Navigating Open Science and Open Access with Intelligent Automation

By Sureshkumar Parandhaman, AVP Publishing Solutions and Pre-Sales, Integra

Silver sponsor of the ALPSP Annual Conference and Awards 2023.

The democratization of research, spurred by the Open Science movement, is rapidly transforming the scholarly publishing landscape. Open Science promotes unhindered access to research findings and articles for the public, and collaborative research, supported by digital tools. It fosters greater transparency in research, creating an environment conducive to the sharing of knowledge and trust through open access.

The basic tenets of Open Science are open data, open materials, open analysis, pre-registration, and open access. By increasing transparency, Open Science increases the replicability of research, bringing a systemic change to how scientific research is conducted. According to the OECD, Open Science:

1. Fosters more accurate verification of research results.
2. Reduces duplication in “collecting, creating, transferring, and re-using scientific material.”
3. Enhances productivity, especially during times of tight budgets.
4. Leads to better innovation potential and improved consumer choice.
5. Promotes trust in science.

Challenges to Meeting Open Science and Open Access  Requirements for Journal Publishers

While Open Science has brought multiple benefits, it has also thrown up challenges for scholarly publishers, such as increased costs and time, reduced flexibility, incompatibility with existing incentive structure, the emergence of predatory journals, high article processing fees, open access charges, and lack of funding support.

Given that the majority of authors choose a journal based on its reputation, open-access journals are at a disadvantage due to the misconception that such journals are of lower quality. However, it is important to remember that most open-access journals ensure peer reviews and uphold stringent quality standards for all their published works.

Another area of concern is that the business models of traditional publishers don't align with the compliance needs of open science and open access.

 

Information Source for Image: Researcher.Life

To remain competitive against the backdrop of increasing open access, traditional publishers need to look at leveraging the power of technology to innovate and streamline with publishing process while maintaining integrity, quality, profitability, and compliance.

Intelligent Automation: A Game-Changer

Between 2012 and 2022, there has been a major shift from closed access accounting for 70% of all publishing to the open access model being adopted by 54% of publishers. An AI-powered content creation and publishing platform can bring multiple benefits for journal publishers looking to make the transition, not the least of which is intelligent automation to accelerate workflows.

Some of the key benefits that a cutting-edge technology suite offers include:

• Tracking and monitoring of detailed metadata across different publications with varied funding sources, multiple authors, etc.
• Seamless repository integrations without compromising on open access compliance.
• Capturing open access-related metadata from the inventory.
• Automating language quality checks, compliance with journal guidelines, relevance of research data and findings, etc., for faster TAT.
• Technical diagnosis to identify missing information and references, quickly and more accurately than manual checks. 
• Configurable cloud-based style managers to automate XML tagging to format each manuscript to the journal’s style guide.
• Analytics capabilities to support strategic decision-making for scholarly publishers.

Revolutionizing Every Step of the Publishing Cycle

Not only does AI-powered intelligent automation optimize workflows and increase productivity, but also supports DRM by effectively monitoring and detecting fraud and copyright infringement. By transitioning to a cloud-based publishing platform that offers such automation, scholarly publishers can also enhance user experiences for authors, editors, and peer reviewers. This is possible through incredibly user-friendly features that ease moving back and forth between runs at revising and updating the manuscript to meet quality standards.

In addition, all parties can be assured of transparency, replicability, and data sharing, while complying with open access requirements. Supplementary materials can be seamlessly integrated to add value for the end reader.

Elevating Open Science and Open Access via Automation

Automation is the key to creating and publishing accessible, user-friendly Open Access content. It offers multiple tools and functionalities to speed up the content creation, editing, and peer review processes, such as assessing language quality via automated grammar checks and offering recommendations and NLP-based editing tools to facilitate guided editing to enhance quality and speed.

By automating tasks, manpower and time are freed up, leading to reduced costs and faster time to market. All these benefits are available on Integra’s full-cycle authoring and publishing platform, powered by artificial intelligence. Its rich functionalities and intuitive interface can ease your transition to producing Open Access content. Integra can transform your workflows and ensure minimal disruptions and data loss while shifting to a cutting-edge technology platform.

Integra is pleased to be a Silver sponsor of the ALPSP Annual Conference and Awards 2023.

About the author

Sureshkumar Parandhaman is a publishing professional and AVP publishing solutions at Integra, with a distinguished background in scholarly publishing, particularly in journals and books. With over 20 years of experience, he has excelled as a Product Owner, Product Manager, and Business Analyst in the publishing industry, and has diverse experience spanning Information Services, Publishing, EdTech, Healthcare, and Enterprise software

How Transitioning to Gold Open Access Grew Medicina Journal

By Dr Carla Aloè, Head of Societies and Acquisition, MDPI.

Gold sponsor of the ALPSP Annual Conference and Awards 2023.

For many societies and institutes, switching their journals to a gold open access model is scary. Some do not want to renounce the high revenue that comes from institutional and consortia subscriptions, others are concerned that authors will not be able to pay the article processing charges (APCs), and others are worried about the quality of the articles in gold open access journals. 

At MDPI, our priority is to listen, understand and address these concerns. In this blog post, I would like to share the story of Medicina, one of the journals we publish on behalf of societies and institutes, transitioning to a gold open access model.  

