Mike Bisaccio Academic Publishing, Peer Review

PRW 2023: “Peer Review and The Future of Publishing”

Each year, our team at Cabells celebrates Peer Review Week (PRW) and recognizes the fact that so much of the work we do each day revolves around peer review, which is the backbone of scholarly communication and the key to maintaining research quality. The theme this year for PRW is “Peer Review and the Future of Publishing,” which would be an appropriate theme every year. To work as intended and as needed, peer review will need to continuously adapt and evolve along with publishing.

The importance of peer review to the quality and overall success of a journal can’t be overstated. For a journal to be recognized in the academic or medical community as legitimate, a robust peer review system must be in place. In recent years, the scholarly community has been shown time and again the results of substandard (or nonexistent) peer review. It has also become clear that identifying an effective and efficient model of peer review has proven to be a challenge for publishers.

Our friend, Daley White, a research scientific editor with the Moffitt Cancer Center, has written an excellent piece discussing the current state of peer review and highlighting a few promising alternative strategies. That piece, along with another by Daley discussing the role of generative artificial intelligence in peer review, should not be missed.

The bedrock of scholarly publishing

At its core, peer review is about benefiting the knowledge base by establishing quality control with respect to published research, which is then used to generate more knowledge. By publishing research papers that have been thoughtfully peer reviewed, academic journals make it possible for researchers around the world to learn about the latest findings in their field. This helps advance knowledge and to foster collaboration amongst researchers. Researchers, funders, and the public all expect that research has been reviewed, is sound, and worthy of being built upon.

Peer review helps to ensure published work is high-quality with findings that are accurate and reliable by helping to identify and correct errors, omissions, and biases. Ultimately, authors are responsible for conducting sound research and not fabricating data or results. Unfortunately, the immense pressure to publish along with the industry’s unwillingness to publish null results, both contribute to making this responsibility an insurmountable challenge for some.

For a journal to be considered for inclusion in Journaltyics, our evaluators must have evidence of a rigorous peer review system.

To be effective, peer review must be unbiased and transparent though the extent to which journals are open about their review process varies. Promoting and expanding transparency and accountability in the research and peer review processes shows readers how the paper was evaluated and helps them understand the reasons for its acceptance or rejection, which helps to build trust in the publication process and the research itself.

Time after time

Can it be assumed that peer review is consistently conducted with the necessary rigor when in most cases it is added to the workload of already very busy and time-strapped reviewers? Most workplaces don’t provide an allowance of time for peer review, and there is no compensation for conducting reviews. So, without incentives, peer review is conducted solely to contribute to a knowledge base that needs to be carefully managed and safeguarded.

Along with pressure on scholars to find the time to conduct reviews, there is pressure on journals to review papers quickly. But can speed be reconciled with quality? Speedy peer review, when taken to an extreme, is an indication of the type of substandard or virtually nonexistent peer review often found in predatory journals.

While it’s important to authors that articles are published in a timely manner (which requires timely peer review), there is a correlation between speed and quality that the industry as a whole is working under. Often, the state of a journals peer review process comes down to which journals have more resources available. Not all journals can swing having an in-house statistician to review research statistics on staff. Training in peer review as part of PhD programs would also be valuable – while early career researchers are very knowledgeable in their fields despite being relatively inexperienced, having ECR’s conduct peer review with no training is less than optimal.

So, this PRW we will consider these and other ideas as we continue our work as champions of peer review – and Cabells team member Clarice continues her work as a member of the PRW Steering Committee. Our work at Cabells will adapt and evolve right along with peer review and publishing into the future. What won’t change is the key role played by peer review in maintaining the quality, transparency, and accountability of research and the integrity of knowledge.

daleywhite Academic Publishing, Uncategorized

Originality in Academic Writing: The Blurry Lines Between Similarity, Plagiarism, and Paraphrasing

Across disciplines, most manuscripts submitted to academic journals undergo a plagiarism check as part of the evaluation process. Authors are widely aware of the industry’s intolerance for plagiarism; however, most of us don’t receive any specific education about what plagiarism is or how to avoid it. Here, we’ll discuss what actually constitutes plagiarism, understand the important differences between similarity and plagiarism, and discuss easy strategies to avoid the problem in the first place.

