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Professional Development Series

Our debut series on the SSP OnDemand Library, the 2020 Professional Development Series offers presentations on current trends and issues in scholarly communications—from the impact of COVID-19 to diversity, equity, and inclusion in publishing--available at your convenience. New video presentations will be released each week; free materials and paid sessions can be accessed individually or as part of a group; all recordings may be accessed asynchronously, but registrants can also interact with presenters and fellow audience members during live screenings! Videos will be offered on the following topics: Business Models and Strategies, Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion, Editorial Innovations, Ethics and Standards, Global Trends, Research Perspectives. Featuring panels of leaders in their respective fields, this series is a must for anyone wishing to keep abreast of the latest developments in the industry.

20 Matching Videos

On-Demand Presentations

AI Goes from Disruptive to Imperative

01:06:08

Release Date: 08/31/2020, Niels Peter Thomas, Mike Groth, Erin L. Cox, Josh Nicholson

In recent years, artificial intelligence (AI) has been tested in a handful of academic publishing processes: discoverability, peer review, recommending content, and improving efficiency. But now the technology has advanced to the point where user experience can be highly personalized, scalability can be achieved without sacrificing quality, and machines generate entire books. We are now at a high-tech crossroads and it’s time for publishers to leap. This panel of movers and shakers in AI will explore exactly what can be gained by wider adoption of AI-powered solutions into editorial and production workflows. Stakeholders will discuss real use cases where intelligent automation has freed up time for critical efforts requiring human analysis and subject matter expertise. More importantly, we will tackle head-on the many uncertainties raised by AI, from its mysterious workings and unintended bias to fears about computers replacing people. Bring your questions and prepare to have your anxieties calmed as we imagine a publishing ecosystem of rapid workflows, higher-quality content, and an enhanced experience for authors and readers.
On-Demand Presentations

Bringing Diverse Perspectives into Scholarly Marketing

57:58

Release Date: 08/31/2020, Colleen Scollans, Dean Smith, Kasia Repeta

With the ongoing climate change, COVID-19 global health crises, and the spread of racism and xenophobia in the United States and around the world, there has never been a greater need for purposeful actions and well-designed outreach and awareness-building efforts. This webinar outlines approaches for sifting through research content and technology solutions for developing carefully considered content dissemination and community engagement campaigns for global change. The speakers will provide a set of ideas and calls to action to draw attention to what can be done if we all embrace this important time in history and work to solve some of the most pressing global issues. Those attending the live screening will be encouraged to provide feedback and pose questions via live chat. These questions will be recorded and shared for further discussions via a new SSP C3 online community.
On-Demand Presentations

Bringing Privacy and Personalization into Conversation Rather than Conflict

51:44

Release Date: 07/20/2020, Heather Staines, Lisa Janicke Hinchliffe, Tim Lloyd

Is privacy dead? Dying? On life support? Is it possible for higher education and research to be an oasis of privacy while the commercial sector at large takes a scorched earth approach to the notion of user control and privacy? Librarians and publishers have long understood that privacy and confidentiality in information use is critical to intellectual freedom and the free pursuit of knowledge. Can we maintain these commitments in light of the massive data capture and surveillance that characterizes our experience of using the web, mobile devices, etc.? How can we achieve the benefits of personalization in order to improve and customize user experience, support student success, assist faculty research, etc.? How can publishers and libraries work together to ensure user control over personal data while also developing useful services? Might privacy even be a competitive advantage? Join us to explore the tensions around privacy in our field and possible strategies for moving forward.
On-Demand Presentations

Career Development Lab

50:15

Release Date: 09/07/2020, John Warren, Margaret Moerchen, Sharon O'Reilly, Jasmine Wallace, Randy Townsend, Puja Telikicherla

Led by the director of George Washington University’s masters in publishing program, this session offers strategies for advancing a career in scholarly publishing. A discussion will explore answers to the following questions: • What are the key skills needed for successful careers in scholarly and academic publishing in the next ten years? • Has publishing shifted from a “trade”—an apprenticeship, learned mostly on the job,” to a “profession”—learning and applying a body of relevant skills and best practices? • How can diverse voices and perspectives best be integrated seamlessly into the fabric of academic publishing, and what can individuals in the profession do to welcome these new voices? Attendees participating in the live chat will have the opportunity to ask questions and interact with the presenters. The session welcomes experienced publishing professionals as well as students and those just beginning their publishing careers.
On-Demand Presentations

Changing Workplace Culture Through Bystander Intervention

01:16:49

Release Date: 09/07/2020, Randy Townsend, Daena Giardella, Erika Valenti, Scott Solder, Sabby Kaur, Donna Blancero

