Events


Keeping an eye on the horizon


Miles McNamee serves up some takeaways from HighWire’s digital disruption seminar


HighWire held a Lunch & Learn session during London Tech Week, which aimed to explore future technology trends and how they may impact on scholarly publishing. The event was designed to open up


discussion into new areas and look at how the publishing community can work together and welcome change. Plan S and the continuing drive towards open access poses major questions for publishers, which are well known. The main question we might ask is: ‘How, as a publisher, can I create value outside of the core content if that has to be freely available?’ Publishers need to shift their approach and develop new revenue streams – which won’t necessarily be paid for from the same pocket. The scholarly publishing industry has gone through enormous change since the advent of the internet. But it hasn’t kept up with changing consumer expectations, driven by ever-more tech-savvy users who expect mobile-first, real-time, personalised digital services. A bigger risk is that we’re so busy playing catch-up we fail to spot incoming disruptors. We gathered thought-leaders from a


range of industries to explore how other sectors have handled significant change. The following are the key takeaways.


The view on Plan S has moved ‘from panic to acceptance’ In a session following on from our multi- publisher workshop earlier this year, John Sack presented on how the publishing community’s stance on Plan S has changed over the last six months, noting that the ‘view has moved from panic to acceptance’. Rather than changing their whole world to fit Plan S, publishers are now focused upon integrating Plan S into their wider


34 Research Information August/September 2019


business-as-usual planning. There is still a geographical divide, though: while Europe is now focusing more on working together and especially upon transformative agreements, the US remains in a slightly more defensive mode.


Trust is more important than ever Fewer and fewer people trust the information services they use in their day-to-day lives. As disseminators and amplifiers of knowledge, the publishing community has a role to play on the front lines in the battle against fake news and misinformation. Attendees heard from Kate Worlock, of Outsell, on the importance of trust and transparency: ‘If transparency isn’t embedded in everything we do, it can


“Fewer and fewer people trust the information services they use in their day-to-day lives”


create breaches of trust.’ For scholarly publishers, this means transparency in sources of funding, transparency in peer review and robust protections against predatory journals.


We live in an age of hyperadoption, but also hyperabandonment Forrester’s Collin Colburn presented the market analysis company’s latest research on voice search and intelligent assistants, concluding that the technology is in its infancy (with only 35 per cent of questions answered correctly) and that the ‘jury is still out’. However, adoption rates are growing exponentially (33 per cent of searches are now screenless), and the upcoming generation are by far the biggest users, so it would be no surprise to see this technology in the scholarly arena. This raises a variety of questions for


scholarly publishers and researchers. According to Forrester’s research, not all voice assistants credit the source of information. How do we make content from our journals discoverable and attributable


– especially if content is paywalled? How do we measure impact via voice search? How do users and researchers know that a piece of information is credible? Again, this comes back to Worlock’s presentation on the importance of trust and transparency.


The scholarly publishing process needs to become more fluid, less fixed We heard from Daniel Himmelstein, a data scientist at the University of Pennsylvania and lead developer at Manubot, the tool for open scholarly writing on GitHub. Our current systems of manuscript submission, acceptance and publishing don’t fit with how science and research are actually carried out. With huge swathes of time between submission and acceptance, then acceptance and publishing, by the time journals are published, the articles in them may already be out of date. The monolithic nature of the journal also precludes collaboration and fluidity, and as Himmelstein pointed out, ‘science is a conversation’. If we want literature that is accurate and up-to-date, we need to change our approach. ‘Publishing needs to move beyond the PDF, and start using formats that are structured and machine- readable’, to better enable real-time updating and discoverability – the latter will also be a major precursor to enabling voice search.


Paranoia is healthy; wait and see is dangerous Disruption is anything but new; it’s just hitting us faster. Mick Hegarty, from identity data company GBG, took us through some case studies in change from a number of sectors, and highlighted the need for an ‘outside-in’ mindset when it comes to change, and not get so bogged down in the day-to-day functioning of business that they lose sight of the wider landscape. We also need to be willing to embrace some risk: ‘Everyone wants change, but no one wants to change.’


That is a message I’ll echo: you might not be bold enough to be the first mover, but make sure you’re in just as good shape to be a very fast-follower. Digital disruption is inevitable, but we can take steps to meet and embrace change, rather than digging heels in. I’ve witnessed the power of the publishing community and know that by working together we benefit from changing technology, improving sustainability and promoting accessibility. Most importantly, we can adapt to meet and exceed our customers’ expectations, profitably and productively.


Miles McNamee is VP of global sales at Highwire


@researchinfo | www.researchinformation.info


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