What actually is plagiarism?

The University of Oxford defines plagiarism as “presenting work or ideas from another source as your own… without full acknowledgement.” This is a fairly fundamental definition, and for most of us, this is the extent of our education on plagiarism.

When we think of plagiarism, we usually imagine an author intentionally copying and pasting text from another source. This form of plagiarism, called direct plagiarism, is actually fairly uncommon. More commonly, plagiarism takes the form of:

  • Accidental plagiarism. Citing the wrong source, misquoting, or unintentionally/coincidentally paraphrasing a source that you’ve never seen before is still considered plagiarism, even when done without intent.
  • Secondary source plagiarism. This is an interesting and challenging issue to tackle. This form of plagiarism refers to authors using a secondary source, but citing the works found in that source’s reference list—for example, finding information in a review but citing the initial/primary study instead, not the review itself. This misattribution “fails to give appropriate credit to the work of the authors of a secondary source and… gives a false image of the amount of review that went into research.”
  • Self-plagiarism. There’s still an ongoing debate over the acceptability of reusing one’s own previous work, with differing answers depending on the context. It’s widely agreed that reusing the same figure, for example, in multiple articles without correct attribution to the original publication is unethical; however, it’s less clear whether it’s acceptable to use the same verbatim abstract in a manuscript as you previously published as part of a conference poster. Copyright law can play a major factor in the permissibility of self-plagiarism in niche cases.
  • Improper paraphrasing plagiarism.Some of us have heard from teachers or peers that, to avoid plagiarism, all you need to do is “rewrite it in your own words.” However, this can be misleading, as there’s a fine line between proper and improper paraphrasing. Regardless of the specific language used, if the idea or message being communicated is not your own and is not cited, it’s still plagiarism.

Plagiarism vs similarity

Many publishers, including Elsevier, Wiley, and SpringerNature, perform plagiarism evaluations on all manuscripts they publish by using software iThenticate. However, ‘plagiarism evaluation’ through iThenticate is a bit of a misnomer: iThenticate checks for similarity, not plagiarism. Though the difference between the two is minor, their implications are entirely different.

Whereas plagiarism refers to an act of ethical misconduct, similarity refers to any portion of your paper that recognizably matches text found in previously published literature in iThenticate’s content database. Similarity can include text matches in a manuscript’s references, affiliations, and frequently used/standardized terms or language; it’s natural and nonproblematic, unlike plagiarism.

A similarity report, such as the one generated by iThenticate, is used by editors as a tool to investigate potential concerns for plagiarism. If an iThenticate similarity report flags large sections of text as similar to a previously published article, the editors can then use this as a starting point to evaluate whether the article is, in fact, plagiarized.

Strategies to avoid plagiarism

Being accused of plagiarism—especially direct, intentional plagiarism— can be a serious ethical issue, with long-term implications for your job prospects and career. The best way to avoid this issue is to use preventative measures, such as the ones discussed here.

