USEFUL: scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2026/01/22/g... Discusses critical gaps in accountability if LLMs are used to write substantial parts of a paper - Responsibility Gap and Transparency Gap and provides useful flow chart to help desk decisions on papers in cases where AI has been used.

NUP! Three major research universities opt out of new Elsevier deal - Complaints over ‘price increases’ and open access models spur UK institutions to walk away from offer... (paywalled sorry) - Unis of Kent, Essex and Sussex www.timeshighereducation.com/news/three-m...

VULNERABILITY - link to unpaywalled article from the company gptzero.me/news/neurips/ - they note that the current peer review system just can't cope. It's true - the current system was built before publishing at industrial scale. We need a different verification system. Peer review is BROKEN

GOOD NEWS: As of 1 Jan all ACM publications & related artifacts in the ACM Digital Library are OA. This change reflects the long-standing and growing call across the global computing community for research to be more accessible, discoverable, and reusable. www.acm.org/publications....

This is the most astonishing graph of what the Trump regime has done to US science. They have destroyed the federal science workforce across the board. The negative impacts on Americans will be felt for generations, and the US might never be the same again. www.nature.com/immersive/d4...

OUTCOME: This is where Read and Publish deals have landed us folks. www.oaspa.org/news/latest-...

RISK:"Credit in research goes hand in hand with responsibility" www.nature.com/articles/d41... In the current era of team science, researchers are right to be concerned about what the impact on their careers & reputations might be if one or more group members compromise a study’s research integrity

DUMB DOWN: "Artificial intelligence tools expand scientists’ impact but contract science’s focus" www.nature.com/articles/s41... Any work by James Evans is worth a read. Also commentary: "AI is great for scientists. Perhaps it's not so great for science" www.programmablemutter.com/p/ai-is-grea...

INSPIRING: How Two Canadian Organizations Created a National Model for Diamond Open Access katinamagazine.org/content/arti... “The final piece of the Canadian diamond OA puzzle is a nationwide network of library publishing programs hosted in university libraries."

UBIQUITOUS: Is there anything AI can't completely screw up? "...AI chatbots provide seemingly authoritative responses drawn from Wikipedia’s very pages ...This parasitic relationship endangers the last bastion of freely accessible, human-curated knowledge" www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Jennifer Byrne, @jasonchin.bsky.social, and others weigh on on whether Australia's approach to regulating research misconduct needs reform. theconversation.com/should-austr...

Microsoft is closing its employee library and cutting back on subscriptions - "part of Microsoft’s shift to a more modern, AI-powered learning experience through the Skilling Hub.” buff.ly/37ItgcT

WHAT COULD GO WRONG? www.infodocket.com/2026/01/15/r... Given how accurate AI summaries are (!???) it will be interesting too understand what an “AI-powered learning experience" is.

RESOURCE: GAJET List: Good Academic Journal in Ethical Terms gajetlist.org (counter to Beall's perspective)

Personas of librarians and their response to AI - part 2. This is all tongue in cheek. substack.com/@aarontay/no...

COGNITIVE DISSONANCE? "many of the same professionals who saw opportunities in AI for efficiency and accessibility are deeply worried about its potential to undermine the very foundations of scholarly rigor" scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2026/01/09/a...

JOIN: 3rd of monthly webinar series from UNESCO Regional Office in Jakarta on “Open Science: From the UNESCO Recommendation to Reality in Asia and the Pacific” 22 Jan 2026, 10:00 – 11:30 AM (GMT+7). Title: "From Openness To Impact" Register: unesco-org.zoom.us/meeting/regi...

SIGH: Kitchen Essentials: An Interview with Tanja Niemann of Érudit scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2026/01/07/k... "something that I sometimes find discouraging is the persistent ambivalence of some researchers and administrators when it comes to open access and, more generally, to open science."

FUTURE: Keywords Are Not Dead — But Discovery Is No Longer Just Search scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2026/01/06/k... Rather than disappearing, keywords are increasingly becoming infrastructure — working “under the hood” even when users interact through natural language interfaces.

BLOW THE TRUMPET! katinamagazine.org/content/arti... "while libraries are excellent at promoting collections, workshops, and other internal initiatives, we could be bolder in promoting the library itself as infrastructure essential to today’s civic and academic life"

WE KNOW!! (but good to have it articulated) "The 5 stages of the ‘enshittification’ of academic publishing" theconversation.com/the-5-stages...?

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...

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