Textbook merger and student pushback

The U.S. PIRG group, consumer and antitrust groups, and SPARC are submitting letters to the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) to protest the merger of Cengage and McGraw-Hill, two of the largest textbook publishers.

When Cengage and McGraw Hill announced the merger, the companies claimed it would promote affordability by increasing the use of access codes — where students pay to submit homework online, and automatically bill students for materials. However, due to the lack of other options, the combined company would be able to effectively lock students into paying to submit homework, and eliminate the used book market. 

U.S. PIRG, the federation of state Public Interest Research Groups, and partners submit letters to DOJ opposing Cengage -McGraw Hill merger. July 29, 2019

At UC San Diego, the LMS has been replaced with Canvas, a system embedded with Cengage, and Wiley, among other systems and products. The Wiley name might be familiar as one of the major journal publishers but the company has been moving into product development engaging the entire research lifecycle as we’ve seen with another high-profile publisher. (ongoing data collection of the rent-seeking and financialization of the academic publishing industry.)

It is worth libraries being conscious of the growing role of Edtech in the schools, colleges and universities that they serve. IFLA has produced this briefing to outline the key ethical and security concerns for libraries to consider, and suggest some ways for libraries to promote responsible and ethical use of Edtech.

Educational Technologies and Student Data – Briefing for Libraries, (July 31, 2019) International federation of Library associations and institutions, FAIFE (Committee on Freedom of Access to Information and Freedom of Expression) https://www.ifla.org/publications/node/92339

Contact us if you’d like to develop courses that include #OER and affordable course materials to ensure all of your students have access to the educational materials that you assign. Don’t add to the cost burden that students face! This campus is in a high cost housing area and we have high numbers of transfer students and low-income students. OER have been shown to lead to #studentsuccess #retention.

Make Textbooks Affordable – UCSD PIRG campaign

ORCiD news and research

Due to a new (announced July 10, 2019) NIH Requirement for ORCID iDs for Individuals Supported by Research Training, Fellowship, Research Education, and Career Development Awards Beginning in FY 2020, Scholarly Communication at the UC San Diego Library has received an increasing number requests for training and best practices by our faculty, research centers, and campus administration. UCSD has an institutional membership but we have not yet integrated with our RIM, profile, IR, or ETD submission systems. Contact us for more information or a training.

In other news: Presentations are available from Open Repositories 2019 recently concluded in Hamburg, Germany. Several presentations on ORCiD have been posted:

Some other #OR2019 lectures especially relevant to the UC campuses:

#UCSD workshop on “predatory” publishing

Good Publishing Practices and the Risks of Predatory Publishing workshop is brought to you (all UC San Diego faculty, staff and students) by the UC San Diego Library and the UC San Diego Research Compliance and Integrity Office (RCI) Research Compliance Hot Topics and Training Program.

In this session, you will be introduced to strategies and tools to avoid predatory publishers and conferences and to identify reputable publishing opportunities that are worth your time and resources. Questions? Contact scholcomm [at] ucsd [dot] edu

SLIDES

Date: Wednesday, August 21, 2019
Time:  12:30 pm to 2:00 pm
Location: Leichtag Auditorium, Room 107

Continuing Education Units (CEUs) will be available through the UC Learning Center.  Light refreshments will also be provided.

REGISTRATION (Register by August 19, 2019): 
To register, please click UC Learning Center for a direct link to the session registration.  Select Register in the dropdown menu.  Select Add and click Submit in the lower right corner of the page. You will receive an email registration confirmation. 

Image credit: Little Red Riding Hood by Luis Prado from the Noun Project