  1. Educate yourself about what plagiarism truly is and how it occurs. If you’ve made it this far in the article, you’re already making great progress! Consider reviewing the sources cited in this article to continue your education.
  2. Start citing from the note-taking phase. Many times, accidental plagiarism is the result of forgetting the source of an idea or statistic during quick, shorthanded note-taking. To avoid this, start building your reference list from the beginning of your research phase. Consider adding a quick citation for every single line of text—including citing yourself for your own ideas! Reference management software like EndNote and Zotero are great tools for this.
  3. Understand proper and improper paraphrasing. Learn how to correctly paraphrase someone else’s work and the importance of citing your paraphrased text. If you come across a phrase of sentence that perfectly summarizes an idea, don’t be afraid to include it as a direct, cited quotation!
  4. Consider cultural differences in plagiarism policies. This article aligns with the United States’ view of plagiarism as a serious ethical offense. However, this isn’t the case in all countries. In some East Asian countries, for example, the concepts of universal knowledge and memorization to indicate respect leads to a wider cultural acceptance of instances that would be considered plagiarism in America. If you’re unsure about what the expectations are for a certain journal, it’s always recommended to ask the editors.
  5. Use a similarity checker. While a similarity review won’t directly identify plagiarism, it can be great as a final scan for any text you may have copied and pasted with the intention of removing but forgot to erase, and it can help pick up accidental plagiarism! If your institution doesn’t have access to iThenticate, Turnitin, or CrossRef, there are several free similarity scanners available online.
Mike Bisaccio Academic Publishing

Catch Us If You Can

The theme of last month’s AACSB International Conference and Annual Meeting (ICAM) – a can’t miss event for Cabells every year – was “Pathways to Impact” and thought leaders and educators from the world of business gathered in Chicago to share the pathways their organizations are taking to positively impact society. We were thrilled to be able to continue our annual tradition of attending and lending our support to AACSB and our shared community.

Cabells at AACSB’s ICAM in Chicago, April 2023

The fact that so much of our work at Cabells revolves around impact made this year’s event as good a fit as ever. We connect researchers to journals that will help maximize the impact of their work. We also fully embrace the importance of harnessing the power of research to positively impact society, in part by moving from ‘quality’ to ‘impact’ when assessing academic publications. Our work with SJU in developing the SDGII as a tool for measuring and reporting faculty impact on the SDGs through published research has been rewarding and continues to evolve. (News on recent exciting developments soon to come.)

ICAM in Chicago was the second leg of our journey this conference season, the first coming earlier last month when we were excited to find ourselves in Glasgow for the 46th annual United Kingdom Serials Group (UKSG) conference, which was as engaging and exciting as always.

Cabells at UKSG in Glasgow, April 2023

The fun doesn’t end in Glasgow and Chicago for Cabells, we’re looking forward to more adventures throughout the year – keep an eye out for us at:

  • The 45th annual Society for Scholarly Publishing (SSP) meeting, May 31-June 2 in Portland, OR. We’re excited to serve as sponsors of the evening reception at SSP and fortunate enough to be speaking as part of an outstanding panel in a session discussing, “Sustainability, Open Science and Scholarly Communications”  

If you plan on attending any or all of the above events, travel safely and be sure to say hello…we sometimes have chocolate.

daleywhite Academic Publishing, Sustainability

Current and Future Trends of the Academic Publishing Industry’s Environmental Effects

As the academic publishing industry becomes increasingly cognizant of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and begins to develop best practices for weaving sustainability into our operations, it’s crucial that we acknowledge the environmental effects of our industry. By reviewing those effects along with shifts in the industry, we can project—and influence—our future trajectory toward reduced environmental impact.

Current Environmental Outputs of Scholarly Communications

Anyone involved in scholarly communications knows that we’re currently in a time of rapid change and process development. Print-based academic journals are part of the commercial print sector, and researchers from HP have identified paper waste byproducts resulting from the publication production process as a primary source of its industry’s greenhouse gas emissions. However, over the last twenty years, scholarly publishing has largely shifted toward digital processing and publishing, leading to a complex set of environmental benefits and drawbacks.

Digital publishing and open access are inextricably linked concepts, and there’s much to be said both supporting and criticizing this paradigm shift’s impact on our industry. Digital publishing has massively reduced demand for print versions of materials, from the printed manuscript drafts once mailed to journal editors for evaluation to the finalized journal issues sent to journal subscribers, leading to reduced paper waste. This also results in a reduction in print material mailing/transport emissions and impacts.

