HIGHLIGHTS OF 2024
Co-chairing the Peer Review Innovations workshops at the Researcher to Reader conference in London last February, and having our review published in the June 2024 edition of CSE’s Science Editor, was a real highlight. I am delighted to be collaborating with same team of Tony Alves, Alice Ellingham, Elisabeth Hay and Chris Leonard to deliver a follow-up workshop at the 2025 Researcher to Reader conference.
The CSE and ISMTE annual meetings were a great opportunity to engage with peer review managers, journal managers and editors at the forefront of scholarly publishing. My thanks to ISMTE for the opportunity to participate in the Innovations panel, where Kriyadocs was (very) narrowly pipped to top spot in the snap audience poll. Congratulations to Mary Miskin of Charlesworth on winning the coveted capybara toy!
The aim of the Publisherspeak ‘unconferences’, sponsored by Kriyadocs and taking place each year in Washington DC and London, is to deliver something a little different to the regular industry events in the calendar. It has been a real pleasure to be involved in the curation and delivery of these events. The exchange of ideas between industry colleagues in the workshop groups is always informative and enjoyable; whilst the fresh perspectives provided by keynote speakers from outside scholarly publishing – notably this year from Carlos Alvarez-Aranyos just ahead of the US election – are always insightful and at times sobering!
One of the most fulfilling experiences of 2024 has been the opportunity to participate in the ALPSP Mentorship Scheme as a mentor. The insights I have gained from my brilliant mentee, as well as the opportunity to provide advice and act as a sounding board for ideas, have been terrific. So much so, we will be continuing our mentorship relationship into 2025!
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THE AI GENIE
AI has been the overwhelming theme of the year, culminating in the STM Frankfurt Conference in October dedicating its entire programme to the theme, and an AI-dominated couple of days on innovations and integrity organised by STM in London in early December.
The genie is out of the bottle. Stating the obvious, AI is not going to be un-invented and it is here to stay. The scholarly communications community needs to decide whether to resist or embrace AI in its various forms and use cases.
There seems to be a spectrum of views across the industry towards AI and Generative AI in particular. From zero tolerance of Generative AI in the authorship and peer review process; an acceptance that AI technologies can provide valuable support to publishers by automating checks on submitted research at scale around areas such as integrity risks, language quality and technical compliance; a willingness to accept Generative AI as tool to support authorship and (in some cases) the process of finessing peer reviews; through to a no-holds barred, full embrace of Generative AI to write the narrative elements of research (and to write its peer review), perhaps with a focus on research objects (such as research data and methods) as the definitive essence of the published work.
Some publishers, particularly those operating at scale in terms of submissions and content output, are (rightly) regarding AI-powered support tools as a means of helping to manage content quality; some see Generative AI as a means of democratizing the process of authorship, and being able to accept a higher number of submissions from a more globally diverse pool of authors.
Other publishers, perhaps those with traditionally prestigious journal brands and those in the society space working at lower submission volumes, are conversely more likely to regard Generative AI as a threat to research quality and to their brand.
All this being said, there seems to be broad recognition that we still need to keep humans in the loop, be it for instilling confidence in processes or to deliver an effective screening process. A number of publishers have bolstered their teams of research ethics staff over the last year or so, after previous integrity issues. And most research integrity specialists still seem to be saying that AI tools are an aid to detection, particularly at scale, rather than a complete replacement for human expertise.
The use of Generative AI is rapidly becoming the norm across society and industry. It struck me that when notable industry figures were asked at various conference panels to share whether or not they use Generative AI tools, most typically said yes, albeit some with a sense of mild embarrassment!
If Generative AI is the new normal, particularly for a younger generation of researchers and scholars, isn’t the real consideration here whether the industry chooses to positively influence (or even curate) the LLMs being used for these tools? Or to go a step further, and provide ‘safe’ Generative AI tools and authoring environments for the scholarly communications community to adopt as the norm? As I said, the AI genie is already out of the bottle.
