Analysis and news


Content marketing boosts open access adoption The publishing industry has yet to fully acknowledge the need to create accessible stories to increase the uptake of OA articles, writes Sabine Louët


Funders, policymakers, journalists,


Open access (OA) is meant to bring us one step closer to open science. But the lack of widespread adoption


of OA is often blamed for slowing down research progress. The truth is, accessing the literature is only half the story. The other half is the obstacle created by the use of specialised language in it. That is, the inability to understand the meaning of the research represents a greater hindrance than access to multidisciplinary collaboration and open science. It is, therefore, important to carefully consider developing value-added content that is designed to make the original OA research accessible to a wider audience.


Open does not mean understood The next step to a more open science requires OA journals to make research articles accessible to a wider audience. The time has now come for publishers to change the way they market research articles. As soon as they make the shift from journal-led to author-led marketing, they will become much more attractive to scientists. Creating accessible stories or interviews outlining key findings of research papers provides authors with further reassurance their work is being adequately promoted by their publisher. We know that transforming complex


scientific papers into clear, concise and compelling digital stories helps increase visibility. Used as part of a publisher’s content marketing strategy, these accessible digital stories become value- added assets, because they offer unique value to the reader. In this case, they also contribute to research impact. Academics may be new to the idea that


marketing tools can be applied to their research. But if a research article is not marketed correctly, its reach is limited to a small circle of specialists (if that). Effective engagement with a wider audience increases impact and opens opportunities for multidisciplinary co-operation. For that to happen, published research needs to be made visible and understood to scientists in other disciplines and beyond.


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investors and the public are also important audiences for a researcher. Research funding agencies and institutions increasingly require that research output is made public, promoting transparency and accountability. Thus, the right content approach can help clarify the significance of research and help persuade funding panels, inform policymakers or encourage industry collaboration. By indirectly attracting attention to the original research, content marketing activities also contribute to an increase in paper downloads and submissions: two main challenges faced by library or national consortia and publishers.


“Academics may be new to the idea that marketing tools can be applied to their research”


OA impact requires making sense of research in an accessible language As we move forward with OA adoption, academic and research institutions need to ask themselves who is responsible for the marketing and promotion of research papers their scientists publish. This could not be more important, given the new library and national consortium-level article processing charge (APC) deals. Ensuring enough scientists avail of these pre-ordered OA publications is a challenge for publishers and their customers. Therefore, publishers and consortia alike need an effective content marketing approach to fully benefit from any deals. To guarantee success, an effective


content marketing approach requires content that makes sense of research in accessible language. But this value-added content requires specific skills, which many scientists don’t have. Publishers have repeatedly tried to demand authors produce plain language summaries of their papers. Some publishers then put their skilled editors to attempt to polish these scientist-produced summaries. The result is often a jargon-filled, ‘longer’ abstract


intelligible to neither experts nor a wider audience. Such demands should not be made of scientists; they should continue to do what they do best: research. Likewise, it makes sense to leave such


value-added content to the professionals that do that best – science writers. An expert science writer not only can understand the science behind the research, they are skilled at interviewing researchers, drawing out the significance of key findings and methods, and translating this into compelling stories. Accuracy is paramount; therefore, it is essential that stories are also checked by science editors, familiar with the style required to reach wider target audiences.


OA-style funding for content marketing There are many ways the stories can be funded. The most obvious may be marketing budgets of publishers. But, the library and national consortia in charge of negotiating transformational deals with publishers should be more proactive in including such services in the deal. They could allocate a fraction of the OA deal budget to content marketing. Publishers working with consortia have


an interest in ensuring scientists included in the deal use the APC provided as part of it. Typically, the APC is calculated based on previous publication levels. To ensure publication volumes stay the same, publishers and institutes must adopt effective content marketing approaches to support pre-ordered APC uptake. For scientists whose papers are not included in consortia or publisher marketing efforts, we envision the possibility of authors selecting which of their papers merit being professionally turned into accessible digital stories – such as a proper plain language summary, a news-style article, an infographic, or a Q&A interview. This requires the option of adding a marketing fee to the APC. Ultimately, this does not fundamentally change the way resources are spent vis- a-vis publication, but represents a shift in who bears the costs of marketing.


Sabine Louët is founder and CEO at SciencePOD


December 2019/January 2020 Research Information 19


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