London Book Fair Insights Seminar Series
Copyright: Still Encouraging Learning
This seminar was programmed by Cambridge University Press
and presented by William Bowes (General Counsel and Company Secretary of
Cambridge University Press and Chair of Publishers Association's International
Board) and Mandy Hill (Managing Director Academic of Cambridge University
Press).
William Bowes began the session by speaking about how recent
amendments to copyright legislation around the world are threatening the bottom
line for publishers. Bowes went on to criticise copyright exceptions for
educational work. Open Access was mentioned as contributing factor in the
decline of academic quality assurance. Mandy Hill echoed Bowe’s sentiments,
stating that “We invest hugely in commissioning, reviewing, producing,
marketing content. If it’s all free, we can’t afford that.” To publicly claim
all this whilst decrying the rise of “fake facts” and “fake news” very nearly
prompted me to spontaneously combusted with rage. I questioned how exactly what
they had been talking about encouraged learning and the response was
essentially that when it comes to copyright we have three choices in the way
the market is governed. According the Bowes, we can continue with the
free-market status quo which “for three hundred years has been successful in
promoting learning.” We can move towards a state-funded model of academic
publishing (complete with all the scary socialist overtones about freedom of
press and speech), or we can rely on philanthropy. That’s me told.
Connecting Readers to Content and Keeping Their Interest
This seminar was programmed by Ingenta and featured a panel
discussion with Duncan Campbell (Director of Digital Licensing and Sales
Partnerships at Wiley), and Lara Speicher (Publishing Manager at University
College London Press).
Ingenta began the session by giving out a branded freebies
to everyone. However the panel discussion actually proved to be quite
interesting with as little intrusion from commercial interests as possible.
Lara Speicher spoke about UCL’s move towards Open Access publishing and how
this has actually improved their distribution. Books that in print would sell
less than 20 copies, are being downloaded and read thousands of times in
countries all over the world – increasing the reach of UCL scholarship. Duncan
Campbell spoke about how Wiley in particular is interested in using AI to
customise and personalise user experiences. The recent acquisition of Meta by
the Chan Zucherberg Initiative was discussed. They are also looking at ways to
move beyond the PDF and make content available in all kinds of useful formats.
Speicher piped up and said that for the moment, UCLP would not be investing
outside of the PDF.
Research and Scholarly Publishing Forum
Welcome
Jacks Thomas (Chair of The London Book Fair), Stephen
Lotinga (CEO, UK Publishers Association), Mandy Hill (Managing Director Academic
of Cambridge University Press), Helen Dobson (Scholarly Communications Manager,
University of Manchester).
Lotinga opened by saying that the UK amounts to 10% of
downloads and 12% of citations, despite only publishing 4% of research
globally. This is worth £1.1 billion in revenue for academic publishers.
According to Hill, the success of British research is due to the credibility,
authority, and exemplary quality
brought to the table to publishing houses. Apparently authoring the journal
content is easy, but publishing it is very, very difficult… Hill summarised by
saying that the future of academic publishing lies in “continuing to support
the needs of researchers,” and that customers will continue to demand more for
less money in return.
Keynote
Kenneth A. Armstrong is Professor of European Law at the
University of Cambridge.
Armstrong’s talk was mostly a shill for his forthcoming book
Brexit Time: Leaving the EU - Why, How
and When, but he was able to provide some interesting commentary on how Brexit
might influence publishing, and scholarly publishing in particular. The UK will
not be participating in Horizon2020 funding anymore, which will impact the
funding that research-active universities receive. Furtehr devaluation of the
GBP will make it difficult for universities (read, Libraries) to purchase
subscriptions. Armstrong also noted that Brexit is a fast moving topic, and
that academic debate has occurred largely outside of the traditional publishing
processes, largely because those processes are too slow-moving. This has seen a
proliferation of blogs and media commentary from scholarly sources. Hill
stepped in at this point (actually lept onto the stage and interrupted Armstrong's talk!) to argue that “we’re publishers, not journalists!” and
as such provide so much more in terms of quality…
What next? The Future of Open Access in the UK
Panel discussion featuring Alicia Wise (Manager Universal
Access, Elsevier), Liam Earney (Director of JISC Collections), and Chris Banks
(Director of Library Services, Imperial College London).
Banks began by summarising that the HEFCE policy changes can
be said to supersede the Finch Report because it applies to any researcher –
not just funded researchers. She pointed out that at the moment multi-funder,
multi-institution collaboration makes policy compliance hellish. For example,
Imperial College London spends about £6 million in subscriptions. But to make
all of their research outputs open access through APCs would cost £18 million.
