Glimpses of the 44th annual meeting of the Society for Scholarly Publishing

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Glimpses of the 44th annual meeting of the Society for Scholarly Publishing

The 44th annual meeting of the Society for Scholarly Publishing concluded on June 3, 2022, in Chicago, USA. The event was attended by academics, funders, librarians, publishers, service providers, and technologists. This year’s theme was “Building a more connected scholarly community,”andattendees discussed problems related to research dissemination and potential solutions, in addition to sharing their opinions on the future of academic publishing.

The event began with pre-meeting sessions revolving around digital publishing, copyright issues, and society and association publishing. The main event comprised

  • Educational sessions on the role of artificial intelligence (AI) in scholarly publishing, global collaborations, and the future of digital-first publishing
  • Industry breakouts conducted by different pioneer companies in the scholarly publishing space
  • Keynote addresses by two top industry leaders—Shermann “Dilla” Thomas (Chicago Urban Historian and CEO, Chicago Mahogany Tours) and Jennifer Heimberg (Director, Strategic Council for Research Excellence, Integrity, and Trust; National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine)
  • Networking sessions, where the community exchanged their views in smaller groups as well as in larger groups during roundtable discussions on various topics within scholarly communication
  • Awards and prize-drawing ceremonies
  • Poster sessions

Here are some of the key topics the event covered:

Transforming scholarly communications through technology

Multiple sessions focused on the upcoming or the already-present tools and technologies in the scholarly publishing world. Paperpal introduced its plug-and-play AI solution for automated article checks, which can lead to fewer rounds of review. DataSeer and Digital Science talked about data analytics. Several platforms, including Typefi, Scholastica, and Inera, talked about journal management. And stakeholders like Research Square and ChemRxiv touched upon the topic of preprint posting.

Reaching a wider audience quickly

Researchers have been demanding and advocating for open access for years to make research freely and immediately accessible. At this annual meeting, with sessions like Open Science and SDGs: Harnessing Open Science to Address Global Issues, the discussions went beyond just open access to helping research knowledge reach a broader audience. Some of the sessions also discussed the need for research information to be made available in simplified language for broader audiences and the increasing use of social media by early career researchers to disseminate their work.

Along similar lines, Cactus Communications conducted a session on the growing use of social media by early career researchers.

Maintaining research integrity and researcher privacy

One of sessions at the event focused on the reproducibility of research. Participants discussed if reproducibility should be a factor to gauge the accuracy and transparency of research. They also discussed key challenges in implementing reproducibility as well as a few success stories.

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One session centered around ethics and integrity in scientific communication. The key discussion pointswere recent trends in unethical publication (especially post-COVID), new concerns for research societies and publishers related to unethical research practices, and ways to curtail incorrect information from spreading.1

Another session highlighted the need for publishers and libraries to maintain researcher privacy while gathering information on site performance and audience behavior.

 

Here are some thoughts shared by SSP attendees and presenters on Twitter:

 

 

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Reference

1. Dutta, T. Biggest annual scholarly publishing event returns post-pandemic. May 26, 2022. https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/954011

 

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Published on: Jun 21, 2022

Malvika Gaur
I enjoy writing and helping others communicate as part of Editage Insights - a community of researchers from around the world.
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