5 Wins for Science in a Chaotic Year

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5 Wins for Science in a Chaotic Year

The past year has been eventful—to say the least—in the world of scientific research and academic publishing. Near constant crises, from the global pandemic to revelations about climate change to a turbulent presidential election all touched our daily lives and became the subjects of influential, fast-tracked journal articles. While much attention has been paid to an unfortunate proliferation of fake science due to current events, including our own previous blog post; peer-reviewed journals have persisted to make a positive and measurable impact, informing critical decisions about government, education, healthcare, and more. As a key partner in the scholarly information chain, we at KGL want to take a moment to spotlight some of the top (real) science stories since 2020 and how they have made an actual difference in our lives.

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5 Books for Thwarting Fake News, Deliberate Bias, and Flawed Research

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5 Books for Thwarting Fake News, Deliberate Bias, and Flawed Research

Much has been written in the past year about the phenomenon of fake news and falsified research infiltrating the mainstream and muddying important issues from vaccine effectiveness to voting irregularities to basic trust in science—including advice from the Washington Post just this week. In our sector, there have been attempts to trace the history and help the scholarly community come to grips with the rise in junk science. We at KGL have blogged recently how publishers can rely on industry partners, whether by helping manage the peer review process or streamlining production, to both publish critical research faster in a time of need while maintaining faith in the process.

For clearer understanding of the overall problem, we decided to dig deeper into the literature to uncover several works that can help discern what information can be trusted. Here are five books—from recent backlist to new releases, trade to academic—that can help both content providers and the public at large to be more savvy reporters and consumers of knowledge.

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Maintaining Trust in Academic Publishing

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Maintaining Trust in Academic Publishing

In the early part of this year, as the COVID-19 pandemic spread rapidly around the globe, the international medical community was attempting to disseminate research as quickly as possible to educate an anxious public on an unknown virus and to advance treatments and ultimately, a vaccine. Social and traditional media featured an alarming amount of misinformation from non-scientific sources, which put even more pressure on journals to validate facts and deliver them as quickly as possible.

Unfortunately, as the pandemic reached a fever pitch, research was publicized and then retracted when questions arose about inconsistencies where journals and reviewers were not provided with the full set of data against which to conduct independent checks. “The hasty retractions…alarmed scientists worldwide who fear that the rush for research on the coronavirus has overwhelmed the peer review process,” reported the New York Times.

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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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Tactics for Increasing the Speed of Journal Publication

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Tactics for Increasing the Speed of Journal Publication

In this blog, we have listed several tactics for how to increase the speed of journal publication from clear author instructions, efficient peer-review, effective staffing and more. Though some of the concepts presented here may be familiar, there are intricate layers to publication that are often missed, and result in journal backlog, slow processing, and unhappy authors. We will discuss tactics for increasing the speed of publication, beginning with peer-review, then moving all the way through to journal production.

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Social Science Publishing Embraces the Moment

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Social Science Publishing Embraces the Moment

A focus on Black Lives Matter shows that 2020 isn’t just about medical research

This spring has seen tremendous global change—from the COVID19 pandemic to protests around the world decrying systemic racism. With an initial urgent focus on medical studies, scholarly publishers have proven how indispensable they are in advancing and making available potentially life-saving information. Now attention has shifted to the importance of academic work in social justice, civil unrest, and the Black Lives Matter movement. Once again, publishers are in front of the cultural moment, this time demonstrating the essential nature of the social sciences and working with their communities to address and demand change.

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KGL and the Scientific Publishing Community

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KGL and the Scientific Publishing Community

It’s no secret that Sheridan Journal Services (now part of KGL) is dedicated to the scientific publishing community. This commitment is most strongly evidenced through Sheridan’s long-term and significant involvement with the Council of Science Editors (CSE). Through the years, Sheridan folks have held board and leadership positions, served on committees, and presented many courses to the CSE body.

We’d like to highlight two members of the SJS Publishing Services team who currently have active roles with CSE. Both Nancy Devaux, Process Improvement Manager, and Peter Olson, Senior Copyediting Coordinator, have participated in a variety of ways over the past decade to share their professional insights and expertise.

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AI 2.0: Machine-Generated Content, Intelligent Automation, and the Future of Academic Publishing

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AI 2.0: Machine-Generated Content, Intelligent Automation, and the Future of Academic Publishing

Every year at the Frankfurt Book Fair, there is a buzzword or phrase that continues to pop up on panels, in articles, and in conversations and meetings. In the past, we have seen ‘big data’ and ‘blockchain’ dominate the headlines, but this year’s buzz word (or acronym) was ‘AI,’ as publishers, information professionals, service providers, and the media debated how this technology can be used in the industry.

Because machine learning and artificial intelligence are integral to KGL’s work helping to alleviate pain points for publishers, we partnered with Springer Nature to host a panel entitled “AI 2.0: Machine-Generated Content, Intelligent Automation, and the Future of Academic Publishing.” On the panel, speakers from KGL (Cenveo at the time), HighWire, and Springer Nature talked about everything from workflow automation and high-speed publishing, to companies that use machine learning and AI for discovery, peer review, and even highlighted emerging technologies which allow publishers to offer a broader range of tools and services to serve researchers and authors.

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Top Trends in AI

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Top Trends in AI

In recent years, publishers have begun to utilize advances in artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning to significantly change their businesses for the better. Though some innovations, such as using an algorithm to predict if a book will be a bestseller, have gotten more news coverage, AI and machine learning have been incredibly useful to publishers to help process user data to better understand the marketplace, to improve peer review, to help with workflow, and even to create new products. Here are some of the most notable current trends we have observed.

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Peer Review Management Services: Ensuring the Integrity of the Scientific Publishing Process

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Peer Review Management Services: Ensuring the Integrity of the Scientific Publishing Process

Cenveo Publisher Services now offers peer review management as a service. Journal publishers depend on the peer review process to validate research and uphold the quality of published articles. With deep expertise in scholarly publishing, our staff is fluent in all peer review models as well as the nuances of major peer review systems.

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