Reflections on the ALPSP Annual Conference 2024 by Anna Savage

 ALPSP Rising Star Awards Winner, Anna Savage, Publishing Executive at BMJ Group, looks back at the conference.

The keynote speech of this year’s ALPSP conference introduced the two fundamental challenges with which the scholarly publishing world is undeniably grappling: open access, and Generative AI. The former is perhaps more familiar territory, though far from a worn-out topic. The latter has more recently emerged, however it is nonetheless already deeply embedded in the discourse, debates and decision-making taking place within research institutions, academic publishers, libraries, and funding bodies worldwide.

The keynote was delivered by Jake Okechukwu Effoduh and was entitled ‘Scholarly Publishing in the Era of Open Access and Generative AI’. As an opening to the conference, the session suitably considered that which is on everybody’s minds, and attempted to make sense of the tangled issues inherent in the title. If it were not obvious to conference attendees before they entered, it was soon clear that this is a pivotal time in scholarly publishing. The final impression we were left with, however, was one of optimism, and in my mind this theme pervaded the rest of the conference.

It can be easy to feel pessimistic about the current challenges. The keynote, along with several other conference sessions, highlighted concerns about the potentially underwhelming impact of open access as a funding model, and of the adoption of Generative AI tools so far. Both have been favourably regarded as solutions: the former to address inequity; the latter to tackle inefficiency. Instead we have been presented with new problems which must somehow be addressed. The keynote did not propose to have the answers. What it did was recognise the complexity of the current landscape. The concluding call to action invited us to envision how we can harness the potential of open access and Generative AI tools, empowering us to shape their role rather than being shaped by them.

From the variety of sessions and speakers that followed during the rest of the conference, it became clear that a one-sided approach would likely be ineffective. Solutions must not be sought from scholarly publishers alone because the challenges are not exclusive to scholarly publishers. Yes, open access poses challenges for sustainable revenue for publishers, but it also leads to inequities for researchers - as highlighted in the keynote -  and encourages predatory publishing practices, impacting all stakeholders in the publishing community. Likewise, Generative AI has the potential to exacerbate concerns around integrity, authenticity and bias. There is a risk of undermining the scholarly communication system as a whole, and this cannot be addressed by publishers alone.

The contributions to the conference were, accordingly, highly varied. Speakers included representatives from both large and small publishers, funding bodies, technology providers, consultants and recruitment services, who offered a wide range of perspectives on the current landscape. Many sessions focused on emerging innovations and advancements positioned to address key challenges, such as equitable funding models (e.g., S2O), integrity checks, and sustainable solutions. It was evident that multiple approaches to the same issue can coexist, and that there is no one-size-fits-all solution. Collaboration between publishers and the broader academic publishing community will be essential as we continue to innovate and overcome emerging challenges.

I am particularly pleased that the Rising Star Award will continue to offer opportunities for early-career professionals to engage with this conference, and to be part of these critical conversations that will no doubt shape our careers in scholarly publishing.

About the ALPSP Rising Star Award 2024

This award aims to recognise potential in early career individuals. The winners are given the opportunity and financial support to attend the ALPSP Annual Conference in person and write a short review of their experiences of the meeting. The ALPSP Rising Star Award is sponsored by Publishers' Licensing Services.

The winners of this year's Rising Star Award are:

• Hazel Rowland, IOP Publishing
• Anna Savage, BMJ
• Ella Gibbs, Bristol University Press
• Heather Townsend, Bristol University Press
• Melody (Zhuxin) Zhang, Wiley

ALPSP Annual Conference and Awards

Thank you to all our speakers, sponsors and attendees for making the ALPSP 2024 Conference and Awards such a success. We will be returning to the Hilton Manchester Deansgate Hotel next year from 10-12 September 2025. The call for topics is open until 1 December. For more information, visit our website.

About the author

Anna Savage is a Publishing Executive at BMJ Group. 

She works on the day-to-day management and strategic development of a portfolio of hybrid and open access specialist medical journals, collaborating closely with journal editors and partner societies. She is also involved in exploring the potential applications of Generative AI tools at BMJ and the implications for academic journals.

ALPSP Annual Conference 2024: A Review by Ella Gibbs

ALPSP Rising Star Awards Winner, Ella Gibbs, Journals Executive at Bristol University Press & Policy Press

Being relatively new to the world of scholarly publishing, the ALPSP Conference was my first proper industry conference experience and I was initially very uncertain about what to expect. On the day of the conference I travelled to Manchester with my colleague who was also attending for the first time, which eased my nerves slightly. Any remaining nerves were quickly assuaged when I arrived at the conference venue and was struck by how welcoming everyone was.

