Scholarly information is fragmented, workflows are inefficient, and trust in research has been eroding in recent years. There are a number of reasons for this: too much time is being spent on administrative tasks; content discoverability, including access rights, is not optimized; researchers aren't getting the recognition they deserve and their publishers want; and there's a lack of the transparency needed to (re)build trust in research. In addition, publishers, in particular, need better information to improve strategic decision-making. Recent reports from Australia and the UK have shown that widespread adoption of persistent identifiers (PIDs) and their associated metadata could save tens of thousands of researcher hours and tens of millions of dollars for each of those two countries. In this session, you will hear from a broad range of stakeholders about how publishers, libraries, and other stakeholders can contribute to and benefit from improved scholarly workflows.

The scholarly publishing ecosystem is more diverse than ever in terms of the business models we adopt, technologies and infrastructure we use, workflows we practice, and the way we show our resilience against shocks like pandemics. Our discussions, however, often focus on the challenges and opportunities of North America and Europe. As a part of the dynamic publishing world, regions outside this axis have been developing diverse experiences, expertise, and opportunities that can be effectively translated into global collaboration. In this session, experts and professionals working on different parts of these regions–the "unusual suspects"–will showcase their inspiring conceptions, experiences, and solutions. Through a guided panel discussion and open discussion, the audience and the panel together will explore how to learn from, capitalize on, and harness a diverse pool of regional and international perspectives and expertise. They would also identify some action points that could be taken forward by individual organizations beyond the session floor. This session would be one of the many attempts to inspire the conversation between the North and the South and create space for collaboration making the North and the South meet in the middle. || Speakers: Ana Heredia; Haseeb Md Irfanullah; Devika Madalli; Bianca Amaro; Lautaro Matas; Joy Owango; Solange Santos

Music and lyrics help us to teach and learn. What better way to highlight the significance of metadata than to transform songs from classics to pop to Broadway musicals into witty highlights on the value of metadata, PIDs, and standards? Borrowing a rough plot from the fable of the ant and the grasshopper, our creative cast will not only entertain you but will raise awareness of key issues that metadata can or should solve, like author name disambiguation, consistent taxonomies for language and persistent identifiers. Our determined ant researcher will restore order to the chaos of research output through her re-discovery of ancient "hoo-man" information science. This mini-musical, brought to you by a cast including researchers, vendors, publishers, and librarians, will be followed by an expert roundtable that will connect our drama back to metadata challenges that, when solved, will make the world a better place for humanity (and insects)!. A recording of this session is not available.

In the post-Cold War era, many observers have conceptualized science as a global activity, with substantial international collaboration, more readily facilitated cross-border scholarly communication, and even UN-level efforts to steer science towards Sustainable Development Goals. But regional differences, geopolitical strains, and challenges to developing a global research infrastructure have all posed challenges to global science. In this webinar, hosted by the Scholarly Kitchen, a panel will consider whether science can ever be truly “global.”