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And Sometime We Play Games
Reflections on "The Publishing Trap”

Our work at Ithaka S+R, such as through surveys of faculty and graduate students and targeted qualitative studies of scholars by discipline, has consistently uncovered scholars’ ambivalence to recent shifts in the scholarly communications landscape. While disciplinary publishing cultures vary, many of the ambivalences scholars report are held in common. For example, scholars in many fields struggle with choices around publishing in open access journals and making information available in institutional repositories, they often can’t secure funding for pursuing gold open access, and they express confusion around what academic social networking is and how it relates to other mechanisms for…

A New Project on Indigenous Studies Scholars

I would like to begin by acknowledging the Lenape, the traditional caretakers of the land on which Ithaka S+R is located. Today, Manhattan (from the Lenape word Manahatta) is still the home to many Indigenous peoples from across Turtle Island and beyond. I am grateful for the opportunity to work for Ithaka S+R on this land.[1] Here at Ithaka S+R, we have developed a certain kind of expertise in scholars’ information activities, both through our triennial U.S. faculty survey and through our in-depth studies on research activities of scholars by their disciplines. This work has been the basis for exploring…

Will Devoting Funds to Excelsior Help Students?

Free tuition at all public institutions in a state sounds great. Such a message could encourage students to attend college who would otherwise think it unaffordable, and/or could help students to stay in college.  However, given the particular policies associated with New York’s Excelsior Scholarship, what the future holds for Excelsior Scholarship recipients may not be all positive. Due to these potential negative consequences, New York State’s funds for this program could be better spent expanding existing services and programs that research has shown work well for low-income and first-generation students at New York’s public colleges. Here are some examples…

Re-Thinking the Case for Free College

I’m all about college opportunity and success and love the idea of swinging the doors wide open. At first I was taken aback, to put it mildly, by the notion of “free college,” but my thoughts are evolving. The idea may be worthwhile for what it’s doing to galvanize public attention to higher education finance. Whether it is viable public policy, from a practical political standpoint or a social equity perspective, however, depends on our willingness to look at the wider tax system. My starting point has always been to target social programs and precious tax resources as precisely as…

The American Talent Initiative’s Fall 2017 Data Working Group Meeting

In early October, the American Talent Initiative hosted main points of contact from member institutions in Washington, DC, for a Strategic Support Meeting, sharing research and connecting members around promising strategies for enhancing access and success for lower-income students. Later in the month, the American Talent Initiative held another convening, also in Washington DC, for the institutional research contacts of ATI member institutions. The meeting, run by Ithaka S+R and The Aspen Institute, had three primary goals: 1) to deepen relationships and form networks in order to generate momentum for our shared efforts to expand access and opportunity, 2) for…