News: Academic Publishing Weekly

Commemorating UP Week, Sage acquires Cambridge Business Publishers, and a new OA pilot for the Humanities and Social Sciences

Posted on November 15, 2024 in News

Celebrating University Press Week

Happy University Press (UP) Week! To celebrate, the Association of University Presses (AUPresses) highlighted several blog posts that center on this year’s theme, #StepUP. Including topics such as open access and diversity, equity, and inclusion, the blog posts focus on the how, why, what, when, where, and who of stepping up at university presses. Publishers Weekly also spotlighted the work of several members of AUPresses, along with the efforts of five US Armed Forces presses. Lastly, Oxford University Press announced a new “First Book Prize,” open globally to “early-career researchers in the humanities and social sciences who are looking to publish their first books.” Submissions open in January, and up to 10 recipients will be able to publish their books open access for free on Oxford Academic and in hardback. The Prize encourages submissions from scholars from underrepresented backgrounds and work that “blends disciplines and methodologies to create meaningful insights into complex societal problems.”

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Sage Acquires Cambridge Business Publishers and CUPA’s Latest Annual Report

Sage has acquired technology and college textbook publisher Cambridge Business Publishers. The acquisition includes over 30 college textbooks and Cambridge Business Publishers’ online learning solution, myBusinessCourse. Reid Hester, vice president of Sage’s US College division, commented, “Cambridge Business Publishers’ respected authors and high-quality educational resources extend the scope and impact of Sage’s existing business offerings.” Sage’s press release also highlighted how Cambridge Business Publishers will “benefit from Sage’s extensive distribution network.” Next up, Cambridge University Press & Assessment (CUPA) released its annual report for 2023-2024. Findings include surpassing £1 billion in revenues, serving over 100 million learners, and publishing more than 60 percent of its research articles open access.

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Open Access: New T&F OA Pilot and Assessing Green OA

Taylor & Francis (T&F) has unveiled a new OA pilot for journals in the Humanities and Social Sciences, Collective Pathway to Open Publishing (CPOP). T&F explained that CPOP “[combines] funding from OA agreements with ‘read’ income from subscriptions and other reading access fees” to finance the publications. T&F shared that over 70 percent of articles in pilot journals Nordic Psychology and Nordic Social Work Research are already OA, and the outstanding articles could be published open access in 2025 if funding goals are met. Next up, Scholarly Kitchen chef Lisa Janicke Hinchliffe addressed the hidden costs of Green open access. Specifically, Hinchliffe posited that there are obstacles to accessing Green OA articles that include “extra steps in search and discovery, navigating complex and unfamiliar interfaces, enduring workflow disruptions, and managing files and metadata.” Hinchliffe walked through the process of locating Green OA copies of both Version of Record and non-Version of Record articles, underscoring access and discoverability issues. For more perspectives, make sure to check out the comments.

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The End of eLife’s Impact Factor

Science’s Jeffrey Brainard reports that eLife will no longer obtain an impact factor (IF). APW readers will remember that in 2023 the journal updated its publishing model to provide public peer reviews of preprints. In late October, Clarivate began investigating the journal, which ultimately led to the decision that its new model “does not meet [Clarivate’s] standards for peer review.” Nonetheless, Brainard explained that Clarivate will remain indexing “eLife articles that the journal’s editors designate as ‘solid’ or better.” Randy Schekman, founding editor of eLife, voiced worries over the journal’s financial future if submissions decrease due to losing an IF, a concern that Executive Director Damian Pattinson previously called “wild speculation.” Brainard noted that eLife has seen a stable number of submissions and papers chosen for peer review under its new model, but critics allege that “the loss of the impact factor is but one of several negative outcomes [the model] has produced.” [Science]

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Guidelines for Using and Evaluating AI

Several researchers at institutions including the University of Oxford, University of Cambridge, and National University of Singapore have released a set of ethical guidelines for AI-aided writing. The guidelines emphasize the importance of human oversight, maintaining research integrity, and ensuring transparency. The researchers also put together a “standard template for acknowledging the use of LLMs” in one’s writing and research. Professor Timo Minssen of the University of Copenhagen underlined that, “Ideally, this will promote a collaborative and more inclusive environment where human ingenuity and machine intelligence can enhance scholarly discourse.” Choice has also released a rubric for evaluating AI, as editor and publisher Rachel Hendrick highlighted in a recent blog post for Choice’s content vertical LibTech Insights. Designed to aid librarians’ AI purchasing decisions, the rubric prompts readers to consider elements such as an LLM’s efficiency, privacy, and vendor.

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PW’s 2024 Publishing Industry Salary & Jobs Report

Publishers Weekly’s annual publishing salary survey reveals that median compensation increased to $75,000 when comparing 2023 to 2022, a rise of 7.3 percent. PW pointed to recent successful union efforts to increase pay in response to the findings. The survey also examined the racial makeup of the industry and employees’ thoughts on AI. Of interest, PW reports that “a generational shift seems to be underway,” as the proportion of respondents who’ve been in the industry for five or less years show greater racial and gender diversity. That said, newer employees had lower job satisfaction and 42 percent have seen “little noticeable results” from diversity programs. As for AI, usage was up to 53 percent in 2023 across the industry, yet a mere 13 percent “believe AI will change publishing for the better.” [Publishers Weekly]

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