The history of Medicina

When we took over Medicina in 2018, the owner of the journal, the Lithuanian University of Health Sciences, had many concerns about transitioning to gold open access. The journal had a long history, as it was launched in 1920 and went through different changes due to the political and historical events that affected Lithuania during and after World War II. 

The journal was already open access in 2001, embracing the philosophy of making the latest research freely available to everyone without subscription or other paywalled restrictions. In 2014, Medicina was transferred to Elsevier and published in a diamond open access model, supported by an EU grant. 

In September 2017, we got in contact with the Editor-in-Chief of Medicina, Prof. Edgaras Stankevičius, for the first time. The EU grant was going to end soon, and the university was interested in knowing more about sustainable alternatives to continue publishing the journal. The introduction of APCs was a concern for the institution, as its members worried that they would deter authors from submitting to the journal.

Transitioning to gold open access

A series of meetings took place in the following weeks. In them, we explained how APCs not only allow publishers to cover the editorial and publication costs but also to reinvest in the journal and launch services and initiatives to support researchers. As MDPI does not work with external vendors, we are able to closely control the quality, timing and costs of publication, being able to charge APCs that are highly competitive on the market. 

Of course, we offer a range of discounts and memberships to financially support the authors. For example, the Institutional Open Access Program (IOAP) that counts more than 800 affiliated institutes offers discounts on APCs for associated researchers, and discount vouchers are provided to reviewers that submit comprehensive and timely review reports. Members of societies affiliated with the journal also benefit from discounts. 

We were confident that Medicina would develop nicely, strongly believing in its potential after transitioning to gold open access. 

In 2018, the contract was signed, a Managing Editor was appointed and a dedicated editorial team was organized to support the journal in all the day-to-day operations. The transition was smooth, and the first issue of Medicina was published that same year by MDPI.  

Gold open access leads to growth 

The newly established Medicina editorial team visited the Lithuanian University of Health Sciences in Kaunas, and the Editor-in-Chief and other representatives on the journal travelled to our headquarters in Basel, Switzerland. These personal interactions helped to develop trust in the relationship between the editorial board and MDPI, and to build the foundations for a long-term collaboration. 

For the first year and a half, to support the journal in its transition period, we heavily invested in the journal so it could completely waive the APCs. This is always a delicate moment, requiring a lot of collaboration and flexibility not only with the institute and the editorial board of the journal but also with the previous publisher. The authors, readers and other stakeholders of the journal also needed to be informed and supported throughout the process.  

In agreement with the university, in 2019, we introduced an APC of 1500 CHF to publish in the journal. The number of publications increased by more than 600% that year, and the good quality of articles published in Medicina led to a substantial increase in its impact factor. 

Medicina in 2023

Currently, the journal features 25 sections, of which many were established in 2020. The journal is still led by Prof. Stankevičius and is supported by an editorial board of more than 400 experts in all the different areas of medicine. The journal’s visibility on the MDPI website, which received more than 90 million monthly views in 2022, drew a lot of attention to it, attracting more readers and, consequently, more citations. 

To align with the expansion of journal services, market conditions, inflation costs and a significant increase in the number of submissions and rejected papers, the APCs increased to 1800 CHF in January 2022, making the journal a good source of income for the university. In 2022, we published 1,840 citable items and received more than 10,000 citations. The journal keeps growing in an exponential and healthy way thanks to it transitioning to gold open access and publishing high-quality work. 

MDPI is a proud Gold sponsor of the ALPSP Annual Conference and Awards 2023.

About the author 

Carla Aloè joined MDPI in 2020 as an Associate Publisher and Scientific Officer. In 2022, she was promoted to Publisher and took over the lead of the Society Partnerships and Acquisition Team. In January 2023, Carla was appointed as the head of the newly established Society and Acquisition Department. Before joining MDPI, she worked as a Commissioning Editorial Team Lead at Frontiers. Carla holds a PhD in Early Modern Literature from the University of Birmingham, UK.

The Fall’s Big Topics in Publishing & Technology

By Stephanie Lovegrove Hansen, Silverchair

Silver sponsor of the ALPSP Annual Conference and Awards 2023.

As we hope you’ve heard, Silverchair is bringing back the in-person version of our popular industry event, Platform Strategies (27 September in Washington, DC). Preparing for this industry-wide event means surfacing the larger themes in scholarly publishing and technology more broadly, to ensure we create a program that engages our best minds on the stickiest challenges and biggest opportunities.

Here are the themes that rose to the top for us:

1. AI: Of course. Though funny enough now, when we were planning the agenda back in February, we did wonder whether all the then-ChatGPT-sparked hype would have faded by the Fall. We gambled that it wasn’t going anywhere, and we were right. Artificial intelligence and large language models are sure to disrupt every aspect of scholarly publishing (and the world at large), from how infrastructure and platforms are developed to how content is discovered, used, and licensed. As our keynote speaker, Nita Farahany, puts it: “How do we avoid the dangers of lost privacy and rights while taking advantage of the unprecedented opportunities? With the rapid advance of wearable neurotech and generative AI, we face important ethical questions about privacy, human rights, equity—and even what it means to be human.”
   
   
2. Coopetition: Partnership models for independent businesses: Industry consolidation, infrastructure complexity, the challenges of keeping up with new and ever-changing research policies and publishing models, and technological advancements and innovations, has left smaller and mid-sized organizations looking for options. Our industry contains both established and emerging collaboratives responding to these challenges, who are giving voice to the consequences for the scholarly ecosystem if these audiences are lost.
   
