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Political Quarterly @politicalquarterly.bsky.social · 10d

There have likely been 10,000 or more university redundancies in the academic year 2024-25.

@gsoh31.bsky.social, Professor of Modern and Contemporary History at Oxford Brookes, argues that the Higher Education system as we know it is coming to an end.

Where now for Britain’s Universities?

UK higher education now faces a very bleak future, retreating in the face of little public sympathy and limited political interest.

politicalquarterly.org.uk

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Academic Publishing News @acadpubnews.bsky.social · 2d

VitalSource issue "best practice" advice on Equitable Access for Textbook Publishers suggesting that "misaligned practices" (e.g. bypassing faculty) "create compliance risks and jeopardize the credibility of affordability models"

At VitalSource, we value your commitment to providing high-quality content to faculty and students. As we continue to expand Equitable Access (EA) programs, it is important to reinforce best practices for content adoption to ensure transparency, compliance, and trust across all stakeholders.

Key Policy Reminder
Publisher adoptions must be initiated directly by faculty. Neither VitalSource, Barnes & Noble, nor any other channel partner may substitute, override, or assume faculty decisions on course content. It is the publisher’s responsibility to work with faculty to secure adoptions.

What This Means in Practice
• Publishers cannot add or substitute content into EA programs without explicit faculty adoption.
• EA programs are not an avenue for publishers to add incremental content, resulting in increased store fees, without faculty engagement.
• For avoidance of doubt, all content decisions and changes – in both EA and IA programs – must begin with the faculty and follow established adoption processes.
• Some schools have additional policies that publishers must follow. These policies may include but are not limited to: Dean / Curriculum-level approval on adoption changes; approval for mid-year adoption changes; adoption around optional materials.
Why This Matters
VitalSource is seeing growing scrutiny of EA programs by institutions, faculty, and students. Misaligned practices—such as bypassing faculty or suggesting content can be added without cost impact—create compliance risks and jeopardize the credibility of affordability models. Recently, institutions have taken decisive action against vendors for practices perceived as misleading, and we want to ensure our partnerships remain aligned with faculty trust and institutional expectations.

Next Steps
Please review your current adoption practices with your teams and confirm that your processes support faculty-led decision making. If you have questions about this guidance or need clarification on what is

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Research Professional News @resprofnews.bsky.social · 2d

Over 15,000 university job cuts made in the last year, UCU claims.

“This analysis exposes a UK-wide crisis in higher education,” said Jo Grady, the union’s general secretary.

Free to read: www.researchprofessionalnews.com/rr-news-uk-u...

Over 15,000 university job cuts made in the last year, UCU claims - Research Professional News

Union urges government to “stop looking the other way”, ahead of ballot for nationwide strikes

www.researchprofessionalnews.com

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Academic Publishing News @acadpubnews.bsky.social · 2d

Sage focus on "Content First" strategy as they offload their library platform (Talis) to Kortext ("a key provider of library solutions") www.sagepub.com/explore-our-...

Kortext Acquires Talis from Sage, Advancing Library Workflow Solutions

Kortext, a global leader in digital content, library, and learning solutions, has acquired Talis—a platform that bridges the library’s resources with academic curricula—from Sage, a leading independen...

www.sagepub.com

Academic Publishing News @acadpubnews.bsky.social · 2d

If you are a librarian, teacher, educator, parent, local politician, or activist who is aware of systemic efforts to ban books, censor curricula, defund libraries, or otherwise attack educational freedom, please let us know..." www.404media.co/help-us-inve...

Help Us Investigate Book Bans and Educational Censorship Around America

404 Media has gotten a grant to unearth public records about systematic censorship of books, schools, and libraries in the U.S.

www.404media.co

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Academic Publishing News @acadpubnews.bsky.social · 2d

Wiley's global survey of researchers finds more of them using the tech than ever, and fewer convinced it's up to the job. www.theregister.com/2025/10/08/m...

AI gets more 'meh' the more you use it, researchers find

: Most scientists now use the tech in their work, but still question its usefulness

www.theregister.com

Academic Publishing News @acadpubnews.bsky.social · 4d

New business model announced by @aip.bsky.social, which looks like a spin on a "Read & Publish" offer publishing.aip.org/about/news/a...

AIP Publishing Launches Pilot of AIP Fusion: A New Model for Open Science in the Physical Sciences - AIP Publishing LLC

Melville, NY – October 6, 2025 – AIP Publishing (AIPP), a not-for-profit publisher serving the global physical sciences community, today announced the launch of AIP Fusion, a […]

publishing.aip.org

Academic Publishing News @acadpubnews.bsky.social · 4d

Amazon circling library market https://share.google/87XRyKtz1Vu4YgSMN

Amazon Business Launches Online Library Hub, Discounted Books for Libraries

Amazon Business—the division of the online retailer that provides procurement services for businesses and institutions—this summer introduced a new online hub designed for libraries. The hub offers of...

