publisher's contents on a book's back cover, even after the picture was dropped and only the text remained.
The original Belinda Blurb
It brings me great pleasure to inform you the word "blurb" is named after a made-up woman named Belinda Blurb whose job is to tell everyone how great a book is
Kudos to the 13 publishers who are taking action against this website that is alleged to be pirating books (including #science textbooks), then selling them to developers of large language model AI systems and data brokers. #AcademicSky #Authors #Piracy