   
3. Digital to Data: Open access policies, industry mergers, and data privacy policies have drastically changed the landscape for marketers in publishing and beyond. Today's marketers have had to nimbly pivot from B2B to B2C, from siloed to unified, and from highly produced to highly personalized. Further, AI-powered tools rely on clean and comprehensive data to be most effective, shifting the focus of marketers and scholarly organizations at large.
   
   
4. Syndication: Platforms as a hub, not a destination: We’re seeing a number of pilots, models, and approaches for finding readers off-platform and bringing data, usage, and community efforts back to the version of record.
   
   
5. Integrating digital event workflows, assets, and strategy: With publishers looking to increase member engagement and grow revenue, they’re examining how digital event content is being leveraged: what's working, what's not, and what's coming up next. 
   
   
6. Ethics in Publishing: Research integrity, trust in science, transparency in data usage: As seen in the themes and sessions in industry meetings like SSP and ALPSP this year, research integrity and ethics more broadly are a big focus for publishing organizations. Fortunately, new tools and policies are helping to light a path forward.

What trends would you add to this list? How will this list change in 2024 and beyond? Let us know what you think! (We’ll also be gathering your insights for the 2024 iteration of our Publishing Tech Trends report.) Or, join us at the ALPSP conference or for Platform Strategies in DC and discuss it live! 

Silverchair is a proud Silver sponsor of the ALPSP Annual Conference and Awards 2023.

About the author

Stephanie Lovegrove Hansen is VP of Marketing at Silverchair. She has worked in the publishing industry for over 15 years, including at the University of Virginia Press and Clarivate Analytics.

Democratizing Knowledge: The Rise of Open Science and Open Access

By Tony Alves, Satam Choudhary and Joshua Routh, HighWire

Silver sponsor of the ALPSP Annual Conference and Awards 2023.

In an era of rapidly evolving technology and accelerating scientific progress, the promise of a democratized, inclusive, and borderless knowledge universe is becoming tangible, fuelled by two powerful movements - Open Science and Open Access.

At its core, Open Science is the practice of making scientific research transparent and accessible to everyone, including open methodologies and open-source software to open data and public access to published work. Open Access is a key part of Open Science. It is a publishing model that enables scholarly publications to be made freely accessible, eliminating the barrier of paywalls.

These concepts emerged from the desire to democratize science and foster a global research community unbounded by financial and institutional barriers. Since the inception of the Budapest Open Access Initiative in 2002, the ultimate vision is one of a scientific ecosystem where knowledge isn't a privilege, but a communal asset. This dynamic promises to stimulate interdisciplinary innovation, enhance public comprehension, and light the way towards a more equitable future for global research.

In this blog post we’ll summarize the opportunities and tensions behind these initiatives, and show how Highwire supports them by supporting relevant publishing models on our platform.

Open Data: Unveiling the Power of Shared Knowledge

Open Data stands for the idea that data collected during research should be freely accessible, enabling anyone to explore, use, and benefit from it.

Unveiling the wealth of knowledge embedded in scientific data, not only enables researchers to build upon each other's work but also allows for innovative analyses and interpretations beyond the scope of the original study. The story of the Human Genome Project stands as a testament to the transformative power of Open Data. The initiative – started by our long-term partners at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory – made genome sequences publicly available, igniting a surge of advancements in genomics, personalized medicine, and biotechnology.

However, the road to Open Data is not without hurdles. Researchers often grapple with data privacy issues, particularly in sensitive fields like healthcare. The lack of standardized formats and metadata can also lead to disorganized and hard-to-use data sets. Costs associated with maintaining accessible, reliable data also pose a significant challenge leading to innovative solutions such as Dryad, who we partner with to make data discoverable, freely reusable, and citable.

Open Access Books: Pioneering Free Access to Scholarly Literature

Beyond journal articles, the drive towards freely accessible scholarly literature has led to an upswing in Open Access Books. This shift acknowledges that academic knowledge can be encapsulated in many different forms of content, which was the driving force behind Highwire Hosting being the first platform to support any content type as a first class citizen. Books, for example, can be as dynamic and evolving as research papers and equally deserving of broad dissemination.

For authors, this publishing model presents a new avenue to share their work with a global audience, magnifying their reach and potential impact. Readers, especially those from resource-constrained regions, benefit from unrestricted access to vital scholarly works. For publishers, the journey toward Open Access Books is a delicate balance between championing knowledge dissemination and ensuring financial viability. Innovative models, like Knowledge Unlatched's crowd-funding approach, show promise in navigating these complexities.

Professional Societies & Open Access: Navigating the Currents

Professional societies play a crucial role in the scientific ecosystem, not just as gatekeepers of quality but also as proponents of community-specific issues, such as advocating for research in under-explored areas and policy changes based on scientific evidence.

However, their smaller scale, as compared to commercial publishers, presents unique challenges, particularly in the context of transitioning to Open Access. Challenges include:

• Financial Stability: Transitioning to Open Access implies moving away from a subscription-based revenue model which means devising financially sustainable Open Access models that can support their operations.
• Brand Value and Quality: Societies are often recognized for their quality publications. There may be apprehensions that moving to an Open Access model could dilute this perception of quality.
• Infrastructure and Expertise: Societies may lack the infrastructure for handling the Open Access publication process, from article processing charge (APC) management to copyright handling.
• Equity and Inclusivity: APCs can exclude authors with limited funding. Therefore, Societies must consider innovative models that ensure researchers from all backgrounds can participate.

