GREETINGS from a beautiful Sunshine Coast location. Gorgeous first day of 2026. I hope our community continues to be strong, supportive and successful in this coming year

🎆 What a way to close out 2025 as we celebrate PKP's Founder, John Willinsky, and his appointment to the Order of Canada for more than 25 years of dedication to #OpenAccess and #PublicKnowledge! -> www.gg.ca/en/media/new... Image from Muttercraig CC BY-SA at uottawa-mpsp.fandom.com/wiki/Order_o...

SIGH- not sure where all this will end but it is likely to be ugly

I think this post nails the actual problem, for researchers at least—AI hallucinations would simply not be a problem in academic work if we’d not normalized citation-as-signaling rather than actual engagement—you can only cite a fake paper if you’re not in the habit of reading the papers you cite

Top work, lads

NOT WRONG: Revised definitions of the verb to Google www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/rev... AI can do some amazing things. It can also completely screw things - that worked perfectly well - up.

EXPLANATION: for newbies to issues around publishing, ebooks and why open access is so essential. It is 16 minutes long and covers most of the basics. www.youtube.com/watch?v=PygU...

I know there are lots of people at fault here, but the fact that such an obviously unethical article got published is another illustration of how publishers have completely lost control of what they're publishing in the push for APCs.

AND HERE WE ARE: The International Committee of the Red Cross is having to issue this statement: "Important notice: AI-generated archival references" www.icrc.org/en/article/i... I really worry about humanity. We seem to be regressing at an escalating rate.

OJC are hiring and you could be a part of the growth of Diamond Open Access publishing!

The Open Journals Collective is growing! If you're interested in helping shape the future and sustainability of Diamond Open Access publishing, then check out these roles at OJC. 👇

COMPREHENSIVE and excellent set of slides here - explaining why WoS and Scopus are no longer fit for purpose, describing the changing nature of publishing globally. Relevant for OJS work and diamond OA as well. From @juancommander.scholcommlab.ca scholarworks.uni.edu/cgi/viewcont...

RESOURCE: training materials for all things Open oercommons.org/hubs/ukrn

NEWS: The Institute of Museum & Library Services has restored ALL previously canceled federal grants to libraries, following a ruling by a federal judge in Rhode Island last month. This is a massive win for libraries & communities in every state & territory! Learn more: www.ala.org/news/2025/12...

METRICS (what are they good for?) - an article about why the Stanford Top 2% list is problematic thewire.in/science/the-...

NOT A MUSEUM (of books) - the central role of libraries in universities explained here scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2025/12/02/g...

Leopards, faces, etc.

FRUSTRATION: I have always hated corporate speak. As an ex-journalist & Plain English writing teacher I just can't understand the language. The latest one that is really doing my head in is 'playbooks' which are sets of instructions, each one called a 'play'. Entirely nonsensical. Just stop. Please.

After attending the International Research Integrity Conference the past three days, I will be at the AIMOS2025 conference the rest of the week, also in Sydney. Get ready for more live posting! #AIMOS2025 aimos-inc.github.io/aimos.confer...

SLOP from an apparent chatbot writing letters to the editor. www.nytimes.com/2025/11/04/s... I fear the pollution of GenAI affecting the academic discourse. One wonders how long before the snake eats its own tail. It is looking more and more ouroboros-like.

VARIETY: "Ask the Chefs: What’s Your Favorite AI Hack?" the spoiler alert is the response to the use of AI in their work lives is very mixed, including a conscious decision not to use it scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2025/11/13/a...

RELEVANT to the two talks from @oai-ge.bsky.social we just watched as part of our Australian satellite event - 'Open Source AI: Propagation of Open Source Licenses in the Age of AI' + 'Open Science, Next Generation Metrics, and the World of Publishing' See the recordings here oai.events

'Such reliance on rankings means that universities are shaped not by the needs of society or by innovations driven from inside the international higher-education community, but by unappointed third-party ranking agencies' @lizziegadd.bsky.social in Nature www.nature.com/articles/d41...

I don’t think that’s true, these publishers have HUGE overheads that pay processes that have nothing to do with journal production. And even the production cost could be reduced. Eg, if you don’t sell subscriptions or APCs, you don’t need sales dept! Must read: f1000research.com/articles/10-20

TWO SIDES - to the introduction of AI into research in a presentation by Caroline Welte "Developing scalable learning opportunities about generative AI" - as part of a satellite event for OAI14 - @oai-ge.bsky.social oai.events/oai14/satell...

#OAI14 has now come to a close. Over 500 individuals signed in to join sessions during the week. All the recordings will be available at oai.events/oai14/ going forwards. 5 watch parties have been organised to study the talks in greater depth - see oai.events/oai14/satell... for details.

