News: Academic Publishing Weekly

cOAlition S updates, researchers' thoughts on AI, and Wiley names new president

Posted on July 12, 2024 in News

cOAlition S’s “Towards Responsible Publishing” and Transformative Journals Outcome

cOAlition S concluded support for its Transformative Journal (TJ) program after more than half the titles under the initiative failed to meet their open access goals for 2023. Despite four percent of journals transitioning to fully OA, cOAlition S reports that “only one out of five titles that initially joined the programme maintained their Transformative Journal status after two years.” Going forward, publishers will share their 2024 numbers and “direct their efforts to more innovative and community-led Open Access publishing initiatives.” cOAlition S also publicized the results of its community consultation on “Towards Responsible Publishing” (TRP). The more than 11,000 respondents expressed support for “TRP principles related to the posting of preprints, open peer review, and open licensing,” and addressed the importance of reevaluating current research recognition and spending practices.  

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De Gruyter S2O Update and the Springer Nature Strike Comes to a Close

De Gruyter is building on its DG2O Subscribe-to-Open program with 37 additional journals scheduled to flip to open access by 2025. The publisher noted that it aims to “gradually convert around 270 subscription journals to open access by 2028” and emphasized the positive impact the DG2O program has on global readership. In other news, the National Union of Journalists (NUJ) reached a two year settlement with Springer Nature. The agreement marks the end of the recent Nature strike, and in a joint statement Springer Nature stressed that it’s “committed to ensuring a rewarding and enjoyable work environment for all our colleagues.”

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New Taylor & Francis Journal and Researcher and Clinician Perspectives on AI

Taylor & Francis is publishing a new open access journal, The Journal of Psychology and AI. T&F explained that the journal aims to “foster dialogue between technologists developing artificial intelligence (AI) systems and psychology researchers exploring human behavior, cognitions, and emotions.” Publishing Perspectives highlighted several topics that will be under the journal’s purview including “AI in psychological assessment” and AI ethics. In other news, Elsevier released a report surveying 3,000 researchers and clinicians on AI. The report acknowledged differences between respondents from the United States, China, and India, finding that those in the US are more skeptical of AI’s impact on work. Researchers and clinicians in all three regions noted AI’s positive influence on knowledge discovery while also expressing concerns related to transparency and the future of critical thinking. Kieran West, Executive Vice President of Strategy at Elsevier, underscored, “Researchers and clinicians worldwide are telling us they have an appetite for adoption to aid their profession and work, but not at the cost of ethics, transparency and accuracy.”

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Turnaround Times for Rejected Papers, Journals Lose Impact Factors, and Google Scholar Metrics

A recent preprint study looks at how researchers’ revise and resubmit rates differ based on their location. The study analyzed over 100,000 rejected papers submitted to IOP Publishing (IOPP) physical-sciences journals, revealing that those from Western countries are “5.7% more likely to publish a manuscript after rejection” and publish in journals with higher impact factors. The study attributed the discrepancy to differences in “procedural knowledge” among researchers, noting that “many academic journals are based in Western countries.” Next up, Retraction Watch reported that 17 journals did not receive an impact factor in the latest Journal Citation Reports (JCR) compared to four last year. A spokesperson for Clarivate credited “anomalous citation behavior” for the suppressions and explained that the journals can still be included in the JCR next year. Last, Google Scholar published the 2024 Scholar Metrics, which “covers articles published in 2019-2023 and includes citations from all articles that were indexed in Google Scholar as of July 2024.”

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Wiley’s New President and Anticipated 2024 Titles

Matthew Kissner has been named Wiley’s 15th president and CEO after holding the position on an interim basis. Kissner has worked with Wiley for more than 20 years, and Jesse Wiley, chair of the Board of Directors, shared that, “Over the past nine months, Matt has made great progress improving our organization, accelerating our value creation plans, driving strong momentum in our core, and rallying around new AI opportunities.” Turning to new releases, Literary Hub issued a second “Most Anticipated Books of 2024” list with 193 forthcoming titles. Two works from Yale University Press made the cut: Where We Stand by Djamila Ribeiro, translated by Padma Viswanathan, and The Philosophy of Translation by Damion Searls. The American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) also highlighted several titles recently published by its fellows and grantees.

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