The Year Ahead: AI in Scholarly Publishing 2024

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The Year Ahead: AI in Scholarly Publishing 2024

For the last year and a half, the media and publishing world have generated a lot of buzz and discussion about one particular disruptive technology—artificial intelligence (AI). Though AI is not new to the publishing ecosystem, the launch of ChatGPT and the increased daily usage of Large Language Models (LLMs) for web research, writing assistance, and idea generation has raised questions (and problems) with how developer OpenAI trained its chatbot, how we are using this tech in our daily and professional lives, and what it all means for the future.

As an industry innovator in the use of AI to automate workflows and one of many entities experimenting with new applications of this technology, KGL is taking this opportunity at the start of the year to boldly forecast where AI will take scholarly publishing and beyond during 2024.

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The Future of Peer Review: an Interview with Jeremy Chapman

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The Future of Peer Review: an Interview with Jeremy Chapman

Second in a series of video interviews with scholarly journal editors

For Peer Review Week, KGL recently interviewed five scholarly journal editors and publishing professionals on the state of peer review in 2023. In this video, KGL Editorial's Mary Todd interviews Jeremy Chapman, Editor-in-Chief of Transplantation and Transplantation Direct on the work of a large editorial board and the processes that impact the work of peer reviewers.

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How to Use Data-Driven Strategies to Increase High-Quality Submissions

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How to Use Data-Driven Strategies to Increase High-Quality Submissions

Last month, customers, friends, and guest speakers from across the globe convened once again for our annual KGL PubFactory Virtual Series. During the course of the three-day event, a packed and topical agenda enabled the scholarly publishing community to share valuable insights, learnings, developments, advice and trends with their peers.

One of the highlights of the Industry Day (day two) program was a fascinating discussion chaired by KGL Senior Consultant, Annette Hager, entitled, Data-Driven Strategies for Increasing High Quality Submissions. This session explored practical ways in which publishers can integrate bibliometric and citation data into their editorial strategies in order to attract both larger volumes of submissions and, perhaps more importantly, higher quality content submissions.

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Getting Real With AI

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Getting Real With AI

During our recent community event, PubFactory Virtual Series: Industry Day, KGL’s Waseem Andrabi, VP of Learning Solutions, presented the different areas where the company is exploring artificial intelligence (AI) in publishing workflows to improve efficiency and reduce errors. Potential applications include content creation, copyediting, plagiarism checks, translations, adaptations, animations, videos, voiceovers, and more.

The session provides insights into the challenges faced, particularly in AI-generated alt text for images where KGL has been testing APIs for over 10 months, with examples that illustrate the evolving capabilities and limitations of AI models. Despite mixed results, Waseem emphasizes the importance of ongoing evaluation and adaptation to leverage AI's potential benefits in various service areas. Watch the recording to learn more.

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The Future of Peer Review: an Interview with Zara Manwaring, Managing Editor at Portland Press

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The Future of Peer Review: an Interview with Zara Manwaring, Managing Editor at Portland Press

For Peer Review Week, KGL interviewed journal editors and publishing experts on the state of peer review in 2023. In this insightful Q&A blog, we share the full interview conducted with Zara Manwaring, Managing Editor at Portland Press, which is the publishing arm of the Biochemical Society. We sat down with Zara to discuss the challenges posed by paper mills on the peer review processes and how the journal, Bioscience Reports, responded to these issues.

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The Future of Peer Review: an Interview with Dr. Leonard Jack, Jr.

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The Future of Peer Review: an Interview with Dr. Leonard Jack, Jr.

First in a series of video interviews with scholarly journal editors

For Peer Review Week, KGL recently interviewed five scholarly journal editors and publishing professionals on the state of peer review in 2023. In this video, KGL Editorial's Amy King interviews Dr. Leonard Jack, Jr., Editor-in-Chief, Preventing Chronic Disease, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and Distinguished Research Consultant, on diversifying the editorial board, training, mentoring, and incentivizing reviewers, and the future of peer review. Watch the full interview below.

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OSTP and Public Access: One Year Later

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OSTP and Public Access: One Year Later

As part of the 2023 KGL PubFactory Virtual Series, on October 11 we hosted Industry Day, a half-day online seminar of insights, discussion, and practical takeaways for the scholarly publishing community. Headlining the event was an informative discussion with KGL’s Cara Rivera and Lisa Janicke Hinchliffe of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Library and Chef at The Scholarly Kitchen on the evolving implications of last year’s US policy memo recommending free and immediate access to all federally funded research.

Cara asked Lisa about implications on APCs, data sharing, sustainability of journal business models, and long-term consequences of OA mandates. The recording of the 30-minute interview can be viewed below.

