News: Academic Publishing Weekly

Springer Nature's AI "Media Kits", gender differences in publishing careers, and interviews with academic publishing leaders.

Posted on January 17, 2025 in News

Springer Nature Offers Authors AI “Media Kits”

Maggie Harrison Dupré of Futurism reports that Springer Nature is selling authors AI “Media Kits” for their journal papers. The kits run for $49 and, according to an email to authors from Springer Nature, include a “plain language summary,” “research brief,” and “ready-to-use content” for social media. Dupré revealed that the kit is created by Springer’s AI tool and also includes a “short, AI-spun audio summary.” Not all authors are responding positively to the kits, as author and University of Hohenheim food chemist Simon Hammann commented, “It’s jumping on the AI bandwagon, where we throw AI at about anything, useful or not.” Springer Nature contends that the media kits are ”only created when requested by the original author of the publication” and can help researchers better explain and disseminate their work to a lay audience. [Futurism]

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Created by Humans Opens for Business

The AI rights licensing platform Created by Humans is now available to authors and AI companies. Authors have the option to “create an account and verify their identity, claim their works by ISBN number or by uploading a work, and then set their licensing preferences within the platform.” AI companies can then use uploaded content to train their AI models. Publishing Perspectives highlighted comments from cofounder Trip Adler and disclosed that Created by Humans raised $5 million in another round of seed funding since its previous round of $5 million last June. Created by Humans also shared its proprietary framework, AI Rights, which is “currently offering rights for AI model training and reference via RAG models.” [Publishing Perspectives]

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Study Shows Gender Gaps in Research Publication

A new preprint study finds that women cease publishing academic papers sooner than men. Looking at the publications of over 86,000 researchers in the biological sciences, the study revealed that “19 years after publishing their first paper, only 26% of female researchers in these fields continue their publishing careers, compared with 36% of men.” The study also examined differences by discipline and country, showing some variation. However, despite nearly half of the researchers analyzed being women, men were still less likely to quit publishing. Nature underscored that study coauthors Marek Kwiek and Lukasz Szymula, both at Adam Mickiewicz University in Poland, plan to study what motivates researchers to continue publishing and the reasons behind gaps geographically. Nonetheless, Kwiek stressed that, “Gender parity or gender balance does not really guarantee equal chances of survival in science.” [Nature]

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UPC Welcomes Colorado School of Mines, the Industry Bids Farewell to a Longtime UP Supporter, and SSP Issues an Extension for the EPIC Awards

The Colorado School of Mines is now part of the University Press of Colorado (UPC). As a result, Mines will be given “access to UPC ebooks, copies of new publications in print, representation on the Board of Trustees and Editorial Boards, as well as opportunities for faculty to edit book series and serve as manuscript reviewers.” Next, Publishers Weekly shared the unfortunate passing of Bruce Joshua Miller, the principal of Miller Trade Book Marketing. Miller, a longtime supporter of university presses, contributed to a “vigorous letter-writing and social media campaign to save the University of Missouri Press” in 2012. Miller was named PW’s Sales Rep of the Year in 2013 and continued to advise other university presses on how to avoid closure. Industry members are invited to donate to the Book Industry Charitable Foundation in commemoration of Miller. Lastly, the Society for Scholarly Publishing (SSP) extended the deadline to submit to the EPIC Awards to January 24. Winners will be revealed at the SSP Annual Meeting in May. SSP shared that there’s been an “incredible response” to the awards thus far.

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Interviews with CEO of Wiley and Leaders of Mary Ann Liebert, Inc. and Sage

Following Sage’s acquisition of Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., Scholarly Kitchen chef Angela Cochran spoke with the companies’ leaders about the deal and their approaches to publishing. Detailing how the companies’ missions align, Mary Ann Liebert explained that “Like Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., Sage is willing to take risks and invest where they believe they can make a difference, even if it does not have immediate revenue returns.” Liebert also offered thoughts on journal publishing trends and open access. Bob Howard, Executive Vice President of Research at Sage, underlined librarians’ support of the Mary Ann Liebert, Inc. imprint. Next, Unite.AI’s Antoine Tardif interviewed Matthew Kissner, President and CEO of Wiley, on the publisher’s position on AI. In particular, Kissner highlighted Wiley’s AI Partnership Program, AI Development Principles, and recent partnership with the research assistant Potato. Kissner also detailed how Wiley prioritizes research integrity and incorporates AI into its internal workflows.

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