share.google

Academic Publishing News @acadpubnews.bsky.social · 4d

Reddit thread including insights from a selection of those who have lost their jobs as Baker & Taylor goes under
https://www.reddit.com/r/Libraries/s/08hx6Eddal

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Academic Publishing News @acadpubnews.bsky.social · 4d

US library wholesaler Baker & Taylor
has laid off over 500 employees and plans to wind down the business by January 💔 https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/publisher-news/article/98777-baker-taylor-prepares-plan-to-shut-down.html

Baker & Taylor Prepares Plan to Shut Down

At a town hall yesterday, B&T owner and CEO Aman Kochar announced that following the termination of the ReaderLink acquisition deal, he does not see a path to keep the library wholesaler in business.

www.publishersweekly.com

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Olivia Guest · Ολίβια Γκεστ @olivia.science · Sep 6

Finally! 🤩 Our position piece: Against the Uncritical Adoption of 'AI' Technologies in Academia:
doi.org/10.5281/zeno...

We unpick the tech industry’s marketing, hype, & harm; and we argue for safeguarding higher education, critical
thinking, expertise, academic freedom, & scientific integrity.
1/n

Abstract: Under the banner of progress, products have been uncritically adopted or
even imposed on users — in past centuries with tobacco and combustion engines, and in
the 21st with social media. For these collective blunders, we now regret our involvement or
apathy as scientists, and society struggles to put the genie back in the bottle. Currently, we
are similarly entangled with artificial intelligence (AI) technology. For example, software updates are rolled out seamlessly and non-consensually, Microsoft Office is bundled with chatbots, and we, our students, and our employers have had no say, as it is not
considered a valid position to reject AI technologies in our teaching and research. This
is why in June 2025, we co-authored an Open Letter calling on our employers to reverse
and rethink their stance on uncritically adopting AI technologies. In this position piece,
we expound on why universities must take their role seriously toa) counter the technology
industry’s marketing, hype, and harm; and to b) safeguard higher education, critical
thinking, expertise, academic freedom, and scientific integrity. We include pointers to
relevant work to further inform our colleagues.

Figure 1. A cartoon set theoretic view on various terms (see Table 1) used when discussing the superset AI
(black outline, hatched background): LLMs are in orange; ANNs are in magenta; generative models are
in blue; and finally, chatbots are in green. Where these intersect, the colours reflect that, e.g. generative adversarial network (GAN) and Boltzmann machine (BM) models are in the purple subset because they are
both generative and ANNs. In the case of proprietary closed source models, e.g. OpenAI’s ChatGPT and
Apple’s Siri, we cannot verify their implementation and so academics can only make educated guesses (cf.
Dingemanse 2025). Undefined terms used above: BERT (Devlin et al. 2019); AlexNet (Krizhevsky et al.
2017); A.L.I.C.E. (Wallace 2009); ELIZA (Weizenbaum 1966); Jabberwacky (Twist 2003); linear discriminant analysis (LDA); quadratic discriminant analysis (QDA).

Table 1. Below some of the typical terminological disarray is untangled. Importantly, none of these terms
are orthogonal nor do they exclusively pick out the types of products we may wish to critique or proscribe.

Protecting the Ecosystem of Human Knowledge: Five Principles

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Academic Publishing News @acadpubnews.bsky.social · 5d

Wiley update their publishing platform to add new AI features around article transfer, peer review portability and streamlined article resubmission newsroom.wiley.com/press-releas...

Wiley Advances Research Exchange Platform with AI-Driven Automation, Streamlining Article Placement and Publication

AI-enhanced transfers and portable peer review capabilities mark significant step toward frictionless scholarly publishing HOBOKEN, N.J., September 25, 2025 – Wiley (NYSE: WLY), a global leader in aut...

newsroom.wiley.com

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Bryan Alexander @edufuturist.bsky.social · 6d

Here's the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) statement on Trump's proposed "Compact" for higher ed:

www.acls.org/news/acls-st...

ACLS Statement Regarding White House “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education”

ACLS stands firmly against this latest White House effort to divide faculties by giving special privileges to students in “hard science programs” and its demand that institutions abolish “units that p...

www.acls.org

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Academic Publishing News @acadpubnews.bsky.social · 6d

New Fund launched by @brisunipress.bsky.social to support Global South scholars and Early Career Researchers www.alpsp.org/news-publica...

Bristol University Press Launches Global Social Challenges Development Fund to Tackle Inequity in Academic Publishing

Bristol University Press has launched the Global Social Challenges Development Fund to support marginalised voices in academic publishing and make vital rese...

www.alpsp.org

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Jo Wolff @jowolff.bsky.social · 7d

I wouldn’t normally endorse AI prompts but these are indeed essential for all academics.

profserious @profserious.bsky.social · 7d

Here are your 10 -essential- AI prompts for academics ... make your life easy with help from @profserious.bsky.social profserious.substack.com/p/10-ai-prom...