These improvements, however, come at the cost of increased email and website use. Though there are doubtlessly many improvements of electronic communication compared with mail—for example, a single email requires around 1.7% of the energy of a single paper letter delivery—there are still consequences to these digital shifts. The physical components of electronics are major contributors to environmental detriment both in their manufacturing requirements and inefficient waste strategies. Data generation and use is also a large area of concern, especially as big data becomes increasingly widespread. This is especially concerning for the academic publishing industry, as big data is rapidly expanding throughout both the research sectors our industry works with and within the scholarly communications industry itself.

Future Trends

As our industry continues to evolve in pace with technological developments and growth in adjacent sectors, such as medical technology and digital publications, we’ll likely continue to see rapid shifts, both in expected and unexpected directions. Here are a few trends we expect will continue to flourish in upcoming years:

Increasing industry recognition and support for of social causes. Recently, many publishers have placed increased focus and attention on diversity and equity in publishing. Relevant industry shifts range from initiatives to improve diverse hiring practices to strategies to financially assist authors from low- and middle-income countries who may not be able to afford rapidly increasing article processing charges, with many publishers offering waivers for qualifying authors. In the last three years, sustainability has become another forefront social issue that publishers are addressing by both promoting awareness and through policy development.

Reduced in-person office presence. Though the industry’s shift toward the work-from-home model was primarily catalyzed by the COVID-19 pandemic, the trend toward remote work seems to be here to stay. This results in reduced office space requirements and, conseenergy consumption (air conditioning, lighting, technology, etc) and paper waste products.

Increased research publication focus on climate change. A literature review found that the number of climate change–focused academic journal publications increased over six-fold between 2005 and 2014; in more recent years, research has continued to grow, with the number of publications steadily growing annually since 1997. The more we support systematic, reproducible environmental research, the better we’ll understand our current crisis and opportunities to counteract climate change.

Increased burden of websites/portals. Digital publishing practices aren’t a panacea for our industry’s environmental impacts. Data and websites generate their own carbon emissions and environmental impacts, and as the industry continues shifting toward digital publishing, we must stay aware of the fact that it has its own drawbacks.

Influx in sheer number of publications requires more resources. In today’s current publishing landscape, authors are rewarded for their number of publications, not quality. This has led to a staggering increase in the number of research manuscripts published each year. Each of these publications require resource use, and as the size of our industry expands, so does our environmental impact.

How you can impact scholarly publishing’s environmental effects

If you want to become more involved in our industry’s efforts to promote sustainability, there are several ways to do so:

  1. Research and consider joining the SDG Publishers Compact Fellows. This group acts to support the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals within the publications industry by providing action tips, resources, and policy initiatives.
  2. Direct interested research staff toward the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. This group has an open requests for volunteer authors to contribute on research manuscripts through a variety of roles, ranging from lead authors, review editors, chapter scientists, and expert reviewers. There are opportunities for non-researchers, too: IPCC also welcomes technical support unit volunteers, who assist with report preparation, organization, and editing.
  3. Advocate for digital publication, carbon neutrality/offset, and sustainable paper use. By acting as a sustainability champion in your workplace, you can potentially affect your employer’s practices within your team and company-wide. Sustainability initiatives tend to have a domino effect—one small action on your part could lead to industry-wide change!
Mike Bisaccio Academic Publishing, Sustainability

SDG Publishers Compact Fellows and HESI to Hold Sustainable Solutions Summit

Immediate action is the only hope for realizing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by (or anywhere near) 2030. The SDGs are 17 interlinked targets put forth by the United Nations in 2015 as the backbone of its 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. According to The Sustainable Development Goals Report for 2022, the SDGs are in “grave jeopardy due to multiple, cascading, and intersecting crises. COVID-19, climate change and conflict predominate.”

Despite admittedly painting a “sobering picture,” the report stresses that the SDGs can be rescued with concentrated global effort in three crucial areas:

  • armed conflicts and the senseless loss of lives and resources that accompany them must be ended in favor of diplomacy and peace – preconditions for sustainability
  • the blueprint laid out by the SDGs must be met with urgency
  • a global economy that works for all must be created to ensure developing countries are not left behind.