She then went on to point out that there is a definite and provable citation
advantage to publishing Green Open Access (and I nearly cheered). She finished
by saying that a flipped model won’t be possible in the UK unless there is a
transition to Open Access globally. Wise waffled on a bit about all the good
work that Elsevier do in Open Access and how they’re a big supporter of the
Access to Research initiative in public libraries. She also said that Gold Open
access means that the publishing costs are paid up front, and then shortly
after complained about how the definitions of Open Access are still in flux and
uncertain... Interestingly, Wise did say that Elsevier want to move away from
being a publisher and towards being an “information analytic company.” Earney spoke
about the need to plan for Open Access monographs post REF2020, and that while
cost may be a factor, having systems in place to support the disparate Open
Access policies. He finished by saying that public discussion has been moving
away from Open Access towards Open Science and Open Research instead.
Market and Policy Developments: Europe
Presented by Rob Johnson (Founder, Research Consulting)
Johnson began by highlighting the fact that while the EU are
asking for immediate (ie. Gold) Open Access to research as the default by 2020,
the complications provided by Brexit may see us moving towards Green Open
Access as a financially achievable alternative. Many researchers in Southern
Europe can’t afford to pay APCs despite the fact that most of European
countries favour the Gold/APC model. Johnson was quick to point out the
increasing access does not increase revenue. The average journal article in a
traditional publishing model nets the publisher anywhere between £4,000 and
£5,000. Meanwhile, the average APC nets the publisher £1,000 - £2,000 per
article.
Market and Policy Developments: Asia
Presented by Lyndsey Dixon (Regional Journals Editorial
Director for Asia Pacific for Taylor & Francis)
Dixon highlights that while for many academics in Asia
publishing in English-language journals is a matter of prestige, recent
government policy in China has seen an increasing pressure on academics to
publish in their own language. China is responsible for 20% of published
academic research globally, and many other Asian countries are set to increase
their share. Korea leads the world in their research and development spend (as
a percentage of GDP, which is currently 4%). In Asia openness in scholarly
publishing has been largely driven by high-profile cases of fraud and academic
misconduct. Dixon noted that there was little guidance for ECRs in Asia, and
this could be an area for opportunity for publishers.
Market and Policy Developments: America
Presented by Vivian Berghahn (Managing Director and Journals
Editorial Director Berghahn Books)
Berhahn’s talk was depressing, but it’s hard to put a
positive spin on the news she delivered. She highlighted the currently
political climate in the US as one that promotes anti-science rhetoric. In
particular the Secretary for Education hasn’t addressed Higher Education at
all, and so Berghahn warned to expect a skills shortfall from US graduates in
the coming years. Endowments for culture, art and education will be cut by more
than 40%. However, if you’re research is in the area of coal, oil, or gas, then
you can expect to see increased funding. Berghahn noted a growing inequality in
terms of access to research, access to APCs, and access to repository
infrastructure. For the Library market this means that collections are more
responsive than before with an emphasis on ebooks. About 60% of US academic
libraries anticipate making cancellations in the coming year due to financial
pressure. Interestingly, 70% of academic libraries in the US have an e-only
policy for their journal collections.
The Rise of the Researchers
Panel discussion chaired by Tracey Armstrong (Copyright
Clearance Center), and featuring Sybil Wong (Head of Partnerships &
Marketing, Sparrho), Frederick Fenter (Frontiers), and John Inglis (bioRxiv and
Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press).
I was really irritated by the way that both Fenter and
Inglis behaved towards Wong during this panel discussion. There were a lot of
disparaging remarks and generalisations made about ‘the youth’ and early career
researchers – without actually using the words ‘early career researchers.’
Fenter made a comment about how “the younger generation of academics have grown
up surrounded by information,” and how they see the publishing process as
“almost adversarial.” He then went on to say that the journal article is an
artificial construct, and that publishing in high impact journals is not an
indicator of quality – a tough audience to sell that particular point to. He
said that initiative such as ScienceMatters, PeerJ, and PLOS are the direction
of travel.
Inglis then pronounced that incentives for researchers to
change their publishing behaviours will have to be driven by policy (really!?).
Traditional publishers will need to prepare their content in such a way so as
to support text data mining as this is an area of growth at the moment. The
acquisition of Meta by the Chang Zuckerberg Initiative was mentioned again.
When Wong was finally able to get a word in edgewise, she
made an interesting observation about how early career researchers don’t view
the publishing process as an articulated whole, but instead as discreet parts;
data, figures, peer-review etc. I would have liked to have heard more about
this but then Fenter started talking again. He finished with a comment about
how “maybe the arrival of Big Data will justify the use of the word ‘Science’
in ‘Social Science’,” and I could have cried.
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