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Peer Review and the Future of Publishing: Insights from Scholarly Journal Editors

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Peer Review and the Future of Publishing: Insights from Scholarly Journal Editors

by Amy King

KGL Editorial recently interviewed five scholarly journal editors and publishing experts on the unique aspects they consider in their peer review process. These publishing professionals generously shared their experiences in the spirit of Peer Review Week, which both inspires innovation and new initiatives and evokes camaraderie in their common challenges. All five individuals shared at least one unique aspect of their peer review model with us.

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Preview: Three Unmissable Talks at the ACCESSE23 Leadership Conference

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Preview: Three Unmissable Talks at the ACCESSE23 Leadership Conference

Every year, STEM society professionals from all over the world gather at the ACCESSE Leadership Conference, expertly organized and curated by the Council of Engineering and Scientific Scholarly Executives (CESSE).

This month (July 11-13) the ACCESSE23 event heads to Detroit, Michigan, where it will offer attendees the chance to gain new perspectives, develop new ideas and connect with CESSE members and partners.

The KGL team is delighted to be supporting the event as partners, and also to be participating in one of its keynote panel debates. The following are just three of our favorite event highlights from this year’s speaking program.

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Recruiting and Onboarding an Editor-in-Chief: 5 Tips from the Experts

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Recruiting and Onboarding an Editor-in-Chief: 5 Tips from the Experts

Hiring, transitioning and onboarding an Editor-in-Chief is one of the most important yet complex and lengthy processes scholarly journals must undertake. From assembling a recruiting committee and creating checklists to compiling shortlists and evaluation matrixes, the groundwork required alone can take months. But all the hard work is worth it if you want to secure the best possible candidate who meets the criteria of your journal and is aligned with its core values and goals. 

In our recent Successful Recruiting and Onboarding of Your Editor-in-chief  webinar, hosted by KGL Consulting and our very own Lisa Marshall, four experts from across the scholarly journal community gathered to offer their unique perspectives on the topic.

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SSP Preview – PUBLISH NOW: A True One-Stop Content Workflow for Scholarly Associations

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SSP Preview – PUBLISH NOW: A True One-Stop Content Workflow for Scholarly Associations

The marketplace for scholarly publishing has become increasingly difficult to navigate over the last several years. Independent and society publishers have had to cope with evolving business models focusing on new technology, sustainability, Open Access, and more; pressure to increase high-quality submissions; the growing need for speed to publication, particularly with potentially life-saving research; and expectations of a straightforward author and user experience. To remain competitive and to focus on their main task of publishing important content, publishers have had to rely on a variety of external service providers to help with or take on many of these processes.

At the Society for Scholarly Publishing 2023 Annual Meeting, KnowledgeWorks Global Ltd. (KGL), will explore how publishers can maintain truly comprehensive journal workflows while still sustaining publishing independence. 

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What to Make of ChatGPT in Scholarly Communications?

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What to Make of ChatGPT in Scholarly Communications?

No matter what you are reading, watching, or listening to, everyone today is talking about ChatGPT and how it can help our daily lives and, perhaps, even our work. Released in November 2022 by OpenAI, ChatGPT is an Artificial Intelligence chat bot that “interacts in a conversational way” and it can “answer follow-up questions, admit its mistakes, challenge incorrect premises, and reject inappropriate requests.”

ChatGPT was quickly embraced by the world for fun and frivolous purposes, but it has also been used to write press releases, news articles, corporate documents, and even essays and journal articles. Though many industries are jumping to see how this new AI can help their business, there are just as many who are being more cautious. In scholarly publishing, there has been much debate about how this new AI can help our industry. KGL has pulled together a round-up of some of the most recent articles to help you make your own decision about ChatGPT.

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Bias Awareness in Scholarly Publishing

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Bias Awareness in Scholarly Publishing

Earlier this year, we published a report entitled Diversity, Equity and Inclusion in Educational Content: What You Need to Know Now, providing publishers with a starting point and ongoing solutions for how to make their content more representative of the audience engaging with it. 

As publishers and their stakeholders begin to work toward making their content more inclusive, one of the most difficult challenges they face is not recognizing their own implicit biases and how they might impact the quality and reach of their publications. 

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Five Unmissable Event Highlights at LBF 2023

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Five Unmissable Event Highlights at LBF 2023

Running from April 18–20, 2023, the London Book Fair is one of the most important events in the international publishing calendar. This year, organizers are confident that the event will be “back in full force” with global exhibitor and attendee numbers likely to approach pre-pandemic levels and many US attendees returning to the halls of Kensington Olympia following a four-year hiatus.