Bystander intervention, what it means, how it works, and who it is for are all important questions within our scholarly publishing communities. This panel session will aim to inform and educate attendees on the purpose behind bystander intervention strategies and how they can help to cultivate safe and supportive workplace cultures. Sponsored by the SSP's Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee, it will present a variety of voices on this topic to encourage honest and open discussion.
On-Demand Presentations

Digital Monograph Publication

45:18

Release Date: 08/17/20, Allison Levy, Crystal Brusch, Darcy Cullen, Susan Doerr, Sarah McKee, Beth Fuget

This session brings together authors, digital scholarship professionals, and academic press professionals to share their stories of collaboration in publishing digital monographs of all stripes—from enhanced open access editions of conventional print books to born-digital interactive scholarly works. How did these works come into being? Why were the authors committed to digital publication? What support did their home institutions provide? When and how did publishers enter the picture? What challenges emerged during the editorial and production processes, and how were they resolved? How can we encourage a shared vocabulary for these digital publications among the wider scholarly communications community? The session focuses less on demonstrating the works themselves and more on the ways in which various stakeholders collaborated to fully realize the project or author’s vision.
On-Demand Presentations

Expanding the Research Lifecycle

01:05:20

Release Date: 08/03/2020, Michele Avissar-Whiting, Josh Nicholson, Sami Benchekroun, Will Schweitzer

The researcher workflow is no longer a simple, linear process that starts with submission and ends with publication. New services and technologies abound that seek to enhance research impact and audience engagement long before submission and long after publication. With this lengthened lifecycle comes increased author expectations on the duration and depth of interaction with their research. The opportunity for publishers is greater impact and stakeholder engagement; the challenge is sustainable and practical implementation. This session will highlight three organizations that are innovating in stages outside of the traditional research lifecycle -- supporting early-stage research, preprint sharing, and post-publication connections, respectively. The goal will be to provide greater awareness of options that exist to enhance user engagement and better support authors, in ways that complement rather than subvert existing publication systems.
On-Demand Presentations

Forging Paths Toward Equity in Scholarly Publishing

48:43

Release Date: 08/03/2020, Paula Fontana, Juliet Harrison, Kate Smith, Simon Holt

The publishing industry is increasingly focused on bringing together different audiences to collaborate on projects and enable smart, wide-reaching content that has the potential to make a difference in the real world, breaking down the barriers of academic research. Among these opportunities, there are many challenges to the evolving world of research communication: change in reader habits, open science, and in particular, inequalities across subject disciplines. Over the past few years, there have been many blogs, reports, committees, task forces, and conference panels on the state of diversity in scholarly publishing. The problem is well-framed. But beyond envisioning diverse organizations, what are we actually doing to increase diversity, both within our businesses, and through the research that we publish, and how can we better work with the academics that we serve to help drive the debate and enact real change?
On-Demand Presentations

From Here to Data Maturity

01:15:03

Release Date: 08/17/2020, Mathew Wilmott, Ann Michael, Amy Pawlowski, Kristen Monahan

Not every organization was born with the knowledge of how to leverage data to create business and customer value. In fact, most organizations were not. They are only now starting, or at minimum, refining the way they set strategic and operational direction, interpret their markets, understand their customers, operate efficiently, and define new products based on the effective inclusion of data in their decision-making processes. But how does one get from the episodic use of limited data for their annual strategic plan to an environment where trustworthy, accessible, maintainable, and democratized data is integrated into their work and their culture? In this session, we will discuss how organizations can increase their data maturity level moving from Data Literacy to Data Leadership to Data Longevity. This will be a pragmatic discussion of what works and what does not work, with examples, and how success can be built upon a few key principles and practices.
On-Demand Presentations

From Partisan to Partnership

56:57

Release Date: 08/03/2020, Colleen Campbell, Sara Rouhi, Ellen Finnie, Vivian Berghahn, Curtis Brundy, Scott Delman, Ivy Anderson

In the wake of OA2020 and Plan S, publishers are increasingly under pressure to enter into transformative agreements that transparently shift their business model from subscription to one based on open access publishing services. Embarking on such a transition can be extremely daunting for publishers, considering their rightful concern over long-term economic sustainability. Other issues have also become apparent. Many publishers and libraries lack the business knowledge to match author affiliations with subscription revenues/costs. Large publishers may be ready for a cost-neutral transformative agreement based on per-article charges, but an APC-based model may not work for other publishers/disciplines/institutions. Past attrition rates and subscription price increases have made both publishers and libraries wary. And the historic transactional relationship between publishers and libraries has given little opportunity to develop trust. Yet in recent months, a growing number of publishers have chosen the path of absolute customer engagement and transparency in order to define the terms of a new economic model or transformative agreement. This panel will offer perspectives from successful publisher-library collaborations that have led to forward-looking agreements and new business models. Panellists, comprising sets of publisher-library dyads, will share their insights into how transparency and trust transformed their relationships from partisan contracting parties into collaborative partnerships.
On-Demand Presentations

