As we started this week, many of us celebrated Valentine’s Day recognizing the loves in our life and, perhaps, feeling celebrated ourselves. For others, this same holiday can be one of heartache and defeat as life may not be as satisfying as desired or past loss may weigh heavy on our hearts. Regardless, we as authors can rejoice because Edna Ferber tells us, “Life can’t defeat a writer who is in love with writing, for life itself is a writer’s lover until death.”

If your relationship with your writing needs a little TLC, consider some of the ideas in the articles below to breathe new life into your projects and learn to love again. Happy Writing!

Spotlight On: Meaningfulness Matters

I have been supporting academics with research and writing in some way since 2005. It took several years for my business to evolve into what it is today, but one thing that has remained consistent is my belief that focusing on what matters to you about the work you do is important. Early on I talked about that in terms of loving your work. I’ve now come to think of it in terms of what makes your work meaningful.

Innovating peer review, reconfiguring scholarly communication

In an effort to provide a condensed overview of a sprawling field of activity, we – a group of scholars collaborating in the Research on Research Institute (RoRI) – have recently completed two studies that we hope will be useful to a broad range of readers from across the scholarly publishing ecosystem.

Concluding well, part 1 – the big air problem

Now, big air might be kinda glamorous when you’re an Olympian, but it’s downright dangerous when you’re concluding a thesis or a research report. You can’t just launch yourself into the void. Ending well means that you need to take a couple of big steps forward but you also need to stay grounded. And by that I mean that you can’t lose touch with what you’ve done leading up to your final thesis act. No big air. The conclusion needs to be firmly based in your research, anchored to what went before.

The State of the Version of Record

The “version of record” is an organizing concept in scholarly publishing. It is by reference to that version that others are understood and it is the object of financial models, policies, and recognition and reward systems. At the same time, many of the core functions of academic publishing – in particular, registration and dissemination – are decoupling from the version of record. Scholarly publishers are also expanding their remit to encompass other article versions, as well as other research outputs, and efforts to systematically link together and track these into a “record of versions” are growing. Today, I provide a landscape scan of the state of the “version of record.”

Read & Publish agreements drive significant increase in Open Access research content

Over 400 institutions in 34 countries are now participating in The Company of Biologists’ Read & Publish Open Access initiative. We have signed agreements with library consortia in Australia, Germany, Ireland, Israel, Spain, the UK and the USA. We have also signed a landmark agreement with EIFL (Electronic Information for Libraries) which enables researchers in 30 developing and transition economy countries to publish Open Access articles in our hybrid journals without paying an article processing charge (APC).

Call for Papers: Current and Emergent Issues in Publication Ethics in Scholarly Publishing

The Journal of Scholarly Publishing welcomes submissions for a special issue on evolving issues in publication integrity in scholarly publishing. This special issue of JSP will explore a number of the research and publication integrity issues, which researchers experience in the context of the competitive nature of scholarly publishing, and will also explore safe guards to protect and advance integrity in the research and dissemination of new knowledge.