Spotlight on Our India Teams

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Spotlight on Our India Teams

The worldwide publishing industry today would not function without the experience, support and technical skills of vast content services operations in India. Publishers, in the Global North especially, rely on the production and technology expertise of an entire support industry in one of the world’s largest emerging markets.

While initiatives to promote Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) among staff, authors, reviewers and other stakeholders have (rightfully) taken center stage in recent years at scholarly, education, and trade publishing houses in North America and Europe, they have largely focused on issues of race and gender. Not nearly as much recognition is paid to geographical inclusion or to our industry colleagues in the Global South who ensure the ultimate delivery of a large quantity of the world’s books, journals and other publications.

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Survey: The Meaningful Work of Publishing

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Survey: The Meaningful Work of Publishing

Often in life and work, we focus on the roadblocks in front of us and how to get over or around those and we forget to take the time to celebrate our wins, even small ones.

In a 2011 piece in The Harvard Business Review, the authors highlight the “progress principle” and note that “of all the things that can boost emotions, motivation, and perceptions during a workday, the single most important is making progress in meaningful work.” Noting the progress one has made, however small, is significant to helping workers feel motivated, creative, and productive. In a year and a half when many of us are struggling to adjust to an ever-changing crisis mode, we wanted to take a moment to celebrate the progress we have made as an industry.

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The Meteoric Rise of Video Content

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The Meteoric Rise of Video Content

Consumer behavior is constantly evolving. Some consumer trends are temporary and relate to the circumstances and conditions du jour, while others take on greater cultural significance, establishing a permanent foothold on society, our habits and customs, and the way we go about our everyday lives.

Our relationship with video content is perhaps one of the most underestimated cultural phenomena of recent years. And global consumption of video as a medium has certainly accelerated since the start of last year. A recent study by video marketing firm Wyzowl revealed that 68 percent of consumers felt the pandemic had impacted the amount of video content they watched online, with 96 percent saying this had increased.

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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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Content Platform Migrations: 5 Important Lessons

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Content Platform Migrations: 5 Important Lessons

The publishing platform business is constantly evolving, with home-grown technologies and commercial solutions continuously developing new capabilities to better serve authors and researchers. As a result, publishers occasionally migrate journals, books and other content from one delivery platform to another, a process considered by many to be something of a perilous minefield.

In March, KGL PubFactory’s very own Tom Beyer took part in a virtual panel discussion at the Electronic Resources and Libraries (ER&L) Annual Conference 2021 entitled “How We Work Together: Improving the Content Platform Migration Process”, alongside some of our friends and colleagues in the NISO Content Platform Migrations Working Group. The session explored the current state of platform migrations from the viewpoint and experiences of a major university press, an academic library and the content platform provider perspective, while showcasing some of the recommendations and deliverables of the NISO Working Group. Here are five key lessons we gleaned from the session.

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What Will Publishing Events Look Like in 2021?

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What Will Publishing Events Look Like in 2021?

Over the last year, in-person publishing conferences and events have been faced with how to move forward as we all remain stuck at home. Many organizations have worked hard to pivot to live and recorded online programs and continue to connect well with their audiences. Some have put their programs on hold until in-person events can again take place. And organizations which previously did not host events have taken the opportunity to create a program platform.

As an industry partner and frequent exhibitor and event sponsor, KGL looks ahead with the rest of the publishing world to another year where we may not be able to meet in person. Yet after reflecting on recent experiences and speaking to several conference and book fair organizers, we assembled some insights into what the conference and event landscape will look like in 2021, what aspects have worked virtually and which haven’t, and how to connect to customers and colleagues in this remote world.

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Seven Publishing Trends for 2021

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Seven Publishing Trends for 2021

At around the same time last year, publishing industry experts and analysts looked ahead with optimism, hope and excitement as they speculated on what wonders 2020 might bring. As we all know, things didn’t exactly turn out as we expected. But, while many might think that trying to second-guess what the future may hold is a bit like nailing jello to the wall right now, surprisingly there are actually many clear indications of what could be in store for us in 2021. Here are our top seven predictions for what publishers can expect from the year ahead.

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Knowledge Sharing: Five Minutes with Atul Goel, President of KnowledgeWorks Global Ltd.

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Knowledge Sharing: Five Minutes with Atul Goel, President of KnowledgeWorks Global Ltd.

Earlier this month we announced the formation of KnowledgeWorks Global Ltd. (KGL), a new company with a long history as a content services provider, following the acquisition of Cenveo Publisher Services and Cenveo Learning by CJK Group. Today we talk to KGL’s president, Atul Goel, about how and why this acquisition came to fruition, what the implications are for the industry, and what we can expect from the combined company in the future.

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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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Is XR technology’s “Zoom moment” finally on the horizon?

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Is XR technology’s “Zoom moment” finally on the horizon?