A key theme of the conference was undoubtably AI and how the industry is responding to rapid changes and general uncertainty brought about in a world of generative AI. It was interesting to hear some of the conversations on AI that’ve been ongoing at my own workplace play out amongst the conference speakers and delegates: fears of the threat to research integrity, copyright concerns in an open access landscape, the implicit bias of Large Language Models (LLMs) and, more positively, the potential of AI to assist with tasks that are increasingly falling out of budget. 

The session on ‘The role of human editors in an AI world’ explored the role of editorial decision making and how this could develop in the future due to the increased use of AI tools by both authors and editors. One of the questions that was discussed was whether publishers have given authors enough guidance on how or when to use AI tools when preparing their research for publication. This is problematised by the fact that the industry hasn’t arrived at a single standard that authors should adhere to, which could lead to confusion. Although it was clear from the discussion that as an industry we do not yet have all the answers where AI is concerned, there was a clear sense that it should be embraced for its potential to support aspects of the editorial workflow and decision making rather than replace them.

One of my personal highlights from the conference was watching the award finalists lightning presentations. It was truly inspiring to hear about some of the innovative projects taking place within scholarly publishing communities. I was particularly impressed with the Forest of Biologists initiative which partners with the Woodland Trust to plant a tree in a UK forest for every research or review article published by The Company of Biologists. It was great to hear how this initiative aims to combat the loss of biodiversity within the UK and also how it directly involved young people from the local community. 

I am very grateful for the opportunity to attend the ALPSP conference. The conference really helped me understand more about the scholarly publishing industry as a whole, outside of my day-to-day role. It was great to be able to talk to people from a range of different publishers and  at various stages within their careers. The conference ultimately made me feel very excited for my future in scholarly publishing and I hope to be able to attend again in the future.

About the ALPSP Rising Star Award 2024

This award aims to recognise potential in early career individuals. The winners are given the opportunity and financial support to attend the ALPSP Annual Conference in person and write a short review of their experiences of the meeting. The ALPSP Rising Star Award is sponsored by Publishers' Licensing Services.

The winners of this year's Rising Star Award are:

• Hazel Rowland, IOP Publishing
• Anna Savage, BMJ
• Ella Gibbs, Bristol University Press
• Heather Townsend, Bristol University Press
• Melody (Zhuxin) Zhang, Wiley

ALPSP Annual Conference and Awards

Thank you to all our speakers, sponsors and attendees for making the ALPSP 2024 Conference and Awards such a success. Catch up on the session recordings. We will be returning to the Hilton Manchester Deansgate Hotel next year from 10-12 September 2025. For more information, visit our website.

About the author

Ella Gibbs is the Journals Executive at Bristol University Press. 

She is the primary editorial contact and development lead for a number of journals, supporting editors, authors and reviewers. Ella began working in scholarly publishing in 2021 as an Editorial Assistant.

Strength in numbers: the power of collaboration for research integrity

by - Gráinne McNamara, Research Integrity / Publication Ethics Manager, Karger - Silver sponsor of the ALPSP Annual Conference and Awards 2024.

In scholarly publishing, the term ‘research integrity’ is increasingly discussed and its significance to the ecosystem is growing. With the dominance of paper mills in the consciousness of research integrity professionals, matched only by the emerging threat posed by Generative AI, a reoccurring theme has emerged in these discussions: collaboration. 

Increasingly, no longer are research integrity teams operating largely in isolation within their respective publishers, interacting only in specific contexts, such as COPE forums or webinars, or when a multi-journal complaint necessitates alignment. Particularly in the last three years, we have seen a diversification in the venues at which research integrity teams interact. In the spirit of the infamously misattributed proverb “If you want to go fast go alone, if you want to go far, go together”, this expansion of touchpoints between publishers’ research integrity teams should be expected to have a positive effect on the trustworthiness of the scholarly publishing landscape. 

As a medium-sized publisher publishing over 90 journals in the health sciences, with a small research integrity team, Karger Publishers is particularly well placed to see how this growth in collaboration can be beneficial. Reflecting on how this has impacted us and the industry overall, we can see that great progress has been made as well as several trends and areas for growth.

