What we read this week (29 March)

Welcome to Things we read this week, a weekly post featuring articles from around the internet recommended by BMJ Labs.

Publishing

• More on the pilot collaboration between Springer Nature and ResearchGate designed to remove barriers to research and to make the sharing of science easier. Hopefully the trial data will be published because we’re really curious to know the extent to which users are reading papers on ResearchGate.
• What’s New In Publishing has six newsletter metrics you might want to monitor which aren’t open rate.
• Luc Boruta on how Cobaltmetrics is trying to make alternative bibliometrics genuinely alternative by tracking ‘all’ URIs rather than limiting the service to only items with DOIs (for example).
• In  Brexit meets Plan S David Worlock comments on the strategies Elsevier could follow to rebuild trust in the marketplace.
• Slightly strange article in Research Information in which Five platform providers talk about what makes a good platform for researchers to disseminate their work. Other than choice of an authoring/writing platform it’s not clear to us how much freedom researchers have to pick a dissemination platform based on technological capabilities.
• Nick Rockwell, the CTO of New York Times, talks to What’s New In Publishing about personalization saying that “they had taken a cautious approach inserting articles mainly below the fold.”… “Curation is the core purpose of the homepage,” added Nick. “It has a hierarchy which is a difficult environment for recommendation. There are other reasons why we have been a little reluctant to embrace personalisation, including our own perfectionism, concern over creating a filter bubble and a lack of clarity as to why the company would do it.”
• Debora Weber-Wulff argues that plagiarism detectors are a crutch, and a problem and that academics and editor should start reading papers more carefully.
• Ted Habermann is visualizing how Crossref data is improving over time.

Strategy and future thinking

• The RSA (Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures
  and Commerce) in conjunction with Arup’s Foresight team have created four diverse scenarios for the future world of work are interesting reading.
• This is from 10 years ago but still relevant, McKinsey interview Richard Rumelt on strategic planning, diversification and focus, and the role of the CEO.

And finally…

• Nice article from Forbes featuring  Patchwork, a technology platform developed by two NHS doctors, Dr Jing Ouyang and Dr Anas Nader, which helps hospitals better manage demand for NHS temporary staff (locums) which has received funding from BMJ New Ventures.