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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Knowledge Sharing: KGL’s Vanessa Vaughn Discusses Content Development, DEI, and the Future of K-12 and Higher Education Publishing

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Knowledge Sharing: KGL’s Vanessa Vaughn Discusses Content Development, DEI, and the Future of K-12 and Higher Education Publishing

Earlier this summer, KnowledgeWorks Global Ltd. welcomed Vanessa Vaughn as Senior Director, Content Services in our K-12 and Higher Education group to oversee content development for science and humanities subjects. Vanessa brings to KGL 20 years of experience developing high-quality K-16 content and a deep understanding of changing state and national standards.

Vanessa started her KGL tenure by contributing to the updated edition of our industry report, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in Educational Content: What You Need to Know Now. I sat down with her recently to discuss her new role, content DEI in educational publishing, and how she sees the industry changing in the next five years.

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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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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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The Rise of OER: A Look at Equity and Quality

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The Rise of OER: A Look at Equity and Quality

The spring semester has started and students are back to the classroom. And with this return to the classroom comes some of the debate over the physical and the virtual that has been brewing recently: in-person versus remote classes, print books versus ebooks, and the effectiveness of using Open Educational Resources (OER).

Over the last several years, higher education has witnessed a rise in the use of OER, though adoption plateaued slightly in the 2019-2020 school year as faculty focused more on pivoting their lessons plans to remote learning. As noted in our recent publishing predictions, we expect to see more adoption and creation of OER materials because of the proven value of OER in making higher learning more equitable. Yet while access to materials might become more equitable, adapting to digital instruction can still create a learning divide.

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How Journals Can Improve Gender Diversity in Peer Review

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How Journals Can Improve Gender Diversity in Peer Review

Research increasingly shows how gender affects the peer-review process, and how it doesn’t. For example, some studies indicate that editor gender appears to have some influence over gender diversity among peer reviewers, but gender of authors, editors and reviewers may not necessarily influence which papers are accepted or rejected.

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