Technology

The most obvious advantage of combining forces for a publisher the size of Karger or for smaller emerging or society publishers is the enhanced availability of new technologies. The STM Integrity Hub was established to foster collaboration “between publishers of all sorts, shapes and sizes”. The development of tools through the hub has enabled the detection of manuscript submission irregularities faster than for each participant operating in isolation. For example, the first-of-its-kind detection of duplicate submissions across publishers via the STM Hub allowed publishers to discover violations of our Editorial Policies early in peer review. By having this information, we ensure peer review resources are directed to compliant submissions, critical at this point when peer reviewer time is limited. Inter-publisher collaboration for duplicate submission detection received a boost recently with the announcement that Elsevier’s full text analysis for matching manuscripts would be made available to the STM Integrity Hub, making it more difficult for infracting submissions to evade detection. According to this August 2024 announcement, 12 publishers were using this tool, including Karger. The maximum effectiveness of this tool can only be realised by full adoption across publishers, and we hope to see this number grow.

This year we have seen more examples of publishers working together to improve integrity tools. In March 2024, Wiley announced that Sage and IEEE would be partnering in the testing of their Papermill Detection service. While neither Sage nor IEEE could be classified as a small or medium-sized publisher, this collaboration perpetuates the growing trend of technology sharing between publishers for mutual benefit that we can expect to see continue.

Information 

A challenge for any research integrity team in 2024 is keeping up to date with the latest developments and threats across the industry. Here again, we are seeing how collaboration is supporting the work, particularly of smaller teams, allowing them to focus on maintaining the integrity of the scholarly record while staying informed. The COPE and STM study into the scale and impact of paper mills on publishers in 2022, to which Karger contributed data and information, marked the beginning of an increasingly collaborative effort to combat paper mills. This translated into a COPE working group on the topic, of which Karger is a member, continuing to this year’s at the World Conference of Research Integrity where paper mills were one of the key topics of discussion. Open communication between affected parties about paper mills will need to continue as long as the threat exists as publishers of all sizes try to stay ahead through the newest information and trends.

An abundance of new research integrity tools have become available in the last 3 years to help publishers uphold the highest integrity standards, no matter their scale of operation. However, testing and piloting new technologies is a time-consuming necessity for research integrity teams. In addition to the collaborative information sharing we’ve seen through the STM Integrity Hub duplicate submission detection, the Hub's Image Alteration and Duplications Working Group supports the community by providing an overview of the available image integrity tools and their features, allowing publishers to make informed decisions and comparisons between available products. In a sea of information, crowd-sourcing trusted information can make the difference for a small or medium-sized publisher to save time that can be invested into misconduct detection.

Expertise 

A product of information and technology sharing is the enhanced expertise of research integrity professionals at publishers, as well as in those working more broadly in the scholarly communication ecosystem with an interest in research integrity. COPE has long been a hub of experience sharing between members and in 2024 this continued with the launch of formal Advisor roles for volunteers to share knowledge and expertise. We have also started to see the development of subject-specialised expertise-sharing collaboration. In the physical sciences, three publishers established the ‘Purpose-led Publishing’ initiative in which participants defined and committed to “a set of industry standards that underpin high-quality, ethical scholarly communication”. Whether we will see more examples of subject-specialised publishers of various sizes coming together to define standards for their area remains to be seen. 

On the other end of the specialisation spectrum, the United2Act initiative, of which Karger is a signatory and member of Working Group 2, is a prime example of the wider research integrity community coming together and translating expertise and leveraging technology into tangible outcomes to combat the threat of paper mills. Furthermore, many of the groups’ outputs, for example, educational resources and trust marker development, are likely to have benefits far beyond the initial scope of paper mills.

Taking the lessons learned from publisher-publisher communication to the wider research integrity community is an integral step in embedding research integrity throughout the scholarly communication cycle. At Karger, we have seen the benefits of collaborating with larger and smaller publishers in improving our detection capabilities and expertise. We plan to continue, with our colleagues across publishers and other organizations with an interest in research integrity, collaborating to advance upholding research integrity standards. Naturally, the benefits of collaboration are not limited to strengthening research integrity. A recent blog in this series provided a view from the publishing systems perspective on the necessity and benefits of collaboration. We will undoubtedly see publisher-publisher and publisher-systems collaboration grow in the coming years as bad actors continue to pose a threat to the integrity of the scholarly record. By actively seeking collaboration, publishers of all sizes can build on each other’s technology, information and expertise of each other and go far and fast, together.

About the author

Dr. Gráinne McNamara is the Research Integrity / Publication Ethics Manager at Karger Publishers, where she and her team are engaged in developing research integrity policies, conducting investigations and advising researchers on best practice.

She has worked in research integrity in publishing since 2017 and is grateful to all the researchers and colleagues who have, and continue to, share their experience and expertise in that time.

www.karger.com