[GOAL] {Disarmed} Fwd: Message from Mike Jensen, SSRN Chairman

[Bo-Christer Björk]

This is an interesting news item which should interest the readers of 
this list. Let's hope arXiv is not for sale.

Bo-Christer Björk



-------- Forwarded Message --------
Subject: 	Message from Mike Jensen, SSRN Chairman
Date: 	Tue, 17 May 2016 07:40:29 -0400 (EDT)
From: 	Michael C. Jensen <admin at ssrn.com>
Reply-To: 	support at ssrn.com
To: 	bo-christer.bjork at hanken.fi



<http://hq.ssrn.com/GroupProcesses/RedirectClick.cfm?partid=2338421&corid=4024&runid=15740&url=http://www.ssrn.com> 
	


Dear SSRN Authors,

SSRN announced today that it has changed ownership. SSRN is joining 
Mendeley <https://www.mendeley.com/?signout> and Elsevier 
<https://www.elsevier.com> to coordinate our development and delivery of 
new products and services, and we look forward to our new access to 
data, products, and additional resources that this change facilitates. 
(See Gregg Gordon’s Elsevier Connect 
<https://www.elsevier.com/connect/ssrn-the-leading-social-science-and-humanities-repository-and-online-community-joins-elsevier> 
post)

Like SSRN, Mendeley and Elsevier are focused on creating tools that 
enhance researcher workflow and productivity. SSRN has been at the 
forefront of on-line sharing of working papers. We are committed to 
continue our innovation and this change will enable that to happen more 
quickly. SSRN will benefit from access to the vast new data and 
resources available, including Mendeley’s reference management and 
personal library management tools, their new researcher profile 
capabilities, and social networking features. Importantly, we will also 
have new access for SSRN members to authoritative performance 
measurement tools such as those powered by Scopus 
<https://www.elsevier.com/solutions/scopus> and Newsflo 
<http://hq.ssrn.com/GroupProcesses/RedirectClick.cfm?partid=2338421&corid=4024&runid=15740&url=http://www.newsflo.net> 
(a global media tracking tool). In addition, SSRN, Mendeley and Elsevier 
together can cooperatively build bridges to close the divide between the 
previously separate worlds and workflows of working papers and published 
papers.

We realize that this change may create some concerns about the 
intentions of a legacy publisher acquiring an open-access working paper 
repository. I shared this concern. But after much discussion about this 
matter and others in determining if Mendeley and Elsevier would be a 
good home for SSRN, I am convinced that they would be good stewards of 
our mission. And our copyright policies are not in conflict -- our 
policy has always been to host only papers that do not infringe on 
copyrights. I expect we will have some conflicts as we align our 
interests, but I believe those will be surmountable.

Until recently I was convinced that the SSRN community was best served 
being a stand-alone entity. But in evaluating our future in the evolving 
landscape, I came to believe that SSRN would benefit from being more 
interconnected and with the resources available from a larger 
organization. For example, there is scale in systems administration and 
security, and SSRN can provide more value to users with access to more 
data and resources.

On a personal note, it has been an honor to be involved over the past 25 
years in the founding and growth of the SSRN website and the incredible 
community of authors, researchers and institutions that has made this 
all possible. I consider it one of my great accomplishments in life. The 
community would not have been successful without the commitment of so 
many of you who have contributed in so many ways. I am proud of the 
community we have created, and I invite you to continue your involvement 
and support in this effort.

The staff at SSRN are all staying (including Gregg Gordon, CEO and 
myself), the Rochester office is still in place, it will still be free 
to upload and download papers, and we remain committed to “Tomorrow’s 
Research Today”. I look forward to and am committed to a successful 
transition and to another great 25 years for the SSRN community that 
rivals the first.

Michael C. Jensen
Founder & Chairman, SSRN



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