ALPSP International Conference: Day 1 - Forty Years in Scholarly Publishing

And we're off! The fifth annual ALPSP international conference is underway, brought to you in short, blog bursts, (almost) live, from The Belfry, near Birmingham.

Mary Waltham opened the conference this afternoon with an overview of 'Forty Years in Scholarly Publishing.' It was, she claimed, an eclectic view of what has gone on in the period that corresponds with ALPSP's own existence. 

Here are a few highlights to whet your appetite.

Tracking trends is what good publishers do to see what is going on. When looking at the growth of researchers between 1973-2008, the number of researchers in the US life sciences shows massive growth, yet computer sciences are at the bottom. A lack of interest in doctoral study? Or maybe they were being snapped up by tech start-ups... (Source: Science and Engineering Indicators (SEI) 2012) 

The culture of publishing has been transformed. Nature in 1966 were approached with courtesy, if not deference, and had a polite - sometimes savage - editing of articles. In 2012 journals are competing with service and brand. There has been a massive attitudinal change.

Authors are doing more… and they often don’t like it. Wrestling with the online submission of an article is traumatic. All publishers should go through their own submission process. It may prove to be a salutary experience.

When publishers behave badly: it can backfire. Suing authors is messy, horrible and no one wins.

Mergers and acquisitions began to be mentioned in 1981. The study by Munroe: The Academic Publishing Industry: A Story of Merger and Acquisition (2007)  provides a who’s who to who owns who.

Technology changes everything. In 1997, a survey of 51 UK based publishers of 1344 journals funded by the PA found that there was:

• continued downward spiral declining subs & increased prices
• average price full sub £240
• average number of full rate subs/journal 466
• Income from all online formats = 1% or less
• many publishers had a web site ‘designed and developed in-house’
• 25 publishers owned and maintained the hardware and software systems
• customers: UK & EU = 50%, US & Can 29%;  Pacific Rim 10%
• conflict between academic pressure to publish papers and capability.

Read the paper ‘Technology: what could online enable?’ (Source: Mackie-Mason & Jankovich 1996) and it sounds visionary. But is very different to the publisher world view. The authors enthuse about perfect price discrimination, distinguishing user type and quality, and extracting value from new services. Hyperlinks – some research working papers embed references to other papers… making it possible to simplify.  Marvellous!

Business models – where does the money come from? Open access is the completely logical next step from these...

• subs
• advertising
• display/product
• classified/job
• rights and translations
• member fees
• page charges and reprints
• sponsorship
• 'freemium'. 

When Harold Vamus, Director of NIH, mooted the idea of E-Biomed in April 1999 (changed to PubMedCentral in August 1999), he was met with fierce opposition from publishers who were “apopletic”. He emerged again in 2003 and launched PLoS with funding. An illustration of poor communication on both sides in over 40 years.

The importance of a journal article: there are numerous measures now made possible by technology at article and journal levels. Includes citations such as Scopus, Cross Ref, PMC, ISI and Google Scholar. Also profile on social networks, in blogs and media coverage as well as Eigenfactor, Journal Usage Factor and H-index.

Access is key and there is an imperative for publishers to do more. The upload speed of a simple tropical health research agency home page varies enormously. Need to do more to support universal access for human development.

What are society and association publishers’ strengths?

• Membership = direct link to unique resource
• Size – nimbleness
• Mission driven

And their weaknesses?

• Slow
• Short-sighted
• Weak marketing and market research
• Weak sales
• Weak business development
• Risk averse
• ‘Political’

The features of scholarly publishing have not changed: the accuracy offered by peer review to avoid time cost of reading bad articles and help with information overload.What authors want:

• prompt and professional communication
• objective peer review
• speed of publication
• peer recognition, citations and impact leading to increased visibility
• all their ideas to be published in full and widely disseminated.

What can we learn?

1. Know your customers well – academics are slow to get upset with publishers, but once wound up, they are vocal and effective. 
2. Avoid cases that invoke the law – you will lose in a number of ways.
3. One-way communication between stakeholders is doomed to falter – develop dialogue to anticipate and resolve difference.
4. Always consider alternative scenarios – change is constant and inevitable.
5. Be open to new approaches – experiment in the margin and beware the echo effect.