Those are no small tasks and there is no denying that moving the planet forward on the path to sustainability will require coordinated worldwide action. Fortunately, the SDG roadmap is clear and as Liu Zhenmin, former Under-Secretary-General for the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs points out in the 2022 Report, “just as the impact of crises is compounded when they are linked, so are solutions.”

We must rise higher to rescue the Sustainable Development Goals – and stay true to our promise of a world of peace, dignity and prosperity on a healthy planet.

António Guterres
Secretary-General, United Nations

The SDG Publishers Compact Fellows are working to ensure research and education are key parts of the solutions. The purpose of the Fellows is to support the “publishing industry in creating a sustainable future through action.” They do this in part by providing key tools and practical actions that different groups within the scholarly community can take to embed SDGs into research and education and forge a connection with practitioners.  

To help in this effort, researchers, authors, educators, reviewers, and editorial boards are invited to join the SDG Publishers Compact Fellows and the Higher Education Sustainability Initiative (HESI) in a Sustainable Solutions Summit next month. The virtual event will focus on the top recommended actions and trends to better align academic research, education materials, and the sharing of research findings with making the world a better place through connections to the SDGs.

click here to register for the summit

SDG research output is increasing and it is clear that scholarship and science must be driving forces behind the push for the Global Goals. But to succeed, the gap between researchers and practitioners must be closed. Groups like the SDG Publishers Compact Fellows and HESI, and events like the Sustainable Solutions Summit, will be key to leveraging the power of scholarly publishing to help solve the SDGs.

Simon Linacre Academic Publishing, Predatory journals

The Predator Effect: Understanding the Past, Present and Future of Deceptive Academic Journals

During his time working at Cabells, predatory publishing practices turned into a near obsession for Simon Linacre – so much so, he wrote a book about it: The Predator Effect. Here he shares details of the book, and how predatory journals could form part of a publishing ethics crisis.

In a recent conversation with a senior academic regarding publishing ethics, the discussion veered between predatory publishing, paper mills, paraphrasing software and the question of whether an article written by AI could be regarded as an original piece of work. Shaking his head, the academic sighed and exclaimed: “Retirement is starting to look pretty good right now!” The conversation demonstrated what a lot of people in scholarly communications feel right now, which is that at this moment in time, we are losing the arms race when it comes to research integrity and publishing ethics.

In the last year, we have seen the number of predatory journals included on Cabells’ Predatory Report database approach 17,000, thousands of articles be retracted by major publishers such as Wiley and IoP, and major scandals, such as one I worked on with Digital Science company Ripeta, where one author was responsible for dozens of plagiarised articles. The concern is that many more articles might have leaked into the scholarly communications system from paper mills, and this coupled with leaps in technology that enable students and authors to buy essays and articles generated by AI without lifting a finger themselves. Now wonder older scholars who didn’t have to deal with such technologies are shaking their heads in despair.

Negative Impact

These issues can be rather abstract as they don’t necessarily translate into tangible impacts for most people, but this also means they can be misunderstood and underestimated. For example, what happens when an individual reads about a cure in a predatory journal and tries to use it and makes the condition of a patient worse? Or what about someone qualifying for a position based on coursework they cheated on? There are numerous instances where a breakdown in ethics and integrity can cause major problems.

More broadly, the whole fabric of trust that society has in academic research risks being undermined with so many options open to bad actors if they wish to buck the system for their own ends. We have seen this with the fateful Wakefield article about the MMR vaccine in the 1990s, the effects of which are still being felt today. That was an anomaly, but if people ceased to believe that published research was trustworthy because of these numerous threats, then we will indeed be in a perilous position.