As an independent organization, HighWire allows smaller societies to maintain independence from commercial publishers, while still providing industry-leading publishing tools.

Equitable Open Access Models: The Path to Inclusive Science 

As the move toward open access accelerates, the conversation is shifting from "why" to "how." Many traditional models of Open Access present limitations in fostering inclusivity, especially among underrepresented or underfunded researchers. This gives rise to a critical question: How can we ensure equitable access not just for readers but also for authors? 

There are several exciting models emerging in response to this need. 

• "Read-and-Publish" agreements, where institutions pay a single, combined fee covering both the cost of reading and publishing for their researchers.
• "Subscribe to Open" model turns the traditional subscription model on its head; instead of subscribing to read, libraries subscribe to make a journal open for everyone.
• "Fee Waivers" offer reductions or waivers of APCs for authors from low-income countries and early-career researchers.

Closing Thoughts: How HighWire can Help

As we look ahead, the momentum of Open Science and Open Access is undeniable. They promise to shape a more inclusive and accessible world of scientific research. Nonetheless, we must remain conscious of the barriers that hinder the potential of Open Science and Open Access. HighWire Press is ready to help our publishing partners by providing independent publishing solutions that address the entire publishing lifecycle, from online submission and tracking, to multi-format content hosting, to enterprise-wide single sign on capabilities, to licensing management, to usage and impact analytics. There is no one-size-fits-all answer, and HighWire’s modularized solutions can help any size organization economically adapt to the open landscape.

If you're interested in learning more about how our modularized solutions can help your organization navigate the open landscape effectively, we invite you to drop us a line at info@highwirepress.com. Let's advance Open Science and Open Access together!

HighWire is a proud Silver sponsor of the ALPSP Annual Conference and Awards 2023.

About the authors

Tony Alves, Senior Vice-President, Product Management, HighWire

Tony Alves has worked in STM publishing since 1990 focusing on digital publishing, online learning products and workflow management. Tony is involved in promoting industry standardization, system-to-system communications protocols and other industry shared services. Tony serves as co-chair of the Manuscript Exchange Common Approach NISO Standing Committee. Tony has organized and presented sessions on industry standards, such as ORCID, CRediT, Funder ID, organizational IDs, JATS and BITS, as well as on interesting editorial services, such as similarity detection, artwork preflight, reference checking and linking, artificial intelligence for manuscript quality assurance, social media, and ethics.

Satam Choudhary, Senior Product Manager, HighWire

Satam Choudhury is Senior Product Manager for Analytics Products and Subscription Management system at HighWire. With over 10 years of experience in working on ERP and analytics, he likes to help publishers identify research trends underlying vast volumes of published content. He also led the team in building THINK Web, a new subscription management, BI and payment system for publishers. He is excited and worried about forthcoming product releases, and talks about them incessantly to anyone who meets him!

Joshua Routh, Director of Hosting Products, HighWire

As the Director of Hosting Products, Joshua is responsible for ensuring our publishers' content is stored, enriched and presented effectively. He has worked closely with some of the world's most prestigious STM organisations for 15 years, including leading the team on numerous flagship products for the Cochrane Library, McGraw Hill, Oxford University Press and the British Medical Journal. He has a background in software engineering, a degree in digital design, and a passion for helping research content maximise its value.

Spotlight on: Original Études for the Developing Conductor

This year, the judges have selected a shortlist of four for the new ALPSP Impact Award. We also invite ALPSP members to take part in the judging process before the closing date of 31 July. Vote online. 

The finalists will be showcased in a lightning presentation session at the ALPSP Conference on 13 September, with the winners announced at the ALPSP Conference Awards Dinner on 14 September in Manchester.

In this series, we learn more about each of the finalists.

Tell us about your organization

The Open Education Initiative (OEI) is a unit of the University Libraries at Virginia Tech. The University Libraries at Virginia Tech furthers the university's dedication to being a global land-grant institution and serving faculty, students, and societies across the globe. The University Libraries supports the creation and publication of scholarship that is freely accessible to all — regardless of geographical location. The OEI offers a variety of services to improve student learning and faculty teaching materials to make them increasingly: accessible, affordable, of high quality, flexible, engaging, and innovative. We collaborate with faculty, staff, and students to create innovative original and adapted works designed to meet real-world classroom needs and release them under an open license for worldwide public use: https://guides.lib.vt.edu/oer/grantees

Collaborators for this project are from University of North Carolina at Greensboro and Virginia Tech. 

• The University of North Carolina at Greensboro is a public, R2: Doctoral University in Greensboro, North Carolina, USA and one of only fifty-seven doctoral institutions recognized by the Carnegie Foundation for both higher research activity and community engagement. The university offers 85 undergraduate degrees in over 125 areas of study, as well as 74 master’s and 32 doctoral programs to approximately 20,000 students. Founded in 1891 as a college for women, the university was one of the three charter institutions of the UNC System. Today, UNC Greensboro is one of the most diverse in the state of North Carolina and a minority-serving institution with an undergraduate population of 51% ethnic minority students and 67% female students.
  