ALPSP 5th International Conference

It’s finally here! The fifth ALPSP International Conference and we’re off to The Belfry, the “Spiritual Home of the Ryder Cup”, set in 500 acres of stunning countryside.  I’m hoping that delegates won’t be side-tracked by such a spectacular setting as we’ve got an excellent line up of sessions and social events.

2012 is ALPSP’s 40^th year and we look forward to celebrating.  Our opening Keynote on Tuesday afternoon is Mary Waltham, who will take a very honest view of the last 40 years of scholarly and professional publishing and ask ‘how did we do?’  It may not be as good as we might think.  Arend Welmers is our second keynote on Wednesday morning.  If we got a poor grade from Mary, then perhaps Arend may be able to direct us along the right path.

Our plenary sessions start with an entertaining look at the global issues affecting scholarly and professional publishing.  Then we address the thorny issues of just how scholarly communication is going to cope with reducing attentions spans and whether any of us will survive having to give it all away.  Our final plenary on Thursday has a slightly more positive slant: “It’s the end of the world as we know it…and I feel fine!”

In amongst all that, there are six parallel sessions to choose from.  Before lunch on Wednesday, we’ll be getting the low-down on proposed changes to copyright legislation and their potential effects, finding out what text mining actually is and how it may impact you, or gaining insights to app development.  After lunch there’s the tricky choice between making content discoverable, dealing with unethical behaviours or finding out about the latest product initiatives. 

Unable to make it?  We have a dedicated band of tweeters to keep you up to date (#alpsp12), and we’re also hoping to have regular blog updates.  In addition, we’re videoing all the sessions, so you can catch up with what you missed after the conference.

I would like to say a huge thank you to all of our sponsors:

Gold             Oxford University Press

Silver              QScience.com

                   SAGE

Copyright Clearance Center

Atypon

Thomson Reuters

Bronze           Publishing Technology

                   SWETS

                   DataSalon

                   Cambridge University Press

Nature Publishing Group

                   Turpin Distribution

                   Wiley-Blackwell

                   RSC Publishing

Reception Sponsors            Publishing Technology (Opening Reception)

                                      Highwire (Dinner Reception)

         

I look forward to seeing those of you making your way to the conference.  I hope you enjoy it and leave feeling reinvigorated and ready to tackle the next 40 years!

Audrey McCulloch

Chief Executive

The Royal Society of Chemistry completes organisation-wide roll-out of business insight service

MasterVision comes of age – The Royal Society of Chemistry rolls out DataSalon’s web-based MasterVision across the entire organisation, making it their first port of call for business insight.

Cambridge, UK and Oxford, UK, 1 August, 2012 – The Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) announced today that DataSalon's MasterVision service has now been rolled out across the whole organisation. It now plays a key part in all business planning and operational activities, and is used on a day-to day basis within every department of the RSC.

The RSC have been working with DataSalon since 2009, when they first adopted the MasterVision system to join together all of the RSC’s customer data relating to members, subscribers, authors, usage, and more into a single customer view. Initially the RSC saw MasterVision as a key tool for the sales and marketing teams, but it since became clear that the scope was more far-reaching and that MasterVision could provide considerable benefits to the entire organisation.

Following the recent roll-out of MasterVision, there are now over 200 end users from across the organisation who are actively using the system. The initiative was led by staff within the RSC with support from the DataSalon team, with the system’s user-friendly web interface making it very easy for ‘non-technical’ staff to become hands-on users.

MasterVision is now used within every department, including Sales, Marketing, Commissioning, Business Development, Business Intelligence, Admin, Publishing Services, IT, Membership, and Books. It remains vital to the marketing and sales departments, but other departments now gain valuable insights from the single customer view in different ways. For example, MasterVision is used extensively by the editors in the Commissioning department who use it to find potential authors, research new topics for commissioning, and analyse author activity. It’s also used to produce management reports for business planning, to monitor the performance of new journals, and to audit and improve data quality.

