How Publishers Can Put AI to Use in the Pandemic
/by KnowledgeWorks Global Ltd.
Earlier in the year we predicted how artificial intelligence could impact the industry in 2020—with AI applications being created and perfected to increase discoverability, improve user experience, automate tedious clerical work, analyze trends, and expand the peer review pool. We also noted that publishers were beginning to feel less tentative about adopting these solutions into their workflows. At the time, we could not have imagined that a global pandemic would disrupt the industry and society in the way that it has. So in light of recent events, we wanted to revisit a few ways this technology can immediately be used to assist researchers, publishers, and the wider world.
Streamline workflows when staff may not be available
Many publishers are adopting AI solutions to speed up editorial and production processes. As teams are now distributed, experiencing bandwidth issues, or taking time off due to illness, platforms such as Cenveo’s Smart Suite enable automation of language quality analysis and copyediting. Publishers are outsourcing more content operations and relying on AI to improve editorial quality, speed up workflows, and decrease manual effort at a time when everyone is struggling to complete projects or fast-track important research.
Verify research, reports, and symptoms from around the world
One of the challenges with COVID-19 is that scientists and medical professionals know so little about the virus, how humans contract it, how to protect oneself, and what medications or treatments show the most promise. Because of that, there have been a number of studies circulated without the usual peer review and follow-up in an effort to get life-saving information out there as quickly as possible. One such example occurred in March, when the health minister of France tweeted that patients with COVID-19 should not take ibuprofen because it worsened symptoms. His tweet appears to have been sparked by a letter in the prestigious journal, The Lancet. While the statement by the health minister puzzled the World Health Organization who had not heard of any research on that subject and they quickly refuted it, the information had already spread throughout the world and the public was scared away from using the common painkiller. Scite, a platform for discovering and evaluating scientific research that we have previously referenced, has been using deep learning to contextualize COVID-19 citations to better understand and validate the ever-increasing volume of literature.
Compile a guide of vital research for medical professionals
A year ago Springer Nature announced the creation of Beta Writer, an algorithm which “wrote” its first machine-generated book. Beta Writer surfaced all relevant articles on the selected subject so that researchers looking for information could find it all in one place. As more and more articles are being published on COVID-19 illustrating how to diagnose, how it spreads, prevention, and developing a cure, Beta Writer or another algorithm represent AI solutions available today to supplement or even replace human curation of a collection of journal findings providing key insights and new directions for research.
As we have also covered previously, AI is not a silver bullet without challenges for publishers. But given the times we are in, AI emerges as one of the key advances in publishing technology that can be wielded to understand the spread, facilitate treatment, and ultimately, develop a vaccine for the novel coronavirus.
KnowledgeWorks Global Ltd. (formerly Cenveo Publisher Services) is the industry leader in editorial and production services for every stage of the content lifecycle. We are your source for intelligent automation, high-speed publishing, accessibility compliance, digital learning solutions and more. Email us at info@kwglobal.com.