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THE INDUSTRY LANDSCAPE
Continuing and relentless consolidation
The larger commercial publishers continue to acquire smaller commercial operators to bolster their portfolios and increase volume, to attract society publishers struggling with resources and budgets, and in some cases entering large-scale mergers with their near competitors (De Gruyter with Brill, and Sage acquiring Mary Ann Liebert, for instance). On the technology side of things, the most eye-catching and potentially consequential move of the year was Silverchair’s purchase of ScholarOne.
New players and changing dynamics in the technology space
I think it has been apparent for a while now that the scholarly publishing industry is at an inflection point in terms its openness to new technology options and new technology providers coming into the workflows management space. Anecdotally, I also sense a growing impatience on the part of scholarly publishing leaders with their legacy software systems. These ‘first-generation’ platforms have undoubtedly transformed publishing processes over the last quarter of a century, and they should be lauded for this; but are they becoming increasingly less fit for purpose as user expectations evolve and pain points change? Perhaps new ownership or renewed investment in these legacy systems may change this situation.
Camaraderie
The technology space in scholarly publishing is increasingly competitive. Some technology vendors have made major acquisitions during 2024 to extend the scope of their offering to the scholarly publishing community; others are investing in creating new tools and technologies. But whenever we come together at an industry event, the atmosphere is always friendly and collegiate – even though we are often competing for the same customers in the same space. This industry is full of good, smart, well-intentioned, friendly people – long may this continue!
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GRATITUDE AND OPTIMISM
From my perspective as Growth Director with Kriyadocs, a technology business which has been a trusted partner to scholarly publishers for over 20 years for production workflows, and which has more recently extended its platform capabilities into peer review and pre-submission author support tools, a spirit of open-mindedness and a sense of camaraderie has been self-evident in my conversations with scholarly publishers, integration partners and our competitors throughout 2024.
Whether or not a scholarly publisher chooses to work with Kriyadocs as its technology partner, there is a near universal willingness to have open, substantive conversations about their workflow requirements, their pain points, their strategic goals and the transformative potential of new platform innovations. On the vendor side of things, as competitors we often find ourselves working as collaborators to provide optimised solutions for the community. This has to be a good thing!
For this level of openness and engagement, I for one would like to say I am hugely grateful and energised by what the next year will bring. As for 2024, this has been one of the most fulfilling and enjoyable years of my (increasingly long) career!
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LOOKING AHEAD… A NEW YEAR DETOX
As X/Twitter dissolved into a toxic, algorithmic swamp, I joined the industry migration across to Bluesky. The experience so far has been largely positive, although I was stunned by a somewhat toxic exchange with one venerable academic in response to my posts on the STM Innovation and Integrity Days in December.
I won’t name the individual, safe to say they are a very vocal online critic of commercial scholarly publishing as an industrial complex, which they maintain exists solely for the purposes of profit and which, as such, has no interest or incentive to address threats to research integrity. I know from my engagement over many years with scholarly publishers, both commercial and society in nature, that at an operational level this assertion is simply not true. And the fallout from the Hindawi mass retractions incident in 2023 showed the impact on even the largest commercial scholarly publishers. My attempts to present a balanced response to these comments were met with a blind refusal by my online critic to engage on the substance of the topic. It was like shouting into a void… just like the good old days on X!
Scholarly publishing is not without its systemic challenges. Yes, there are perverse incentives at play in scholarly publishing which foster malpractice, especially for researchers operating in a ‘publish or perish’ climate in some geographies. Yes, there are inequities in how researchers globally can publish and access research. Yes, there are justifiable questions to ask about the value delivered by some of the highest APCs. But on all of these topics, and others, let’s hope for a more nuanced and civilised debate in 2025 than much of what we see online, including my own Bluesky non-debate.
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AND FINALLY…
As we reach the end of 2024, I would like to wish all the very best for the holidays and for the year ahead to everyone! Stay curious, try to keep an open mind and, as we start the merry-go-round of conferences again next month, travel safe.
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