Every year - like clockwork - technology experts and futurists speculate as to whether this will finally be THE YEAR for mass market adoption of VR (virtual reality), AR (augmented reality) and MR (mixed reality), now commonly referred to under the useful catch-all umbrella term XR (extended reality) technologies.

When the vast majority of the world’s population was plunged into lockdown this year, and whether we liked it or not, staying in became the new going out, these debates around XR adoption logically intensified. This was to be the perfect storm. Suddenly the conditions were ripe for immersive innovations to really come to the fore and show their full potential.

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Confessions of an Accidental Editor

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Confessions of an Accidental Editor

KGL’s Peter Olson blogs how an English major wound up copyediting science journals, what he has learned over his long career, and where to start to become an STEM journal copyeditor.

Copyediting is referred to by some as “the accidental profession,” and this pretty much sums up my own odyssey—and I’m not alone. If you were to survey the legion of copyeditors working today, many of them would reveal their secret identities as English Literature majors who, in sidestepping a career in academia, fell backwards into the vortex of copyediting—only to find that it was their true calling all along.

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More than Words: Why Human Translation is Leagues Ahead

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More than Words: Why Human Translation is Leagues Ahead

The American philosopher and linguist Noam Chomsky once famously said: “A language is not just words. It’s a culture, a tradition, a unification of a community, a whole history that creates what a community is. It’s all embodied in a language.” While these words are revered by many of those who work with languages for a living, decades of attempts to mechanize translation would suggest that the technology industry believes we are not far from finding an automated system which has a deeper understanding of these wider complexities of language.

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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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Designing Your User Experience Strategy, Part 2 (Accessibility Improves Experience)

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Designing Your User Experience Strategy, Part 2 (Accessibility Improves Experience)

Website accessibility is not a new topic. In fact, it’s been a factor since 2010 when the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) published standards that digital technology and information must be accessible to all people. At that point, most companies did not think that responsibility for website accessibility applied to them, or that they were required to address it unless they were receiving federal funds/grants. Additionally, the general perception was that creating accessible websites was more costly and entailed a lengthier process to implement. Not surprisingly, the ROI to include accessibility as part of the web design process was not considered valuable enough to be a default priority.

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Can We Adjust to a World Without In-Person Publishing Events?

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Can We Adjust to a World Without In-Person Publishing Events?

There are very few industries which cherish live events more than the publishing industry. From big global conferences to local literary festivals, networking events to gala dinners, award ceremonies to book launches, our industry is one which has been built on the foundations of face-to-face contact, the pressing of flesh, the forming of enduring and meaningful relationships, and getting out there to see and be seen.

This is why publishing, maybe more than any other profession, is facing something of an identity crisis as significant calendar events get cancelled, rescheduled or brought online due to COVID-19, thus transforming the way we’ve gone about our business for decades.

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Teaching with Tech: Five Tips for Navigating K–12 Distance Instruction

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Teaching with Tech: Five Tips for Navigating K–12 Distance Instruction

It would be an understatement to say that these are challenging times for teachers. Plunged into lockdown with no time to prepare for it, educators are quickly adapting to the new realities of distance instruction while getting up to speed with technology platforms, unfamiliar teaching techniques, and changing district and institutional guidelines. Throw in pressures to ensure students don’t fall behind juxtaposed with advice to refrain from overwhelming students and their families, and the situation becomes even more delicate.

Technology has without doubt been the great enabler of education during the COVID-19 crisis.

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Publishing as an Essential Business

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Publishing as an Essential Business

A round-up of how the industry is responding to the COVID-19 pandemic

In these challenging times, there has been much discussion of what qualifies as an “essential business.” There is the debate around which establishments should be allowed to continue physical operations during a social distancing shutdown (are liquor stores, bike shops and video games as essential as grocery stores and the healthcare supply chain?). Some organizational habits like meeting culture, long commutes and digital red tape have already been exposed as decidedly nonessential for a post-crisis world. But while the majority of us adjust to working from home (a luxury obviously not afforded to many frontline professions), the coronavirus pandemic is unfolding as an occasion for the industry to prove its worth.

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Working Around Working From Home

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Working Around Working From Home

Telecommuting has become so commonplace over the last several years for knowledge workers in publishing, high-tech and many other industries that work-from-home situations are even featured in popular advertisements for cars and pretzels. Through Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) and video web-conferencing systems, technology has provided an easy portal making it almost as if those employees are still in the office.

Of course, in light of recent events, most employees are now working from home. The influx of traffic is flooding internal systems and crashing remote servers. More staff than ever are learning how to focus in a home environment where you can’t have a casual brainstorming chat with the person next to you. And the first 10 minutes of meetings is seeing who is on and if their mic is muted.

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How to Develop Mission-Based Membership Benefits for Your Association

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How to Develop Mission-Based Membership Benefits for Your Association

This blog dives deep into how associations and societies can use membership benefits to grow memberships. We’ll look at membership as it relates to your mission statement, and membership benefits (communications, career advancement, educational opportunities, and service programs).

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