Digital Solutions

The scale of these problems can be seen in three recent publications, which I discussed in a recent talk at the ConTech 2022 Conference in London:

  • In September, The State of Trust & Integrity in Research (STIR) report was published by Ripeta, which outlined some of the issues facing research integrity, and how greater standardisation and investment in technology is required
  • In October, the State of Open Data (SoOD) report was published by Figshare, Digital Science and Springer Nature. It produced the results of a huge survey of researchers which showed open data sharing was only growing gradually, and policymaking needed to be more joined up and consistent
  • In November, The Predator Effect was published – a short open access ebook detailing the history and impact of predatory publishing practices. 

While each of these publications offers some sobering findings in terms of the problems faced by scholarly communications, they also offer some hope that technology might provide some solutions in the future. In terms of predatory journals, this means using not only using technology as one solution, but using multiple solutions together in a joined up way. As I say in the book:

“Using technology to improve hygiene factors such as legitimate references may be another strategy that, if adopted together and more widely, will have a significant impact on predatory journal output.” (Linacre, 2022)

Concerns around trust in science are real, but so is the anticipation that technology can show how scholarly communications can move forward. As a former publisher, I thought technology could easily solve the problem, but thanks to working at Cabells I understood much more work is required in equipping researchers with the right tools, knowledge and know how to avoid predatory journals. In the past, collaboration in the industry has often been slow and not fully inclusive, but this will have to change if a breakdown in research integrity and publication ethics is going to be avoided.

Mike Bisaccio Scholarly Communication, Sustainability

Talkin’ SDGs in Charleston and The Netherlands

Last month, Cabells was lucky enough to attend two of our favorite conferences – the Charleston Library Conference, appropriately held in beautiful Charleston, South Carolina, and GBSN Beyond, the annual conference of the Global Business School Network (GBSN), this year held in The Netherlands. We were excited to attend the events not just due to the amazing locations, or to once again be together with the scholarly community (something we have sorely missed), but also for the chance to spread the word on a project we are passionate about – helping publishers, researchers, educators, and practitioners work together to achieve the United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

The SDGs are 17 interconnected goals covering a wide range of environmental, social, and economic issues which represent a universal call to action for building a more sustainable planet by 2030. We have previously covered (here and here) our work to connect SDG-focused research to practitioners, and on the continued progress (here) of our collaboration with Dr. David Steingard and his team from Saint Joseph’s University’s Haub School of Business, to develop the SDG Impact IntensityTM (SDGII) journal rating, a publisher-neutral, AI-driven academic rating system assessing scholarly impact on the SDGs.

.

Our first stop was the Charleston Library Conference, where our project manager, Clarice Martel, took part in an outstanding panel to present, “Sustainability, Open Science, and Scholarly Communications.” The session discussed ways that the scientific community, publishers, and librarians can drive change and wider societal outreach through open science policies and by embracing SDGs as a key topic in research impact, mission, and practice. Clarice was joined on the panel by Robin Kear, Liaison Librarian at the University of Pittsburgh, Lucy Frisch, Director of Content Marketing Strategy at Springer Nature, and Laura Helmuth, who is the editor in chief of Scientific American.

Clarice, Lucy, Robin, and Laura at the Charleston Library Conference.

Having a panel comprised of knowledgeable and passionate stakeholders from all corners of scholarly communication was key in creating a comprehensive and action-inspiring session. Themes that ran through each part of the presentation were the vital importance of advocating for open access (OA) research, further development of OA-focused resources and related initiatives, and the importance of supporting education and action plans around SDGs and other sustainability-focused science.

Clarice presenting at the Charleston Library Conference

Clarice highlighted Cabells work with the Higher Education Sustainability Initiative (HESI), an open partnership between several UN entities and the higher education community. HESI aims to create an interface between higher education, science, and policy-making by supporting sustainable development, convening multi-stakeholder discussions and action, and sharing best practices. Stressing the importance of establishing and adhering to best practices and driving action around SDGs, Clarice also discussed our work as part of the SDG Publishers Compact Fellows group, focusing on action tips to put research into practice.