10 AI Prompts for Academics

making those hard jobs a little easier ...

profserious.substack.com

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Ben Williamson @benpatrickwill.bsky.social · 9d

The situation with Blackboard - now its owner is bankrupt and it's coming under new private equity ownership and control - is serious enough the UK agency for HE tech is advising all affected universities to seek assurances regarding data security inspiringlearning.jiscinvolve.org/wp/2025/10/s...

Data protection (UK GDPR)
Obtain confirmation that Anthology will continue to meet its UK GDPR Article 28 obligations as your data processor throughout the process.
Get clarification of sub processor stability (no changes planned; if changes are anticipated, please provide advance notice and details).
Confirm that no organisational changes arising from the restructuring will alter how your personal data is accessed, processed, or transferred; if any changes are envisaged, please outline controls, locations, and safeguards.

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Academic Publishing News @acadpubnews.bsky.social · 9d

"It is inevitable that courses already exist where AI is used to both teach and complete a course: a paradox that complicates the roles of both instructor and student in the age of AI." @hnetbookchannel.bsky.social networks.h-net.org/group/discus...

AI Literacy: Using Traditional Literacy Models for AI in the Humanities | H-Net

A guest post from

networks.h-net.org

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Academic Publishing News @acadpubnews.bsky.social · 10d

ReaderLink and Baker & Taylor announced they have “mutually” agreed to call off the proposed acquisition of the latter by the former - seemingly owing to legacy debts www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/...

ReaderLink, B&T Call Off Deal

In a joint statement issued Friday afternoon, ReaderLink and Baker & Taylor announced they have “mutually” agreed to terminate ReaderLink’s proposed acquisition of the troubled library wholesaler.

www.publishersweekly.com

Academic Publishing News @acadpubnews.bsky.social · 10d

On EU Deforestation Regulation "punishes POD printing" which is now bog standard practice in academic publishing... scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2025/09/25/g...

Guest Post — If a Tree Falls with Nobody Around to Record its Exact Location, Was it Even Compliant? - The Scholarly Kitchen

The EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR) could make millions of books illegal in Europe, forcing publishers to pulp stock and raising costs for readers.

scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org

Academic Publishing News @acadpubnews.bsky.social · 10d

De Gruyter Brill will significantly expand its Subscribe to Open (S2O) program, by transitioning 66 additional journals to open access. www.degruyterbrill.com/publishing/a...

66 more journals available via S2O | De Gruyter Brill

De Gruyter Brill | Over 300 years of publishing excellence

www.degruyterbrill.com

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Ben Williamson @benpatrickwill.bsky.social · 11d

If your institution requires you to use Blackboard for teaching (like me), be aware its parent company is broke and it's getting new private equity owners whose plans for the platform, and how they'll capitalize on it, remain unknown (bet it includes "AI") onedtech.philhillaa.com/p/anthology-...

What This Means for the LMS and EdTech Markets

For campus leaders: Blackboard will continue operating through the case, but the ownership and investment thesis behind the LMS are changing. This could affect long-term product direction and stability.

For EdTech executives: This is a textbook example of distressed-debt control in our sector. It shows how private equity cycles, first driving aggressive expansion, now dictating asset sales, reshape vendor landscapes.

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Academic Publishing News @acadpubnews.bsky.social · 11d

"For authors, we’re seeing AI-powered workflows that can extract metadata automatically, making submission faster and more accurate." On Wiley's "digital first" journals processes scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2025/10/01/i...

Is Digital-first Publishing Finally a Reality? An Interview with Liz Ferguson of Wiley - The Scholarly Kitchen

We're finally seeing a move to truly digital-first publishing systems and in today's post Alice Meadows interviews Liz Ferguson of Wiley about this transition, including their own Research Exchange pl...

scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org

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Academic Publishing News @acadpubnews.bsky.social · 11d

"The US government's actions ... represent an unprecedented, voluntary dismantling of the US as a global education, research, and innovation superpower." www.scholarsatrisk.org/resources/fr...

Free to Think 2025 | Scholars at Risk

Free to Think 2025 is the eleventh installment of an annual report by SAR’s Academic Freedom Monitoring Project, and analyzes 395 attacks on higher education communities around the world.

www.scholarsatrisk.org

Academic Publishing News @acadpubnews.bsky.social · 11d

A federal judge has ruled that the Trump administration’s detentions of pro-Palestinian campus protesters violates the First Amendment rights of foreign students and scholars.

www.chronicle.com/article/stud...

Attempt to Deport Protesters Violates Foreign Students and Scholars’ Speech Rights, Judge Rules

A federal judge has ruled that the Trump administration’s detentions of pro-Palestinian campus protesters violates the First Amendment rights of foreign students and scholars.

www.chronicle.com

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Academic Publishing News @acadpubnews.bsky.social · 11d

Emerald is trialling a new peer review pilot designed to support neurodivergent authors, editors, and reviewers https://www.emeraldgrouppublishing.com/opinion-and-blog/support-neurodiverse-researchers-peer-review-pilot

Support Neurodiverse Researchers - Peer Review Pilot

www.emeraldgrouppublishing.com