“MasterVision is now central to our entire organisation, and provides vital insight to all of our staff in many different ways.” said Richard Crouch, Marketing Director, RSC “We saw the huge potential of a complete single customer view for the whole company, and are thrilled that the roll-out has been such a success.”

“We’re delighted that the RSC have realised the full potential of MasterVision.” said Nick Andrews, Managing Director at DataSalon. “Customer insight is so much more than just a marketing aid, and it’s great that the RSC have embraced our service with such enthusiasm as a central business planning tool.”

Notes for editors

·         The Royal Society of Chemistry is the largest organisation in Europe for advancing the chemical sciences. Supported by a worldwide network of members and an international publishing business, our activities span education, conferences, science policy and the promotion of chemistry to the public. Our website is at: http://www.rsc.org.

·         DataSalon is the leading provider of customer insight solutions for academic publishers. Our core product MasterVision integrates all of a publisher’s customer data into a complete 360º view for every individual and institution, creating business insight for the whole organisation and high-value intelligence for leads, cross-selling and renewals. MasterVision is fully managed and hosted, and is backed by first-class service and support. We're pleased to count many of the most innovative publishers among our clients, including the American Institute of Physics, BMJ Group, IOP Publishing, and Oxford University Press. Our website is at: www.datasalon.com

For further information about this press release please contact Nick Andrews (Managing Director, DataSalon). Email: info@datasalon.com. Phone: +44 (0)1865 321353.

Publish! New Players, New Innovations

Nico Macdonald from Media Futures welcomes all

Media Futures are interested in the potential of new technology to change the publishing industry. They believe that new technology, innovations and small start-ups are changing the way people engage with the written word. The Publish! New Players, New Innovations event held at St Brides’ Foundation last night was designed to focus discussion not just on big hitters like Amazon and Google, but also on small start-ups with a show and tell format and panel discussion.

Alyson Fielding, Managing Director, Pyuda, and Dave Addey, Managing Director of Agant, showcased the Timeline World War 2 app which was created in partnership with British Pathé, Windmill Books and Ballista Media, working with storyteller Alyson.

You always hear the phrase ‘this is the future of the book’, but it’s also the future of the documentary. The boundaries are blurring between different fields so collaboration is key. In this instance, Agant were commissioned by Ballista and they licensed content from British Pathé and other organisations. As there were 150 British Pathé videos included, they were involved from very early on, helping to shape the app and show their content in best possible way.

Lessons from the project include using international ‘names’ – trusted experts to give subject credibility and profile – Ballista's Dan Snow for the UK and Robert MacNeil in North America. They adopted a timeline format to group content together, but it has a multi-layered approach so readers can filter by battles or people, for example, dependent on what they are interested in. As far as they can tell, the interactive map of the world was a first, giving a new and engaging way of interacting with the information. The use of the content development tool allowed content developers to preview how it looked and so they could amend and adapt to make it work best for the experience. This was critical to understanding what the finished product would look like to the consumer.

Alexis Kennedy is Chief Narrative Officer of Failbetter Games. They are developing StoryNexus, a platform for playing and building ‘storygames’ such as Fallen London. They are also publisher and retailer of Varytale interactive books. They want to open StoryNexus up so people can create invented worlds. Kennedy believes the oft-quoted phrase “The greatest special effects budget of all time is the human imagination”. StoryNexus is a platform or worlds full of stories that are presented in tiny free floating chunks of narrative that the player selects. 

Why now? The rise of transmedia and storyworlds is the mainstreaming of ‘geek’. There is mobile ubiquity. Everyone is always on internet and there is disruptive opportunity in stories. Video on a mobile device is an unnatural act, but text on a mobile device is not. They are launching an open beta in August, but already have traction and validation from the existing 160k users from all Fallen London accounts. Kennedy was candid about the business model as well: they have achieved revenue of £250k over two years using one and a half dedicated people for writing and developing.

He too believes that collaboration is key. Publishers can use Storyworlds for revenue or marketing. Writers are the kings of text. And for coders who really want to be writers: here’s where you start. But bear in mind that writing interactive fiction is difficult and different from narrative linear writing.

