Our third annual New Directions seminar took place from October 2 to 3, 2019, at the 20F Conference Center in Washington DC. With a record number of in-person as well as virtual attendees, the theme Scholarly Publishing Models “The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly” proved to be popular across a range of participants.
The entire seminar is now available for streaming in the SSP Library! The SSP Library is open to the public, so feel free to share your favorite session with your colleagues, customers, and anyone interested in scholarly communication.
Thought-Provoking Discussions
The tone for thought-provoking questions and deep insightful discussions was set with the Keynote Lecture by Research Square President Rachel Burley who highlighted the “New Normal in Scholarly Publishing” and emphasized the emerging need for pre-print to become more mainstream.
Continuing the trend, the engaging sessions on “New Directions in Open Access Business Models and Open Access Initiative”, “Disrupting Peer Review”, as well as the timely panel discussion with The Scholarly Kitchen Chefs on “The Future of Independent and Society Publishers” resonated deeply (and equally) with attendees representing publishers, journal office professionals, as well as not-for-profit member-based publishing societies.
Mindful of the extreme challenges that libraries are currently facing in constantly shifting scholarly publishing landscapes, the Seminar highlighted a dedicated session on “Advancement and New Directions in Scholarly Indexing”; however, throughout the Seminar, this timely theme was integrated and addressed.
The scholarly publishing industry is constantly perplexed with maintaining quality standards in the shifting landscapes. The timely panel discussion on “Current Disruptors in Academic Research: Scientific Misconduct, Spam Journals, and Mega Journals” effectively addressed some burning issues and provided direction to improve industry standards to the attendees.
Last, but certainly not the least, it was a welcome change to focus on the “New Tools in Visibility and Findability of Research”; an engaging panel of experts introduced the attendees to a range of Artificial Intelligence-based tools that have rolled out in the recent past while apprising them of the challenges faced by the industry and the possibilities that await!
“A nice balance of candor about challenge/problems and discussions of current practices and problem-solving approaches.” – 2019 Attendee (anonymous)
An Unprecedented Success
Besides being SSP’s most well-attended seminar to date with virtual watch parties and live virtual participation, the response at the Dubliner’s social event, at the seminar, on social media, and subsequent feedback from attendees has been very positive and encouraging.
Curious what you may have missed? All session content can be accessed by visiting the SSP Library located in our Resources section. You can also search for a specific session by name or speaker.
News contribution by SSP members, Marianne Calihanna, Chhavi Chauhan, and Jennifer Regala. Marianne is the Vice President of Marketing at Data Conversion Laboratory. Dr. Chauhan is the Director of Scientific Outreach at the American Society for Investigative Pathology. Jennifer is the Managing Editor of The Plant Cell and Plant Physiology at the American Society of Plant Biologists.
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