Sophie Reisz

2020 was an eye-opening, unrelenting experiment in exploring new directions in our personal and professional lives. Even now, as we move further into 2021 and beyond, we are considering what these changes and experiences might mean as we continue to collectively power forward. As we adjust to this “whole new world,” our industry bears a new level of responsibility as scholarship, scientific research, and advances in new scientific technologies (especially with respect to vaccinations) fall under a high-resolution microscope. Some might even say that scientific research and scholarship are “under fire” as citizen scientists and global citizens alike emerge to voice their advocacy, opinions, and concerns about public health, public security, climate change, and our collective responsibilities to each other as individuals of a greater global network. This session is the start of the conversation. It will focus specifically on the emerging responsibilities we now have as academic publishers, researchers, librarians, and citizens to uphold the rigor and impact of the advancements that have the greatest potential for positive influence around the world.

In our opening session, expert panelists from three nonprofit publishers addressed how their respective organizations are exploring new open access business models and ideas that go beyond traditional APCs. Plan S, OA2020, and other emerging global policies have exacerbated recent discussions about open access. But many nonprofit organizations have long been pushing the envelope in finding new ways to facilitate open research, in pursuit of both mission fulfillment and revenue diversification. This enlightening session discusses these innovative approaches and the opportunities and challenges they present for their forward-looking sponsors.

Keynote session on major shakeups in scholarly publishing.

We are all familiar with the most influential indexing services in academic publishing, including Web of Science and the Impact Factor as well as PubMed/MEDLINE, which indexes reputable research in life sciences and biomedical fields, but what about newly advancing indexing services that are driving fields forward? This session covers not only the ever-advancing influence of the Impact Factor, but also delves into how other metrics and resources (Google Scholar, Scopus, h-Indexes, and more) are advancing the legitimacy of the scientific record across the globe.

This panel of Scholarly Kitchen Chefs discusses the future of scholarly communication, particularly for independent and society publishers, in light of the conversations held over the past two days. Which OA and peer review models will emerge as dominant in the coming years? Who among the current crowd of “disruptors” are they watching most closely? And what must stakeholders in scholarly communications do to ensure the sustainability of their organizations over the longer term? The Chefs consider these questions and more in this lively closing panel.

Over the past decade, peer-reviewed research has experienced a mushrooming crisis in the emergence of predatory journals. The reporting of false data, the manipulation of peer review, and the exploitation of authorship are all forms of gross scientific misconduct that many editors and publishers unfortunately face on a regular basis. Along with the surge of retractions that has touched even the most reputable publications, editors, and gatekeepers, the scientific community has sought meaningful remedies to track, record, blacklist, and carefully monitor the repeat offenders. Along the way, publishers of prominent mega journals have been caught in the crossfire, often viewed as perpetrators encouraging the publication of vast amounts of mediocre research. This lively and meaningful discussion of our expert panelists dissects the situation at hand and presents best practices and approaches to work together to uphold meaningful, influential, and impactful science that drives scientific fields forward.

Peer review continues to be an essential part of the formal publication process; however, scholarly research is in a constant state of development. In the last few years, there has been a wave of innovation in peer review research, platforms, discussions, tools, and services, coupled with the ongoing and parallel evolution of scholarly communication as it potentially adjusts to various “open science” initiatives. Check out this interactive session as we explore badging as transparency indicators, the impact of peer-reviewing preprints, and utilizing communities to separate process from the publication workflow.

This session brought together experts from all corners of academic publishing to discuss the newest and coolest technologies that are changing the way researchers find impactful science. From innovative startups to established publishing houses, we identified and discussed a number of organizations creating new and exciting tools that allow researchers to access important published content. This dynamic, thought-provoking session was followed by a lively interactive discussion.