A few days later, on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, Dr. Julia Neufeind, journal metric scientist at Cabells, joined forces with Dr. Steingard to present, “Measuring the Relevance of Academic Research in Terms of the SDGs” at GBSN Beyond. The session touched on several crucial issues in need of attention and action, such as the paucity of articles published (only 2.8% as of December 2021) in ‘top-tier’ journals that address SDGs and related research, and the need to transform from ‘quality’ to ‘impact’ when assessing academic publications.

Jula and David presenting at GBSN Beyond in The Netherlands

That’s where the SDGII comes in, as a tool for measuring and reporting faculty impact on the SDGs through published research. Julia and David were excited to present our work so far in developing and promoting the SDGII, and to update attendees on the progress of schools participating in our pilot program. We think the SDGII can play a crucial role in helping to achieve the GBSN’s vision of “enabling business schools to profoundly impact sustainable development worldwide—through education, research, and community engagement,” which is a goal we share.

We are committed to further developing the SDGII and will continue our efforts to encourage all areas of science to share in incentivizing researchers to perform work that addresses the SDGs, and to highlight journals that recognize and prioritize these global challenges.

Mike Bisaccio Academic Publishing, Scholarly Communication

“Building a More Connected Scholarly Community” at #SSP2022

The theme of the Society for Scholarly Publishing’s (SSP) 44th Annual Meeting, which kicks off today and runs through Friday, is “Building a More Connected Scholarly Community.” It has been (and has felt like) a long, COVID-‘inspired’ two years’ worth of remote work, Zoom meetings, and virtual conferences. While not fully out of the woods yet (will we ever be?), 2022 has afforded the scholarly community the opportunity to get back to in-person gatherings to reconnect with old friends and establish ties with new ones. The chance to meet with so many friends and colleagues face-to-face might have been taken for granted in year’s past, but that is no longer the case.

For our part, Cabells has jumped into the reinvigorated 2022 conference season with both feet, with stops in Arlington, VA for the PRME Biennial Meeting at George Mason University, New Orleans, LA for the AACSB’s ICAM, New Orleans, LA again for our first visit to the Medical Library Association’s annual conference, and now on to Chicago for one of our favorite annual gatherings with SSP.   

As if being back together in person wasn’t enough to get us psyched for SSP, we have more to look forward to in Chicago. In addition to proudly serving as Diamond Sponsors of this year’s meeting, we are also honored to be receiving a certificate of gratitude for our support of the SSP’s Generations Fund, which provides sustainable funding for SSP’s Fellowship, Mentoring, and Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion programs. Like the SSP, we believe that a community is only as strong as its leaders, and we stand behind their commitment to supporting and developing an inclusive next generation of difference-makers.

The capper to SSP 2022 for us will be when our CTO, Lucas Toutloff, takes part in an exciting panel on Thursday for Session 4F, “Open Science and SDGs: Harnessing Open Science to Address Global Issues.” As signatories and Fellows of the SDG Publishers Compact, Cabells is driven to champion the UN’s SDGs and promote dynamic, mission-driven research and journals. This session will examine ways that the scientific community and journalism can drive change and wider societal outreach through open science policies and by embracing SDGs as a key topic in research impact.

Lucas, along with Dr. David Steingard from Saint Joseph’s University (with whom we’ve developed the SDGII™ journal rating metric), Dr. Laura Helmuth, Editor in Chief of Scientific American, and Paul Perrin from the University of Notre Dame, will discuss case studies around the current state of open science, open science policy, and the practical ways that open science is impacting the SDG program. Also, and key to Cabells’ mission, the panel will explore a method for operationalizing SDG-mindedness as a tool for measuring both research impact and potential.

Check out the full 2022 program here and or find out more about the annual meeting here. We hope to see you in Chicago!