Despite a paring back of its academic publishing seminar output, LBF still has plenty to offer visitors from all corners of the industry—a bustling program of on-stage panel discussions, interviews and presentations and a neatly programmed day-long scholarly industry conference. As we gear up for the fair, we’ve prepared a short guide to our top event highlights in this year’s seminar program and beyond.

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Tackling Global Social Challenges through Technology

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Tackling Global Social Challenges through Technology

Optimizing Content Delivery to Advance the UN Sustainable Development Goals

The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) have undoubtedly been among the hottest topics on the scholarly publishing agenda since we’ve come out of the pandemic. Although the 17 goals were established back in 2015, the publishing industry’s response to them has certainly accelerated since 2020, when a raft of publishers signed up to the SDG Publishers Compact, affirming their commitment to its 10-point action plan.

At the most recent Charleston Library Conference, KGL PubFactory’s Platform Services Director, Tom Beyer, hosted a lively panel debate which combined the perspectives of several prestigious social science publishers and an open resources librarian, showcasing how they are each adopting new technologies, implementing new initiatives and adapting their content delivery offerings to advance the SDGs and tackle global social challenges.

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What’s Next for KnowledgeWorks Global Ltd. Following the Acquisition of Allen Press? A Q&A with KGL President, Atul Goel

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What’s Next for KnowledgeWorks Global Ltd. Following the Acquisition of Allen Press? A Q&A with KGL President, Atul Goel

This past January, our parent company, CJK Group, Inc., announced the acquisition of Allen Press, the venerable print and publishing services company based in Lawrence, KS. Since that time, the print facility has been renamed Sheridan Kansas under the administration of our sister company; while Allen Press’s considerable range of content services are being integrated into KGL operations as we have welcomed our new Lawrence-based colleagues to our global team.

I sat down recently with KGL President, Atul Goel to find out what’s next for the expanded company, what complementary and new services are being added to the KGL portfolio, and what we can expect during 2023.

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Knowledge Sharing: KGL’s José Fossi Reflects on Another Year of Growth and Opportunity for the PubFactory Community

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Knowledge Sharing: KGL’s José Fossi Reflects on Another Year of Growth and Opportunity for the PubFactory Community

Despite the economic turmoil, war in Ukraine and climate change, our publishing partners and customers could look back on the past year confidently, stepping off the roller coaster ride of the pandemic to enjoy some sense of stability. It was a year of progress and adaptation where the big scholarly publishing trends, such as Open Science, sustainability, and AI, seemed to further entrench themselves in the market.

The KGL PubFactory team enjoyed another positive year with new site launches and renewals, an exciting acquisition by our parent company, some fresh faces and the return of in-person events. We spoke to PubFactory’s co-founder and VP of Client Services, José Fossi, to explore his highlights for the year.

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Publishing Predictions for 2023: CDEI, China, Chatbots, and More

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Publishing Predictions for 2023: CDEI, China, Chatbots, and More

Looking to the year ahead once again, the KGL experts across book and journal publishing, scholarly and education markets, technology and business development, weigh in to highlight some of the industry trends we expect will be prominent in 2023. 

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The World is Yours: Globalization Trends in Scholarly Publishing

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The World is Yours: Globalization Trends in Scholarly Publishing

Globalization is not, by any stretch of the imagination, a new trend. For decades, our world has steadily become more interconnected and, without doubt, this is a pattern that is set to continue long into the future. In scholarly publishing, this pattern is no different. But journal publishers are increasingly noting that globalization is progressively affecting every facet of the business—from editorial and production right through to financial and sales and marketing.

This is why at this year’s KGL PubFactory Virtual Series we dedicated a special session to the topic. Hosted by Kevin Lomangino, KGL’s Director of Consulting, platform customers were led through a fascinating presentation on how globalization is currently impacting scholarly publishing and how journal publishers can best position themselves to capitalize on this trend. The following highlights some of the most striking takeaways from the session.

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(Smoothly) Transitioning to New Publishing Business Models

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(Smoothly) Transitioning to New Publishing Business Models

With all the recent discussion around the US OSTP memo recommending free and immediate access to all federally funded research, we think it’s worthwhile to take a step back to assess the current state of subscription and Open Access business models and review how we got here, before considering how to best navigate this changing landscape. The following article details the history of business model innovation in scholarly journal publishing, from a Trends Talk by KGL Consulting.

For over a hundred years, the business of publishing academic journals has been sustained by the subscription model. It was always an impeccably simple premise: institutions paid, authors authored, publishers published, readers read, institutions renewed, and repeat. The 1970s marked something of a heyday for this model - an era that is often viewed by the industry as some kind of utopia—when the scholarly publishing ecosystem seemed to thrive, with an abundance of journals entering the market, bursting library shelves, institutional agreements aplenty and high renewal rates.

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