Trevor Klein, Head of Development at digital agency Somethin’ Else, collaborated with Richard Dawkins and publishers Transworld to create The Magic of Reality app. It’s different designing for apps than book. You have to think about technology and design for your content. Don’t make things for yourself or publishers, but those who will buy them: the most important approach is to design for your users. When making a digital book, the book bit is the most important element. It is really important to work and collaborate with the author. For the science, every chapter had an interactive experiment everyone could do for themselves (e.g. grow your own frogs).

Klein provided insight into where in the market to pitch your app to make money. Android apps don’t make any money while 80% of iOS apps don’t make any money. For iOS, the top 1% make 36% of revenue; the next 19% make 61%; and the bottom 80% make 3%. And Klein’s advice? Don’t aim for Angry Birds territory - it won’t work. They focus on the 19% band. To be successful at this he suggests publishers: 1) design an awesome product (but be prepared to invest in it); 2) have (or get) a flagship brand/author; and 3) price it and market it property. In his view, that’s all you need to do to launch a successful app. 

One final insight was to understand the sales spike. The majority of app sales are on launch, with a long tail of sales. The illustration he showed demonstrated that when price promotions were used, they were effective. But only on the day they ran, with no long term benefits to sales.

Antonio Gould is a digital producer who worked with the Usborne Foundation on the development of the Teach Your Monster to Read learning game. It would have been impossible to develop the game without the use of Agile development. It was central to building and testing to change to make it work. They only knew of problems by testing in schools at alpha and beta stages. They also went through 150 illustrators to find the right person and using a team of freelancers enabled them to do this. They used a community based media model - different from centralised marketing messages. Gould believes that traditional marketing skills won’t cut it. Development and marketing were in the same team. The project wouldn't have worked otherwise.

The panel contemplate innovation and new players

We then turned to the panel to hear their thoughts on how new players can innovate and disrupt creating opportunities for publishers. Eric Huang is Publishing Director for Media and Entertainment at Penguin. They increasingly look at web products, toys, film and other media. He described the team as producing content for partners. This sounded more like agency talk rather than publisher talk. While they are known for Club Penguin and Moshi Monsters, they now launch picture book brands digitally and are also working with a new breed of author. 

Two such authors are Chris Mould and Matt Howarth whose book Edmund and Cecilie is digital first. The concept is of a little girl with a magical friend who is a dragon. The reader explores a magic forest that tells the story of ancient dragon in an interactive way. While it is a reading experience, it won’t feel like a book at all. With another project 'Ollie’s Edible Adventures' - the story of a boy who became what he ate - the metaphor of typography is replaced by the metaphor of props for a stage. 

Huang sees his division as storytellers who tell stories across multiple formats, not just in the one we love the most: books. He believes it is a great time if you are working in media (not publishing) to break down doors. The good news is that Penguin will talk to anyone. They are becoming more like TV/film producers and developers, but face the challenge of not having all these skills. That is where partnerships and collaboration comes in.

Kate Pullinger, a writer whose novel The Mistress of Nothing won the Canadian Governor General’s Literary Award for Fiction, and whose digital fiction projects include Inanimate Alice and Flight Paths: A Networked Novel says that one of the things that frustrates her about e-books is that they are interred and in silos. 

Peter Usborne, Founder and Managing Director of Usborne Publishing whose Usborne Foundation supported the development of the Teach Your Monster to Read learning game says his company doesn’t feel threatened by digital. But if he was a bookseller, he’d be jumping off a cliff. His view on apps is marketing first. They are quite easy to develop, but it is very easy for them to get lost. He does not see any advantage in being first, but is very happy to see lots of other people be first – and make lots of mistakes they can learn from.

Chris Book is Chief Executive of Bardowl, a digital streaming service for audio books. He feels it is genuinely the most exciting time to be working in publishing driven by all the technical possibilities and new thinking from authors and publishers. New players aren’t a threat: the big tech companies that own most of distribution and retail of products are. And publishers working with small start-ups can mitigate this as their business models tend to be adaptable. With Bardowl they charge £9.95 per month subscription. The payment companies take their cut and then there is a 50/50 share with the publisher and Bardowl. This is calculated by minutes of the book listened to in a month which is what differentiates from existing provider of audio books and links through to actual usage. With new models such as this, it’s crucial that publishers share some of the risk with new players to give consumers what they want.