• Virginia Tech (or Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University) is a public land-grant, R1: Doctoral University with its main campus in Blacksburg, Virginia, USA. Virginia Tech offers about 280 undergraduate and graduate degree programs to over 37,000 undergraduate, graduate, and professional students and is the state’s second-largest public university by enrollment. Through experiential learning, future-focused research, and an inclusive, spirited culture, Virginia Tech strives to accomplish the charge of its motto Ut Prosim (That I May Serve). Virginia Tech’s motto “Ut Prosim,” that I may serve, is a catalyst for the engagement aspects of the global land-grant university. 

What is the project/product that you submitted for the Awards?

Original Études for the Developing Conductor is a peer-reviewed, freely-available, and Creative Commons-licensed collection of 25 original compositions designed to enhance contemporary conducting pedagogy by amplifying the voices of composers from historically excluded groups. This resource presents original études beyond what are typically available from the Public Domain. While a print-on-demand option is available, we have worked to create a resource that is freely available and easy to navigate electronically. QR codes and hyperlinks are provided throughout the text to help digital users move around quickly and easily. It is available in multiple formats including digital PDF, print (scores only), and audio. Downloadable PDF versions are available for scores only (160+ pages) and for scores plus parts (700+ pages). 

The collection is currently the only known conducting-specific resource that contains music by a diverse group of living composers, is open-access, and is easily navigable in digital and print formats. Original Études for the Developing Conductor was published on April 27, 2023. 

Tell us a little about how it works and the team behind it

This collection of 25 original musical scores and parts is designed for use as a supplement for conducting education at advanced undergraduate and graduate levels. Études range from thirty seconds to four minutes in length and are original compositions designed to create a unified musical narrative. Each étude has an introductory page that includes a link to a MIDI realization (MP4) of the étude, a list of the parameters of the commission, additional pedagogical opportunities identified by the editors, information about the étude and composer, and a link to the composer’s website. Études were commissioned from a group of 65 invited composers from historically excluded groups, and composed by 25 living composers according to a set of musical characteristics and pedagogical opportunities designated by the editors.

Our hope is that this book will better prepare conducting students for the musical world they are entering while also reinforcing the existing pedagogical goals of conducting teachers across the United States and beyond. Despite the fact that conducting pedagogy is continually evolving, the examples students encounter in conducting classes tend to remain the same. By meeting the needs of modern students while also celebrating the voices of a diverse cross-section of contemporary composers, we hope this book offers a significant contribution to conducting pedagogy that supports the classroom goals of any conducting teacher regardless of pedagogical approach. As a zero-cost, openly licensed supplemental text featuring the music of many composers who have been historically excluded, we hope this book addresses current pedagogical issues of equity, diversity, inclusion, and access in a meaningful way. We also hope that the way music is published and navigated within a digital environment will change as a result of this publication.

Extensive efforts have been undertaken to ensure the usability of this resource for classroom use and beyond: 

• We conducted usability testing with students based on classroom scenarios;
• The text is freely available in multiple digital formats including high and low-resolution PDFs of scores and parts, and of scores only;
• An introductory table displays musical characteristics and commissioned elements for each étude;
• Layout, design, and navigation of the text were specifically designed for ease of digital download and navigation including in-document links which enable navigation within the overall book through a linked table of contents, navigation to and within individual scores, parts, and back to the score from each part; 
• PDFs may be self-printed and are also available to order as a “scores only” spiral-bound softcover print-on-demand version;
• Links and QR codes direct digital and print users to MIDI realizations (MP4s) available via a YouTube playlist, or to the book’s main landing page;
• In the digital “scores and parts” version, links at the bottom of each cover page enable the reader to “jump to” transposed parts for their instrument, return to the linked table of contents, or visit the main landing page of the resource;
• To enable accessibility for musicians who are blind or have low vision, the text, images, and links in the PDF versions of this text are tagged structurally and include alternative text, which allows for machine readability;
• The book was professionally engraved, copyedited, and typeset. MIDI realizations (MP4) were created and are freely available via YouTube;

The twenty-five composers who accepted commissions for this work and whose names are prominently featured on the book’s cover made this possible.They include: Spencer Arias, David Biendenbender, Susan Botti, Matthew Browne, Trevor Bumgarner, Yi Chen, Brent Michael Davids, Gala Flagello, Max Grafe, Ivette Rodriguez Herryman, Jennifer Jolley, Molly Joyce, Alexis Lamb, Lynnsey Lambrecht,Shuying Li, Ricardo Lorenz, Sally Lamb McCune, Hillary Purrington, Will Rowe, Christopher Sherwood-Gabrielson, Elena Spect, Hilary Tann, and Roger Zare. 

The project leadership team includes four people: two music subject matter experts, Dr. Jonathan Caldwell of the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and Dr. Derek Shapiro at Virginia Tech who served as lead editors for the project, and two members of the Open Education Initiative of the University Libraries at Virginia Tech, Anita Walz, Managing Editor, and Kindred Grey, OER and Graphic Design Specialist, who were deeply involved in project design, peer review, development, and production. Matt Browne and Artem Bank contributed music engraving and MIDI realizations to the project. 

In what ways do you think it demonstrates innovation?

Original Études for the Developing Conductor demonstrates impact and innovation in multiple ways. 