Bumper crop of submissions for FORCE 2026 to be held in Singapore 3-5 June 2026! Thank you for your support! www.linkedin.com/posts/force1...

Every ad now

ASTONISHING - teaching an octopus to play a piano scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2025/11/14/t...?

EXCELLENT graphic on the drain of scientific publishing! zenodo.org/records/1759...

JOIN US! for series of 1 hour Watch Parties over 3 days to view curated talks from last week's OAI Geneva Workshop on Innovations in Scholarly Communication @oai-ge.bsky.social Timed to suit folks in Australasia. Details: oai.events/oai14/satell... Register: events.zoom.us/ev/AkS1MEFrJ...

REFRESHING HONESTY about the run around journals put authors through. That the community has put up with this for so long says mountains about our flawed and problematic assessment system. scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2025/11/04/m...

INITIATIVE: Bodleian Libraries is launching SHOx (Short-form Hosting at Oxford), a new hosting service supporting Oxford’s community of scholars in publishing short-form research titles such as journals, working paper collections, and conference proceedings. www.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/shox

SCEPTIC, I am afraid, about the ability for text matching to identify actual impact www.cabidigitallibrary.org/do/10.5555/n... I have worked in the impact space and demonstrating impact, let alone causality is extremely complex. It's more than just a text search.

SOMBRE: the mood amongst researchers according to an Elsevier study www.elsevier.com/en-gb/insigh... I imagine publishers are also feeling sombre - the financial environment is not looking strong for deals with them either

"Acquiring the Karger journals will provide OUP with many more downstream transfer destinations, helping OUP to publish more of the articles that get rejected by their higher impact journals." Depressing assessment of the commercial strategy guiding academic publishing.

NEW WORD: Malinformation - "information which is based on fact, but removed from its original context in order to mislead, harm, or manipulate" en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malinfo...

INTERESTING: "Open letter to the Executive University Board: Calling for an end to the university's dependence on big tech" www.rug.nl/jantina-tamm... "Universities need to work towards technical infrastructures and practices that restore the autonomy of the academic community ..."

Full Programme for #R2RConf (London, 24-25 Feb) available r2rconf.com/r2r-conferen... Keynote, Debate, Presentations, Panels, Roundtables, Case Study and Workshops Plenary: 8½ hrs, Workshops: 3 hrs, Networking: 5½ hours crammed into 2 days! Discounts & 50 free tickets for Academics & Librarians

TRANSFERABLE SKILLS: this article is making the case that PhDs don't prepare students for work outside academia "PhD employability beyond academia: an analysis of industry skills emphasis through a cultural capital lens" www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

arXiv will no longer accept review articles and position papers unless they have been accepted at a journal or a conference and complete successful peer review. This is due to being overwhelmed by a hundreds of AI generated papers a month. Yet another open submission process killed by LLMs.

DODGY: Clarivate supporting awards for researchers with large numbers of retractions - "Exclusive: Web of Science company involved in dubious awards in Iraq" retractionwatch.com/2025/10/31/e...

🌏 Open Access Week 2025 - Thank You! Open Access Australasia was pleased to present three distinct webinars with a diverse international and regional array of speakers #OAWeek2025 🎥event recordings are now available for you to watch at your convenience oaaustralasia.org/open-access-...

SAYS IT ALL: Publishers worry about profit, libraries worry about information. Forget the motherhood statements & 'value adds' that commercial publishers claim to make. It's all about the cash. "Guest Post — Do Academic Libraries Have a Strategy for AI?" scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2025/10/30/g...

DIVERSITY of assessment and reforming evaluation being discussed at @unesco.org "Open Science: From the UNESCO Recommendation to Reality in Asia and the Pacific - Session 1” An excellent slide

RELIVE the ideas, discussions and excitement of the Open Access Week discussions hosted by OA Australasia this year @oaaustralasia.bsky.social including a panel I facilitated: "The politics of knowledge: who controls the story and who has access to it?" oaaustralasia.org/open-access-...

AGREE: "Guest Post — The Great Pullback: Why Academic Social Media’s Fragmentation Matters" scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2025/10/29/g... I still mourn the loss of Twitter - it was so important to me when I moved back to Australia and was professionally isolated for a couple of years (plus COVID...)

CONCERNING (yes Cureus's activity but more): "Clarivate’s Web of Science team wields immense power; it can make or break a journal with its editorial decisions and adversely affect revenue lines to the tune of tens of millions of dollars" - **with no accountability** www.linkedin.com/posts/jwbutc...

ARGUMENT for the central role curators have in our society, esp in the face of AI senseaboutscience.org/wp-content/u... “describe what good curation looks like and the principles that underpin it – principles that we as a society urgently need to make more visible, respected and protected”

SUMMARY of International Data Week, held in my home city Brisbane - codata.org/blog/2025/10... It was so good to have everyone travel to us this time!