How Latin American Has Been (Quietly) Revolutionizing Open Research-English

43:09

Release Date: 07/20/20, Ana Heredia, Alice Meadows, Alex Mendonca

While Latin America has long been recognized for its early and enthusiastic adoption of open access publishing, you might not know that the region has also successfully embraced open research more broadly. Supported by progressive government policies and programs that encourage open collaboration in research projects, open dissemination of results, and open information infrastructure, countries such as Brazil and Peru are leading the way in revolutionizing the way research is carried out and shared.
On-Demand Presentations

Maintaining Quality Peer Review in Times of Change

01:06:36

Release Date: 07/13/2020, Jennifer Regala, Dana Compton, Karen Stanwood, Michelle English

Related to the topic of maintaining quality peer review when journals undergo structural changes and workflow adjustments, this session will feature a ‘fireside chat’ approach to sharing the panelists’ individual experiences. First, it will highlight pragmatic approaches when journals experience high submission rates and what this means for editors, reviewers, and editorial support teams. Then, it will discuss moving toward transparent and open peer review, including what structural changes are involved and how editors and journals can ensure that peer review quality is maintained during this transition. Finally, it will delve into what editors and operational staff should consider before, during, and after moving to a new peer review submission system, specifically what workflow impacts to expect and how to uphold quality during the process. The intention of this session is to ‘look back to look forward’ and to begin defining best practices in an ever-evolving peer review landscape of new trends, workflows, functionality, and, most recently, new challenges raised by the COVID-19 pandemic.
On-Demand Presentations

Publishing for Everyone

54:10

Release Date: 07/27/2020, Simon Holt, Lettie Conrad, Stephanie Rosen, Bill Kasdorf, Heather Staines

This session is about the accessibility of scholarly publishing to people with disabilities, both in terms of published materials and the industry itself. Around 15% of the global population has a disability, according to the UN, so it is important to consider how people with a disability are able to access our content, our platforms, and our workplaces. This session will provide an overview of recent advances in accessible processes and practices, both in terms of product innovation and people inclusion. It also offers an opportunity for discussion about how we can best increase disability inclusion within our own workplaces and products in a realistic way. Attendees will learn about some of the disability inclusion and accessibility initiatives that are currently taking place within the scholarly communications industry and gain practical takeaways to make their own products and workplaces more accessible and disability inclusive. The session offers a range of perspectives including product innovation, process design, content distribution, and publishing house. It will give insights from multiple angles, including service providers and employees with a disability. With an emphasis on collaborative efforts, it will show how different parts of the industry are working to increase accessibility and become more disability-inclusive, offering attendees focal points they can reach out to as they look to increase inclusions within their own organizations, platforms, and products. Diversity and inclusion is not a competitive sport, and it is by working together as an industry that we create cultural change, one step a time.
On-Demand Presentations

Refereed Preprints

01:00:48

Release Date: 08/10/2020, Damian Pattinson, John Inglis, Kathleen Shearer, Gabe Stein, Jessica Polka, Thomas Lemberger

Preprints are rapidly changing the scholarly communication landscape by accelerating dissemination and enabling auxiliary innovations. For example, several new initiatives have begun to enrich preprints with expert commentary. Some focus on adding formal reviewer reports to generate refereed preprints, which can provide context for readers, accelerate and inform editorial decisions at journals, reduce the peer review bottleneck, and help evaluators understand the impact and quality of a new manuscript. Join us for a panel featuring experts with first-hand experience in the production of this commentary. We'll explore questions such as: -What are author, reader, and reviewer reactions to refereed preprints? -Will they help publishing become more efficient or duplicate effort? -What will be the impact of refereed preprints on journals?
On-Demand Presentations

Revolutionary Standards

58:35

Release Date: 08/31/2020, Nettie Lagace, Rachel Kessler, Kimberly Steinle, Tony Alves, Alison McGonagle-O'Connell

"Revolutionary" may not be the first word that comes to mind when thinking about technical standards ... but consider how core standards can be for providing a lingua franca, interoperability between disparate, bespoke systems, or how adoption of an industry best practice can shave dollars off product or project development investments. This session, featuring representatives from across our community, will illuminate the role that standards play in keeping our industry humming and invite ideas for determining current gaps and participation in what standards may still be needed to support further innovation. The speakers will will make their nominations for technical standards that have advanced scholarly communication with the most distinction and describe motivations for their full adoption. They will list community priorities in various areas of work and discuss how a consensus development process, even when community members have different requirements, can lead to benefits for all. Attendees will learn about new and existing standards in scholarly communication and how they can participate in this important work.
On-Demand Presentations