While the focus of the evening was weighted towards children's and reference publishing, the principles of innovation, partnerships, skills and collaboration apply just as much to the scholarly sector as to trade. We're keen to hear about projects across ALPSP's membership that are exploring these areas.

IET to Launch New Digital Library

• New platform available autumn 2012 enabling full text access to over 3,000 eBook chapters and 185,000 journal articles
•  
• Library will contain all IET digital research content and house the recently announced open access journal

The Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) is to further expand its digital offering with a significantly redeveloped and enhanced Digital Library.

The new Digital Library, developed on Publishing Technology’s pub2web platform, is designed to improve the speed and ease with which academic and corporate users can access the IET’s 3,000 eBook chapters and 185,000 journal articles, which stretch back to 1872. The redevelopment kick-starts the IET’s major digital strategy and is the first of a number of platform improvements to be announced over the coming months.

Launching later this summer, the Digital Library is part of the IET’s mission to facilitate access to essential engineering intelligence worldwide. All of the IET’s research content will be available on the new platform, including the IET’s newly announced open access journal which will contain articles from some of the world’s leading academics, free of charge. The platform will shortly incorporate access to IET.tv and its archive of 3,500 videos.

New features of the Digital Library will include easier navigation and quicker access to relevant content. It will also allow for greater discoverability, improved librarian and customer support and communication, plus increased authentication options for the user. Ultimately, the platform will provide a much improved site for existing and prospective customers.

Daniel Smith, Head of Academic Publishing at the IET, said: “We know a big part of the future of academic publishing is online. The reason for this is clear when you consider that the IET attracts an international range of authors – online is simply the easiest way for users of our content to access the information we publish. The move towards digital also opens up new options when it comes to the content itself. Users of our platform can blend the content they require by accessing eBook chapters, journal articles or video on the subjects that they are interested in. In short, this new platform is a significant step forward and sets the IET up for future digital expansion.”

“As we add an open access model to our existing publishing operations, we expect our user numbers to grow,” commented Michael Ornstein, VP Sales, Americas at the IET. “We therefore need a digital platform that matches the needs of our growing audience while also allowing us to improve the experience of existing customers. Our mission at the IET is to promote and support essential engineering intelligence, and this means making sure research is reaching as many people as possible. We are delighted with the new digital platform and are confident it will play a key role in helping us achieve our goals.”

For further information and a demo of the developing site, please visit IET Inspec on stand 458 at SLA, Chicago on 15-18 July. 

-ends-

Media enquiries to:

Lorna Hughes / Olivia Allen

Harvard PR

0207 861 2844 / 0207 861 3967

iet@harvard.co.uk

Professor Nigel Brown elected as SGM President

5 July 2012

The Society for General Microbiology (SGM) is pleased to announce that its governing Council has elected Professor Nigel Brown as the next SGM President.  Nigel will formally take over from Professor Hilary Lappin-Scott in September 2012,at the Society’s Annual General Meeting.


Nigel is currently Senior Vice-Principal at The University of Edinburgh, where he is also Head of Planning, Resources and Research Policy and Professor of Molecular Microbiology. He will retire from this position later this year to focus on his Presidency and other work in science and higher education policy and science communication.


Nigel has worked in the fields of molecular genetics and microbiology for over 30 years and has published more than 150 scientific papers. Nigel is former Director of Science and Technology at the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) where he had responsibility for the BBSRC science strategy and for competitive grant funding, as well as a number of Research Councils UK activities.


Nigel said, “I am delighted to have been elected as President at such an important time for the Society. We face a number of societal issues, such as new and re-emerging diseases, public access to research information, and the role of science in policy-making, as well as facing many scientific challenges. I hope to work with the membership in addressing these, and to take forward many of the developments initiated under Hilary Lappin-Scott’s presidency.”