• Open-access music textbook publishing: No-cost online availability under a Creative Commons license is a significant benefit for students who more than ever struggle to afford textbooks and course materials, and as required course for music degrees, conducting is a high-need area for freely-available and openly-licensed course materials. 
• Centering students as part of project design: The project centers student needs and real-world classroom use by involving students and student-centric planning throughout the project planning process. This has resulted in innovative ways to ensure access, accessibility, relevant design, engagement, and in-document navigation, notably the use of QR codes and links to enable speedy navigation between scores, parts, and the Table of Contents, using a spiral-binding for the print version, and the inclusion of more representative composers than currently available textbooks.
• Centering diverse composers and contemporary music: Prior to initiating this project, our review of more than 250 excerpts in five prominent conducting textbooks revealed inclusion of only one woman composer and one person of color. Our text features composers from historically underrepresented groups, provides a short biographical statement, photo, link to the composer’s website, and the composer’s description of their etude. By centering a diversity of composers and contemporary music this work builds awareness of more diverse, living composers, current musical styles, and enhances engagement especially of students from historically marginalized groups.
• Prioritizing in-document navigation: Our student reviewers are so excited about the navigation in the book: “I’ve never seen this before. I wish that everyone would do this.” In class students are frequently asked to locate a score within a collection, conduct the score, play their instrument’s part and return to the score. In an analog environment this means page-turns in a 700+ page volume. In a digital environment, this necessitates scrolling or navigating to multiple files on one or more devices. Our publication leverages a linked Table of Contents to quickly navigate to any score, links from scores to each part, links from each part back to the score or Table of Contents, plus links and QR codes for print and digital users to navigate to an MP4 for each piece or to return to the full digital text. We are excited about the effectiveness of this approach for in-class use of this work and what it means for student learning. We also hope that music publishers will catch on and imitate this relevant and innovative approach.
• Proof of concept for open-access music textbook publishing. Publishing open access necessitates exploration of different financial models and creates opportunities for change and for entry of new players into the publishing space. We acknowledge the value of composers’ work by paying them in advance rather than relying on royalties and allowing retention of author rights while obtaining consent to release their work under a non-exclusive CC BY NC SA license. We reverted to a “patron pays” funding model and leverage funding carefully by maintaining a lean publishing operation. This project demonstrates that significant, real-world impacts are possible even for a small, focused team. 

What are your plans for the future?

First, we plan to use the work in the classroom this fall and evaluate our and others’ experiences of teaching and learning with the materials. We have also submitted the project for several conference presentations for which we are waiting to hear the outcome.

Second, conducting instructors and composers are already asking for a Volume 2. As this first volume focuses on intermediate to advanced-level etudes, we plan to focus on introductory-level etudes for the second volume. We hope to expand our scope beyond composers whose primary residence is in the United States.

Third, we are working with accessibility specialists to create an alt-text tagged version of each of the scores and parts to better enable access for learners who are blind or have low-vision.

Fourth, we see significant potential for music textbooks and sheet music publishing entities to innovate in the areas of open access, inclusion, and ease-of-navigation. We are discussing ideas regarding open access music publishing with colleagues, and working to get the word out regarding this proof-of-concept for open access, more inclusive, and navigable music publishing in library publishers and beyond. 

We are grateful and honoured to be selected as a finalist for ALPSP's 2023 Impact Award.

About the author

Anita Walz is Associate Professor, Assistant Director of Open Education, and Scholarly Communication Librarian in the University Libraries at Virginia Tech. She received her MS in library and information science from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and has worked in university, government, school, and international libraries for over 20 years. She is the founder of the Open Education Initiative at Virginia Tech and executive and managing editor of over 20l open textbooks adapted or created at Virginia Tech, many of which may be found at: https://guides.lib.vt.edu/oer/grantees 

More information

• DOI: https://doi.org/10.21061/conducting
• OEI website: https://guides.lib.vt.edu/oer
• Department of Music at Virginia Tech: https://sopa.vt.edu/future-students/undergraduate-programs/Music.html
• UNCG School of Music: https://vpa.uncg.edu/music

Spotlight on: Cassyni Journal Seminar Series

This year, the judges have selected a shortlist of four for the ALPSP Award for Innovation in Publishing 2023. We also invite ALPSP members to take part in the judging process before the closing date of 31 July. Vote online. 

The finalists will be showcased in a lightning presentation session at the ALPSP Conference on 13 September, with the winners announced at the ALPSP Conference Awards Dinner on 14 September in Manchester.

In this series, we learn more about each of the finalists.

Tell us about your organization

Cassyni is a startup launched in 2021 by the founders of Publons, Mendeley and Kopernio (now EndNote Click), we are based in London and have team members in the US and Europe. The platform was originally developed in the midst of the Covid pandemic as a way for researchers to organise, run, publish and preserve research seminars online.

Cassyni’s publisher offering is seeing rapid uptake across all fields of research and has been adopted by both commercial publishers (e.g. Elsevier, Springer Nature and Cambridge University Press) as well as society publishers (e.g. Royal Society, New Phytologist and AIAA). 

What is the project/product that you submitted for the Awards? 

Cassyni Journal Seminar Series is a platform for publishers to run, organise and publish online seminars in which authors talk about their latest research. It includes a suite of intuitive workflow tools making it easy for editors to convene keynote live events and author-led seminars.  