Scholarly Communications in the Era of COVID-19

41:22

Release Date: 07/13/2020, Angela Cochran, Lisa Janicke Hinchliffe

The COVID-19 pandemic has both exacerbated old problems and introduced new ones for the scholarly communications industry. In the first session in our Online Professional Development Series, Angela Cochran and Lisa Janicke Hinchliffe discuss the impact of the global pandemic on publishers and libraries, from the initial disruption and pivot to work from home/shelter in place, to its implications for 2021 and beyond. Questions considered during the conversation include: -How have campus closures and remote work exacerbated ongoing problems with remote user access? -Will the crisis drive book publishing to become “digital first” once and for all? -How will projected budget cuts and declining enrollment at universities affect the broader academic ecosystem, including the push toward open access? Join us as Angela and Lisa, both Scholarly Kitchen chefs and SSP Board members, explore the challenges as well as some of the surprising opportunities presented by the global crisis.
On-Demand Presentations

Solving Problems with and for the Problem Solvers

01:11:00

Release Date: 07/27/2020, Lori Samuels, Alice Meadows, Sylvia Izzo Hunter, Parinay Malik, Simon Holt, Bruce Rosenblum, Catherine Harding-Wiltshire

We all strive to make our content and services more accessible and inclusive for our customers. But how well are we progressing toward the equally important goal of welcoming the unique perspectives, contributions, and problem-solving abilities of people with disabilities into our organizations? What does “working with a disability” look like—for employees, colleagues, and employers? This session explores what it’s like to work in our industry while disabled, foregrounding the voices of publishing professionals with visible or hidden disabilities and of specialists in assistive technologies and disability inclusion and empowerment. We know that recruiting and retaining people with disabilities strengthens our organizations and improves our capacity to innovate, problem-solve, and meet our customers’ accessibility needs. What practices and processes foster inclusion efforts? How can you make a difference in your workplace? What does this mean for your organization’s hiring process, retention practices, and approaches to accommodation?
On-Demand Presentations

The Changing Academic Publishing Landscape in China

01:09:33

Release Date: 08/24/2020, Zong-Ming Cheng, Tao Tao, Donna Minton, Ph.D., Lori Carlin

For nearly two decades, international publishers have seen tremendous output from China provide mainly positive impact on their publishing programs. They’ve experienced growth from subscriptions to submissions to accepted papers, with little end in sight…or is there? China may now believe it is time to “build its own ship and sail independently,"" developing their own international academic publishing market. Recent activities and reports certainly indicate that China is looking to expand their scholarly publishing efforts, trying new approaches and providing funding to support experimentation. Now, an unprecedented large-scale national plan (including the “Action Plan for the Excellence of Chinese STM Journals”) includes specific directives to encourage internal, domestic collaboration and expansion. What if these efforts lead China to turn their publishing output inward? In this session, experts with local experience in China will provide first-hand insights into the most recent Chinese directives and developments that have the potential to disrupt the academic publishing industry in China. We will hear directly from those experimenting with new and novel approaches to publishing research in China, along with what Chinese researchers are saying today about publishing, open access, how they make submission decisions, and what publishers need to know about the new and emerging opportunities and challenges in China.
On-Demand Presentations

What Do Researchers Really Want from Publishers

55:24

Release Date: 07/27/2020, Karin Wulf, Alice Meadows, Phill Jones, Milka Kostic, Ana Heredia, Haseeb Md. Irfanullah

What do researchers think of the current publishing process? How valuable do they find the services that scholarly publishers provide? Which would they keep and which would they change? This panel session features researchers from around the world, who are -- or have been -- also involved in publishing. They will discuss how and why they would like to reimagine scholarly publishing. Expect strong views, unlikely ideas, and lots of inspiration for how to make scholarly publishing the best it can be for the researchers we serve.
On-Demand Presentations

Women of Color in Conversation

01:03:41

Release Date: 08/24/2020, Barbara Krauthamer, Rochelle Williams, Charlotte Roh

The lack of diversity at the top of pretty much every profession is well documented, and scholarly communications is no exception. Compared with the number of women who work in our community overall, there are woefully few leaders, and people of color are further underrepresented at all levels. Women of color who are leaders are even more of a rarity, and they experience challenges in the workplace, distinct from those that white women or men of any race face. To address these myriad issues, we have brought together several women of color who are accomplished leaders in their fields for a roundtable discussion. Topics will include how they navigated perceived bias in the workplace, advocated for themselves, and built networks of mentors and sponsors. We aim to make connections between the lived experience of the speakers and what organizations can do to foster inclusive workplace cultures supportive of women of color.