We are delighted to be able to share this blog from Warren Clark
at Research Information who attended our popular, recent seminar How to Build a Data- Driven Publishing Organization chaired by Freddie Quek.
Dealing with data is nothing new to scholarly publishers –
but it was clear from a recent ALPSP event that it’s an ever-changing
battlefield, reports Warren Clark
How to Build a Data Driven Publishing Organization, held on
20 April at the Institute for Strategic Studies in London, and hosted by ALPSP,
proved there is much for many still to learn in how to approach the masses of
data points generated by companies throughout the publishing cycle.
As John Morton, board chair of Zapaygo, said in his keynote:
‘Most publishers are using less than five per cent of the data they own.’
The event featured many examples of areas in which data
could be collected, analysed and presented in a form that would improve
profitability for publishers, and provide users with a more personalised
experience.
Ove Kähler, director, program management and global
distribution at Brill, together with his colleague Lauren Danahy, team leader,
applications and data, explored the challenges they faced in developing an
in-house data team. Their most significant innovation was to arrange their
primary data groups according to where they occurred in the workflow: content
validation; product creation; content and data enrichment; content and data
distribution; product promotion; and product sales.
The pair explained how they created a team – from existing
staff within the company – giving each specific responsibility for one of those
data groups, and how that led to improved quality and output of data at each
step.
Indeed, the notion that publishers shouldn’t assume that
dealing with data means employing new staff was echoed throughout the day, with
both David Smith, head of product solutions at IET, and Elisabeth Ling, SVP of
analytics at Elsevier, suggesting in the panel discussion that people ‘look at
your own team first’, since it was likely that the skills required would
already be present.
Choosing tools
As well as who and why, many speakers talked about how they capture, store, analyse and visualise the data they collect. The most extensive of these was IET’s David Smith, who overhauled the IT department’s software tools to evolve a more accurate suite of visualisations that product teams could use independently and without the need to continuous IT support. Smith explained that those looking for a ‘single solution’ from a software package that solved all data challenges for publishers would be disappointed, before reeling off half a dozen or more software tools that his team had integrated to develop a solution that suited their needs.
In a session that brought a perspective from outside the
publishing industry, Matt Hutchison, director of business intelligence and
analytics at Collinson Group, a company that runs global loyalty programmes on
behalf of major brands, supported this notion by showing how they had
outsourced some of their function to Amazon Web Services (AWS). Matt Pitchford,
solutions architect at AWS, demonstrated that the cloud computing set-up they
developed for Collinson Group involved more than 20 different pieces of
software.
What data can bring
Another theme was quality of data – as Graeme Doswell, head of global circulation at Sage Publishing put it: ‘You need your data capture processes to be as granular as you want your output to be.’ He showed examples of how Sage was using its data to show librarians their levels of usage, making it easier for the sales teams when it came to renewals. David Leeming, publishing consultant at 67 Bricks, gave a further example, specifically in the area of content enrichment.
For Iain Craig, director strategic market analysis at Wiley,
data was used to help business decisions on new journal launches. He explained
a major project that involved them collecting internal and external data points
such as subject matter, number of submissions, journal usage, funding patterns,
and many more. The outcomes have helped improve existing journals, and suggest
where future resources should be deployed for emerging markets.
Similarly, Blair Granville, insights analyst at Portland
Press, demonstrated how his team tracked submissions, subscriptions, open
access, citations, usage, commissions and click-through rates in order to to
feed intelligence back to the editorial teams about where their focus should
be.
Data and the law
The most enlightening paper of the day came from Sarah Day, data marketing professional and associate consultant at DQM-GRC, who spoke about data regulation and governance. She warned against complacency and ignorance when it comes to data, particularly with regard to the upcoming General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). Already law, but due to become enforceable in May 2018 (allowing time for institutions to ensure compliance), this is an EU-wide revision of privacy laws designed to give individuals more control over their personal data.
‘In spite of Brexit, the UK – and indeed any country outside
the EU that offers goods and services to people in the EU – will have to
comply,’ said Day. The impact of the new regulations are far and wide as far as
publishers are concerned, and among the most important things they can do is
‘be transparent about what you are doing with an individual’s data’.
Although Day successfully rose to the challenge of
explaining GDPR in one minute, it served to demonstrate that managing data in a
safe, secure, and legal manner is a complex issue that every publisher will
have to address head on.
With more than 50 attendees at the event, drawn from
publishers large and small, it’s clear that understanding data – and all the
issues that come with it – is an issue that will only become more important in
the years to come, as the amount of data generated grows exponentially.
For more blogs and publishing news from Warren Clark and the
excellent team at Research Information please visit: https://www.researchinformation.info/analysis-opinion
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