Tell us a little about how it works and the team behind it

The Cassyni team is made up of former researchers who have extensive experience of bringing innovative products to the publisher market that have positively changed scholarly communication. The team passionately believe that research seminars are an important part of the academic lifecycle and are currently an unseen jewel. By growing a connected ecosystem around seminars it will enable a well established medium for communicating research to travel further, faster to a more inclusive global audience. 

There are 2 types of seminars in the Cassyni Journal Seminar Series, Keynote seminars and Author-led seminars. 

Keynote seminars are live online events presented by authors hand-picked by the journal editors for their outstanding research. The seminars are promoted to the journal’s audience, who can attend the event and subscribe to the series, enabling the publisher to build a community around a topic, discipline or journal. Cassyni Keynote Seminars capture the magic of an in-person seminar, with the added bonus of being able to include a more diverse and geographically dispersed audience. The ‘watch later’ functionality allows researchers in different timezones or those unable to attend live to view the recording and take part in the Q&A asynchronously. All seminar recordings are preserved in a custom branded journal seminar series page on Cassyni. 

 
Author-led Seminars are designed to be scalable and require minimal input from journal teams. Selected authors are invited to give a Cassyni seminar as part of the manuscript acceptance process through a light-touch integration with editorial management systems. Authors simply click on the Cassyni link which walks them through the self-serve seminar publishing workflow. Online seminars based on a researcher’s latest publications are a proven route to increased reach and accelerated impact, helping them disseminate their findings to new audiences and boosting research integrity. 

In what ways do you think it demonstrates innovation?

Research seminar series form the centres of communities in which academics across disciplines share and discuss the latest research. However, without dedicated workflow tools and supporting infrastructure journal publishers have not been able to engage researchers participating in these communities in a systematic and scalable way. Increasingly, researchers are seeking out online events and videos as compelling complements to published articles when consuming research. For many researchers a 30 minute seminar can be a more engaging entry point to a new topic than a 30 page manuscript. 

Seminar recordings are automatically enhanced using Cassyni’s proprietary AI technology to produce high quality transcripts, extract slides and detect and resolve references to other scholarly works contained in the talk. The enhanced recording which includes automatic hyperlinks to journal content embedded in the video and is then published with a DOI ensuring it is part of the scholarly record. Seminars that are associated with a research article are linked from Cassyni, driving engagement and traffic to the publisher website. 

 
Publishers and societies are always looking for new ways to push the boundaries of research and engage their authors and readers with value-add services. By allowing authors to give seminars associated with their publications there is a chance for the community to hear directly from the people behind the papers. With the rise of generative AI and papermills having a seminar published alongside a paper is a valuable tool to boost research integrity and increase trust in the research. 

What are your plans for the future? 

A major focus for Cassyni is connecting online seminars deeply into the wider scholarly ecosystem as first class research outputs.  Cassyni seminars are already issued with a Crossref DOI and so are discoverable wherever Crossref is indexed. There are imminent plans to integrate with a multitude of research tools and discovery platforms so watch this space!

About the author

Ben Kaube co-founded Cassyni to help researchers disseminate their work through seminars and video. Prior to Cassyni he founded one-click research access tool Kopernio (now EndNote Click, acquired by Clarivate) and Newsflo (acquired by Elsevier). Ben holds a PhD in physics from Imperial College London and was named a Forbes “30 Under 30” for Science and Healthcare in 2020.

More information

Cassyni: https://cassyni.com/

Spotlight on: Bilingualism from submission to publication from Medwave and Kriyadocs

This year, the judges have selected a shortlist of four for the ALPSP Award for Innovation in Publishing 2023. We also invite ALPSP members to take part in the judging process before the closing date of 31 July. Vote online. 

The finalists will be showcased in a lightning presentation session at the ALPSP Conference on 13 September, with the winners announced at the ALPSP Conference Awards Dinner on 14 September in Manchester.

In this series, we learn more about each of the finalists.

Tell us about your organization

Medwave is a bilingual, open-access, MEDLINE-included medical journal founded by Dr. Vivienne C. Bachelet in 2001. Its mission is to elevate clinical professional standards in the region by facilitating access, overcoming geographical and economic barriers, and improving the quality of scientific reporting and research.

Kriyadocs is an ecosystem for scholarly publishers that offers technology-led solutions and services to streamline publishing workflows from submission to distribution for global academic, professional, and scholarly publishers.

What is the project/product that you submitted for the Awards?

As a design partner, Medwave collaborated with Kriyadocs to establish a fully bilingual peer review and production platform capable of handling submissions in both Spanish and English. The platform includes comprehensive Spanish copyediting and English translation stages to ensure consistency throughout the publication process.

This submission is based on the Learned Publishing article titled "A technology-based, financially sustainable, quality improvement intervention in a medical journal for bilingualism from submission to publication" by Dr. Vivienne C. Bachelet and Dr. Máximo Rousseau Portalis (Bachelet & Rousseau-Portalis, 2023*).

Tell us a little about how it works and the team behind it

Kriyadocs' online submission system manages peer review in the journal's source language and seamlessly transitions to the copyediting, typesetting, and proof-checking module. A modification was programmed by the Kriyadocs team to handle production processes for both the source language and its translated version.