Current SGM President Professor Hilary Lappin-Scott said, “These are challenging times for scientific societies and for the discipline of microbiology. I am delighted that the SGM will be led by Nigel Brown who, with his wealth of scientific, policy and leadership experience, is well-placed to respond strongly to these pressures and develop new initiatives to promote the art and science of microbiology to stakeholders. I have every confidence that the Society will flourish under his leadership.”


Notes for Editors


For further information please contact Laura Udakis, Press and Social Media Officer,Society for General Microbiology. Tel +44 (0)118 988 1843 Email l.udakis@sgm.ac.uk

Professor Nigel Brown holds Honorary Professorships at the universities of Nottingham and Swansea. He is a member of the Scottish Science Advisory Council, Chair of the Edinburgh Consortium on Rural Research and former Chair (2010-2012) of the Deans of Science and Engineering in Scotland. He represents the UK scientific community on the European Science Foundation Life and Environmental Sciences Committee. He is a Chartered Chemist and a Chartered Biologist and was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 2011.


The Society for General Microbiology (SGM) is a membership organization for scientists who work in all areas of microbiology. It is the largest learned microbiological society in Europe with a worldwide membership based in universities, industry, hospitals, research institutes and schools. The SGM publishes key academic journals in microbiology and virology, organizes international scientific conferences and provides an international forum for communication among microbiologists and supports their professional development. The Society promotes the understanding of microbiology to a diverse range of stakeholders, including policy-makers, students, teachers, journalists and the wider public, through a comprehensive framework of communication activities and resources.

IET launches OA Engineering Megajournal

• Accepting submissions from autumn 2012 and available online in 2013, the megajournal will cover a full range of engineering topics
• Existing 26 journals to add open access option
• Announcement follows global research project canvassing opinion from 35,000 engineering researchers

The Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) is to become the first engineering, not-for-profit publisher to adopt an open access model with the launch of a comprehensive, online-only open access journal. Open access options will also be added to its existing 26 journals. This is part of the IET’s continuing mission to make essential engineering intelligence available to the worldwide engineering community, benefitting researchers who contribute to or use this content.

The IET, which has 150,000 members in 127 countries around the world and has published engineering journals since 1872, will be inviting submissions for its new open access megajournal from autumn 2012, with the online-only publication expected to launch in 2013. As a broad-based engineering journal it will accept papers on a wide range of engineering topics, rather than focusing on a single specific field. The title and editor-in-chief of this new publication will be announced later in 2012.

From 2013, authors will also be able to choose to make their research free to view in any of the IET’s 26 existing engineering journals, which include well-known titles such as Electronics Letters and the newly launched IET Biometrics. Currently all research papers published by the IET’s journals are available in print and online to paying subscribers only.

The IET’s decision to adopt the open access model comes after a major global review with over 35,000 engineering researchers from academia and industry to gauge their appetite for open access. This research found that 87% of engineering researchers said they would continue to submit articles to a journal if it converted to an open access model, and around a third of them had previously published in an open access journal.

Daniel Smith, Head of Academic Publishing at the IET, explains: “The recent Finch report has further fuelled the public debate about open access academic publishing, which we believe is one of the most significant industry changes in recent years and yet is complementary to the existing subscription-based model.

“For authors it not only provides more choice in terms of where their peer-reviewed papers are published, but offers them more opportunity to publish high quality cross-disciplinary studies. This is particularly key in engineering, where many of today’s advances are being made at the interfaces between subjects. For readers, gaining quick and easy access to research is of course a major step forward and we are excited by the potential that open access offers.”

Tim Hamer, Director of Knowledge at the IET, adds: “Developing open access to quality engineering content which accelerates both research and innovation is a major pillar of the IET’s knowledge strategy. The introduction of our open access megajournal is an important element within this.  We believe the broad scope of the new journal and the opportunity to publish open access articles in existing journals will be a welcome development for the worldwide engineering community.”

Media enquiries to:

Lorna Hughes / Olivia Allen

Harvard PR

0207 861 2844 / 0207 861 3967

iet@harvard.co.uk