News: Academic Publishing Weekly

The Authors Guild enters partnership on AI licensing, the 2025 World University Rankings, and the Internet Archive faces cyber attacks

Posted on October 11, 2024 in News

A Case for AI in Peer Review and the Authors Guild’s New Partnership with Created by Humans

Following the Authors Guild’s lawsuit and open letter against OpenAI over AI copyright, the organization is now partnering with Created by Humans to aid authors with licensing. The collaboration will involve sharing webinars on licensing books to AI companies and authors “will be able to create a profile [on Created by Humans] and indicate which books they want to license, and for what type of use.” Created by Humans is still undergoing testing and will open this year. Mary Rasenberger, chief executive of the Authors Guild and member of Created by Humans’ advisory board, stressed that, “What’s good about licensing is it gives the author and the publisher control, as well as compensation, and it gives you the ability to say no.” However, The New York Times cited concerns among authors on the creation of “copycat books” and Created by Humans’ payment model for authors. Turning to peer review, Krishna Kumar Venkitachalam, Innovation Officer for Trinka/Enago, made a case for using AI to mitigate turnaround times and reviewer burnout. In particular, Venkitachalam highlighted AI’s ability to aid reviewer selection, standardize reviews, and create peer review reports. As Venkitachalam underlined, “By conducting pilot programs, publishers and academic institutions can gather valuable insights into how AI can be integrated into the peer review process without compromising quality or security.”

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How Do American Universities Fare in the Latest THE Rankings?

Amid news of declining trust in higher education, it may be surprising that universities in the United States continue to rank highly in Times Higher Education’s (THE) 2025 World University Rankings. The US had 55 universities in the top 200 and the most universities in the top 10. The University of Oxford ranked first and MIT dropped to sixth place from second. Nevertheless, Inside Higher Ed reports that the United States’ research reputation is continuing to fall while China is experiencing an increase. Analyzing over 1.2 million votes from academics, THE found that 38 percent were given to American universities, nine percentage points lower than last year. Phil Baty, THE’s chief global affairs officer, underlined that, “While the reputation of US universities is the highest in the world, amongst academics, its decline over recent years has been quite significant and its global reputation is at a record low with US global reputation for excellence and prestige in major, steady global decline.” [Insider Higher Ed]

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BioOne Sees Support for S2O and Taylor & Francis Adds Journals to ResearchGate

Nonprofit scientific publisher BioOne has revealed strong support for its Subscribe to Open (S2O) pilot, with 71 titles set to join the program for 2026. The titles are from 54 “global societies, museums, and research organizations” from areas including Brazil and Kenya. Participating journal titles are available through BioOne Complete and the publisher will continue to collaborate with stakeholders over the next year on the pilot. BioOne noted that this is “the largest number of independent publishers under a single S2O offer to date.” Next up, Taylor & Francis will add 18 journals to ResearchGate’s Journal Home. Sixteen journals come from the Expert Medicine collection and two hail from Peer J, PeerJ Life & Environment and PeerJ Computer Science. Sören Hofmayer, co-founder and Chief Strategy Officer at ResearchGate, commented, “Taylor & Francis have found that ResearchGate can deliver new audiences for their journals, along with greater engagement, exploring how readers grow in their awareness, and how engagement can influence becoming an author.”

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Scientist Retention is on the Decline

A new study on the retention of roughly 400,000 scientists found that “one-third of them quit science within five years of authoring their first paper, and almost half leave within a decade.” Drawing on data from Scopus, the study analyzed the publishing output of two sets of scientists—those who published their first paper in 2000 and in 2010. Both cohorts saw that women are more likely to stop publishing than men, although the 2010 group had fewer discrepancies. Nature highlighted that the gender gap is influenced by discipline and that the researchers hope to use AI in future studies to determine motivations for leaving the field. Damani White-Lewis, a researcher at the University of Pennsylvania, emphasized that the study “bring[s] necessary, vital attention to the ways in which we’re facilitating entry, success and retention.” [Nature]

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Looking Ahead at UP Week and the Internet Archive Suffers Cyber Attacks

The Association of University Presses (AUPresses) published an exciting calendar of events for this year’s University Press (UP) Week. From November 11 to 15, the U.S., U.K., and Europe will see a variety of university press author talks on topics including politics and disinformation. In other news, the Internet Archive (IA) is facing another blow after experiencing several DDoS attacks from Blackmeta. The IA is currently working on reinstating its database for users after going offline. Engadget has coverage, sharing that, “According to security researcher Troy Hunt, the DDoS attack came just as the Internet Archive was preparing to disclose a previous breach of its site that resulted in the theft of more than 31 million records.”

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