Salient features of the workflow that enable and enhance the fully bilingual journal publication include:

• An online submission system that is capable of handling peer review in the journal’s source language.
• A smooth transition from the peer review process to production—including copyediting, typesetting, and proof checking, with an XML-first approach.
• The use of AI-based tools, such as DeepL for language translation and Grammarly for content editing, by Medwave editors to produce error-free translations with speed, efficiency, and lower costs.
• Fully automated PDF and JATS XML files for publication, as well as deposits to third-party preservation and archiving platforms.
• Automated recycling of non-translatable sections reduces inconsistencies between original and translated versions of articles.
• Simultaneous publication of both Spanish and English versions of the journal.

The ACTIVE platform, available as an open source software, generates the fully bilingual website for the journal. The website has been set up such that it transitions seamlessly between the Spanish and English interfaces.

After the implementation of this intervention, the journal was able to offer full bilingualism for manuscripts submitted in Spanish and ensure the simultaneous publication of Spanish and English articles with no delays between versions.

In what ways do you think it demonstrates innovation?

A bilingual journal enables the dissemination of research to a larger audience while preserving the local language and locally-generated knowledge, as Dr. Bachelet presented at the Ninth International Congress on Peer Review and Scientific Publication. However, this can be a cost- and resource-intensive endeavor.

Dr. Vivienne C. Bachelet and Ravi Venkataramani at 9th Peer Review Congress

This collaboration is significant and innovative because it established a fully bilingual peer review and production platform capable of handling submissions in both Spanish and English. This solution not only empowers authors to submit their articles in their native language but also broadens the pool of potential reviewers by enabling peer review to be conducted in the same language. The platform streamlines the publication process and enables the simultaneous publication of original and translated articles with no compromise in quality.

This solution offers numerous advantages to enhance Medwave’s publication process.

• It reduces inconsistencies between the original and translated versions of articles and eases the burden on human translators by automatically recycling non-translatable sections such as metadata, abstracts, keywords, and references.
• It has also led to increased efficiencies in the publication process, resulting in shorter review rounds, fewer human errors, and full automation of PDF typesetting and XML JATS files for publication, database deposits, and third-party preservation archiving. 
• In 2019, there was a gap of 31 days between the publication of the original Spanish article and its translated version. The bilingual workflow has eliminated the gap and enabled the simultaneous publication of both versions of the article. 
• As a result of the streamlined journal publication setup, Medwave has been able to remain financially sustainable.

By implementing a bilingual journal workflow and successfully addressing the challenges previously faced by the journal, this collaboration supports Medwave’s vision of increasing the dissemination of research to a wider audience. A bilingual journal workflow promotes inclusivity within the scientific community by providing equal access to research for researchers who may not be fluent in English. By enabling researchers and healthcare professionals to access medical research in both English and Spanish, this workflow eliminates language barriers within the scientific community and promotes cross-cultural exchange and understanding. It also encourages greater collaboration between researchers and healthcare professionals from different countries and language backgrounds, fostering diverse perspectives and innovative solutions to medical problems.

Finally, it can help increase the visibility and impact of research by reaching a larger audience, leading to more citations and recognition within the scientific community.

What are your plans for the future?

The future possibilities of expanding a bilingual journal workflow are vast and exciting. With the world becoming increasingly interconnected, there is a growing demand for research to be accessible in multiple languages. 

By expanding a bilingual journal workflow to include more languages, such as Chinese, Arabic, and F
rench, researchers are empowered to write in their native language and have their voices heard in the scholarly community. A multilingual journal workflow has the potential to enhance the visibility and impact of research by reaching an even wider audience. This can lead to more citations and recognition within the scientific community, as well as increased funding opportunities for researchers. Furthermore, expanding a bilingual journal workflow can help to promote inclusivity and diversity within the scientific community, as it ensures that researchers from all language backgrounds have access to the same research, leading to greater collaboration and innovation within the scientific community. 

The benefits and opportunities of expanding a bilingual journal workflow are immense and hold great promise for the future of research.

About the authors

Ravi Venkataramani, CEO of Kriyadocs, drives collaborative partnerships to enhance human potential through technology. Guided by his visionary leadership, Kriyadocs aims to revolutionize scholarly publishing with innovative solutions for researchers.

Dr. Vivienne C. Bachelet, Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Medwave, launched the bilingual biomedical journal to bridge the education gap for Spanish-speaking clinicians, researchers, and academics in Chile. She is also an Associate Professor at the School of Medicine of the University of Santiago de Chile (USACH) and active member of prestigious medical organizations.

More information

Medwave website: https://www.medwave.cl/

Kriyadocs website: https://www.kriyadocs.com/

Kriyadocs LinkedIn: https://in.linkedin.com/company/kriyadocs

Kriyadocs Twitter: @Kriyadocs 

Medwave Twitter: @Medwave_cl 

Ninth International Congress on Peer Review and Scientific Publication poster, “A Technology-Based, Quality Improvement Intervention to Ensure Accuracy and Integrity of the Scholarly Record of Articles Published Simultaneously in 2 Languages” by Dr. Vivienne C. Bachelet, Amaya Goyenechea, Máximo Rousseau-Portalis https://peerreviewcongress.org/peer-review-congress-2022-program/.

References

*Bachelet, V., & Rousseau-Portalis, M. (2023). A technology-based, financially sustainable, quality improvement intervention in a medical journal for bilingualism from submission to publication. Learned Publishing, 36(1), 73-80. 10.1002/leap.1533