Mike Bisaccio Academic Publishing, Business Schools

Seeds of Change

If you plan on attending the Society for Scholarly Publishing’s (SSP) 44th Annual Meeting next month in Chicago, be sure to make time to attend Session 4F, “Open Science and SDGs: Harnessing Open Science to Address Global Issues.” Lucas Toutloff, CTO at Cabells, will be part of an outstanding panel that will be discussing ways the scientific community and journalism can drive change and wider societal outreach through open science policies and by embracing SDGs as a key topic in research impact.

Over the past year we have written extensively about our commitment to doing our part to move the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and, ultimately, their 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, forward. We were proud to join the SDG Publishers Compact as one of the first U.S. organizations and non-primary publishers globally to be awarded membership, and we look forward to becoming more involved in the rankings, ratings, and assessments HESI action group, tasked with guiding the changes to the criteria for assessment of the performance of higher education institutions to include contributions to the UN SDGs.

We’ve also been thrilled at the growth of and excitement for the SDG Impact Intensity™ (SDGII) academic journal rating, the first system for evaluating how journals contribute to positively impacting the SDGs. The SDGII is the result of our collaboration with Dr. David Steingard, Director of the SDG Dashboard initiative and Associate Professor of Leadership, Ethics, & Organizational Sustainability at the Haub School of Business at Saint Joseph’s University, and his team of researchers.

The SDGII uses SJU’s AI-based methodology to look at article output in journals from Cabells’ Journalytics database and gives those journals a ranking determined by the relative focus they have exhibited in their article publications over the last five years with respect to the SDGs. The SDGII provides a rating of up to five ‘SDG wheels’ to summarize the SDG relevance of articles published over a five-year period (2016-2020).

Last month, we had the chance to champion the potential benefits and impact of the SDGII at the Principles for Responsible Management Education (PRME) North American Biennial Meeting in Virginia, and at the AACSB’s International Conference and Annual Meeting (ICAM) in New Orleans. David and his team discussed their vision and efforts to inspire a transformation from “quality” to “impact” in academic publications.

From right to left: Dr. Julia Christensen Hughes, Dr. Kathleen Rodenburg, and Dr. David Steinberg speak at the PRME 2022 Biennial Meeting at George Mason University in Arlington, VA.

At PRME, we discussed how impact-focused metrics can support progressive publication and business education agendas and unveiled a new iteration of the metric – the SDGII 3000, which provides a rating to measure the SDG-intensity of 3000 academic business journals, as well as the net impact of a business school’s faculty on publications advancing the SDGs. The SDGII 3000 will analyze 95%+ of all relevant business school and SDG-related journals where faculty publish and represents a massive expansion of the measurement of the social and environmental impact of publications through the SDGs.  

Dr. David Steingard presents the SDGII 3000 for the first time at PRME.

We look forward to continuing this discussion in Chicago at the SSP conference, both during our session and beyond. We will discuss the ways that open science is impacting SDG initiatives and programs and explore methods for operationalizing SDG-mindedness as a tool for measuring both research impact and potential. The momentum is building for this game-changing initiative and we hope to see continued interest and excitement from all corners of academia.

Mike Bisaccio Academic Publishing, Cabells News

Conference Season Continues…Back in the Big Easy!

This week, we are on the road attending the Medical Library Association’s annual conference, MLA ’22, in New Orleans, where we’re excited to showcase our soon-to-launch new product, Journalytics Medicine & Predatory Reports. If you are at the conference in New Orleans, be sure to stop by booth 520 to say hello and take a look at our exciting new offering designed to help medical researchers, librarians, administrators, and funders ensure their work and resources are protected and impactful.

We have had a busy and wonderful 2022 conference season so far. At the Principles for Responsible Management Education North American Biennial Meeting in Arlington, Virginia, and the AACSB’s annual ICAM conference, also in New Orleans, we had the amazing opportunity to discuss our collaboration with David Steingard and Saint Joseph’s University (previously discussed here and here) in examining how the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) can inspire a transformation from “quality” to “impact” in academic publications.

We look forward to chronicling our adventures and sharing the successes of the conferences after we’ve had the chance to reconnect with everyone and make our way back home. Stay tuned!