From: Diane Scott-Lichter <[log in to unmask]> Date: Mon, 30 Sep 2013 22:02:12 -0400 Gamification – the new name of the game?.. Latest issue of Learned Publishing now out www.learned-publishing.org Gamification – an ugly word for an interesting take on an old issue – how to engage your membership or readership in a meaningful way. According to David Armstrong, we’ve moved on from loyalty cards and prizes to things which the member might really value – something which they perceive as enhancing their own status or stature – almost an internal metric, if you will – let’s invent a new word -- ‘intmetrics’ (don’t think it will catch on, do you?). You’ll have to read the article to find out more. Then Dave Nicholas and David Clark of CIBER have a study which looks at two topics which are increasingly part of our information world – use of a database by both scholars and the public, and how access via mobiles is changing things. They do this on the massive database Europeana – with implications for many other fields, I would think. These days we always have one or two articles on China, and often they seem to be increasingly critical of how things are organized –Lu Jian Ping decries the fact that policies on technical and ethical standards have not, so far, been followed up by action, and Songqing Lin explains how the legacy ‘approval system’ for new journals can almost cripple them before they start. Want to know how Rubriq, a pioneering (they hope) system for peer review before submission, works and is organized? Laura Stemmle and Keith Collier, the founders, tell you in quite a detailed way. Will CHORUS get everyone singing from the same song sheet? My distinguished co-editor, Diane Scott-Lichter does a very informative editorial explaining not only what it is, but also how it compares with the ideas for SHARE and other offerings. I tried, and failed, to think of witty references to A Chorus Line, in or out of tune, all working in harmony – or not, etc. Also on access (which is what Chorus is about, in case you didn’t know), we have a very timely research article from Stephen Pinfield surveying the state of medical funding agencies’ policies on Open Access – not surprisingly, they are not all yet up-to-speed, or fully developed, at least. This article is itself Open Access, so you can read it even if you are not a member nor subscriber. Peter Froehlich has an opinion piece suggesting what we might learn from some general principles about spotting what’s coming next in scholarly publishing. And on books , we have pieces by Jane Tappuni on the influence of online communities on bookselling, and Alison Baverstock follows up her previous piece on self-publishing, looking this time at what satisfaction it can provide (for the authors, that is!) – interesting to think whether general trends here will spill over into scholarly publishing per se. Hope you like the issue - See you in three months. Alan Singleton Editor-in-Chief Learned Publishing [log in to unmask] --------------------------------- Learned Publishing Volume 26 No 4 October 2013 www.learned-publishing.org All articles are free to all ALPSP and SSP members and to journal subscribers; in addition, editorials, reviews and letters to the Editors, as well as any articles where the author has taken up the 'ALPSP Author Choice' OA option, are now free to all. If you would like to receive an email alert or RSS feed every time a new issue goes online, all you have to do is sign up at http://alpsp.publisher.ingentaconnect.com/content/alpsp/lp ALPSP members - please log in to the ALPSP website to access the full content. SSP members - please log in to the member center on the SSP website to access the full content.