The Authority File

In July 2023, Taylor & Francis launched the Pledge to Open pilot, a collective model in which institutions can pledge funding for open access titles centered on global challenges. Jamie Hutchins, Director of Open Research, Americas for Taylor & Francis Group, joins TAF as the deadline for the pilot’s funding window approaches to discuss the program’s progress and detail how publishers can help academic libraries with the transition to OA. Jamie outlines the open access landscape in the Americas and Europe and highlights how models including Pledge to Open can enhance accessibility. He also underscores difficulties article processing charges (APCs) and book publishing charges (BPCs) pose to researchers and explains how Taylor & Francis works with library stakeholders to tailor models according to their goals.

In this first episode, Jamie describes how his team supports open access and open research in the Americas. Jamie details Taylor & Francis’s approach to OA partnerships with academic libraries, stressing the importance of starting with a global framework and then customizing agreements based on an institution’s needs and desired impact. As he explains, some partnerships require an education on available opportunities and engaging in library outreach. Jamie also covers the challenges of charges like APCs shifting focus onto authors rather than the library. He further considers ways the Americas differ from Europe when it comes to OA, namely how different states, disciplines, and institutions in the US often have varied funding availability.

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In the final episode of this four-part series, Ritu Dhand, Chief Scientific Officer at Springer Nature, chats about increasing staff buy-in for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). She details several efforts from Springer Nature including mandatory employee training, an SDG Impact Challenge, volunteer SDG working groups, and providing recognition via awards for SDG Heroes. As the 2030 deadline for meeting the SDGs fast approaches, Ritu further considers whether the glass is half-full or half-empty, offering reflections on industry and research progress thus far. She underscores the importance of building on increased awareness of the SDGs by spurring more action and engaging with those across the globe. Making a case for open source taxonomies for SDG research, Ritu closes by stressing that the current lack of standardized classifications disadvantages publishers since they often have to filter their content retroactively.

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In the final episode of this four-part series, our guests dive into preventative measures against predatory publishing and emerging threats. To start, Ruth Bailey, Journal Auditor at Cabells, explains how open access has shifted predatory publishing practices, with problematic journals taking advantage of author processing charges that have become normalized in the OA market. Next, Ashley Carroll, Project Manager at Cabells, and Mike Bisaccio, Director of Marketing & Communications at Cabells, outline what researchers need to watch out for when looking to publish or read published research. Last, Yasmeen Zubair, Journals Manager at Cabells, encourages researchers to report suspicious journals to Cabells, and Ashley explores how librarians can support scholars throughout the research process by recognizing misinformation and helping patrons identify it.

Editor’s Note: As Ashley informed us after the interview, the correct number of paper retractions last year was more than 10,000, not 20,000.

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In the third episode of this four-part series, Ritu Dhand, Chief Scientific Officer of Springer Nature, underscores the need to engage with and support the Global South in scholarly communication. She walks through the rising research output and impact from nonwestern nations in recent years and the unconscious bias in peer reviewers and editorial boards that prevent this scholarship from reaching a larger audience. Further, Ritu explains the core tenets of inclusive science—publishing all quality research rather than the traditional (and outdated) idea that a journal’s high impact factor correlates with selectivity and low output. Finally, she chats about equitable open access and defines regional novelty and its connection to inclusive science and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

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In the third episode of our four-part series on predatory publishing, our guests share key steps of the evaluative process for Cabells Predatory Reports. As Yasmeen Zubair, Journals Manager at Cabells, explains, the 74 criteria help identify a journal’s intent to deceive and are updated according to input from scholars, social media chatter, and emerging trends. In addition, Ruth Bailey, Journal Auditor at Cabells, walks through problematic publishing red flags, such as a lack of plagiarism policies on a journal’s website, quick turnaround times without the appropriate number of staff, and inconsistent publishing schedules. Last, Yasmeen and Ruth share how Cabells’s holistic, evidence-based approach avoids automation and the exploitative—though not necessarily predatory—publishing practices they keep an eye on to stay up to date on the industry.

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In the second episode of this four-part series, Ritu Dhand, Chief Scientific Officer at Springer Nature, digs into Springer Nature’s editorial and publication strategies that support the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Aiming to create community and collaboration around the Goals, Springer has introduced initiatives to make SDG content more discoverable and fit the modern scholar’s needs. Mobile-friendly online platforms, lay summaries appropriate for interdisciplinary scholarship, and frequently updated live references buttress this work. Ritu also explains the business factors that went into Springer’s adoption of the SDGs and the sustainable publishing practices implemented internally. Last, she shares the range of conferences, webinars, white papers, and content hubs available from a customer point of view that underpin SDG publishing and awareness.

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In the second episode of this four-part series, our guests from scholarly analytics service Cabells dig into predatory journal tactics and the characteristics of the journal market that make it vulnerable to predatory practices. First, Ruth Bailey, Journal Auditor, and Ashley Carroll, Project Manager, explain how the online journal environment, prevalence of open access publication charges, and lack of central authority against problematic publishing allow predatory journals to proliferate. Next, Ashley and Yasmeen Zubair, Journals Manager, walk through the subject areas at risk (hint—it’s all of them!) and the strategies predatory journals use to appear as legitimate and enticing as possible to researchers. Finally, our guests reflect on the pain points of the scholarly communication workflow that predatory journals exploit, such as removing barriers to publication and offering quick turnaround and publication times.

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Formally adopted in 2015, the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are fast approaching their 2030 end date. To recruit the publishing industry, the UN introduced the SDG Publishers Compact in 2020, an open agreement that encourages stakeholders to adopt sustainable business strategies and publish content in support of the goals. In this four-part series, we discuss the publishing industry’s contributions to the SDGs, and how Springer Nature became a key advocate, choosing to align its editorial strategy, business outlook, and internal organization with the goals.

In the first episode of this series, Ritu Dhand chats about her role at Springer Nature as Chief Scientific Officer, sharing her work in supporting the editors of Springer Nature’s portfolio of more than 3,000 journals. She then provides a refresher on how the SDGs originated and the objectives of the SDG Publishers Compact. In addition, Ritu discusses the key collaborators who are advancing Springer Nature’s SDG work internally and the scale at which its publishing operation supports the effort.

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More than an inconvenience or nuisance, predatory publishing practices can inflict lasting harm onto scholarship, researchers, and the academic publishing landscape. To discuss this incessant and, as one guest frames it, “whack-a-mole” issue, the speakers for this four-part series provide their expertise as part of scholarly analytics service Cabells. Evaluating potentially predatory journals through its rigorous standards and criteria, Cabells publishes Predatory Reports to track the ever-growing list of problematic journals. This series explores the tactics of such journals and preventative measures academics can take to help identify and avoid predatory publishers.

In the first episode of this series, Ashley Carroll, Project Manager, Yasmeen Zubair, Journals Manager, Ruth Bailey, Journal Auditor, and Mike Bisaccio, Director of Marketing & Communications, define predatory publishing, underscoring a journal’s display of fraudulent or deceptive behaviors to appear legitimate with the clear intent of collecting fees from researchers. Further, Mike shares the overwhelming number of predatory journals identified by Cabells, while Ruth walks through the various stakeholders vulnerable to these journals and what’s at stake for the scholarly community.

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In the final episode of this four-part series on the recent white paper from Technology from Sage and Skilltype on the librarian skills landscape, our guests look at how artificial intelligence technologies will (or won’t) impact the library workforce and successful support mechanisms to help staff develop their skills. First, David Erlandson, Head of Cataloguing and Metadata Services at Rice University Fondren Library, and Matthew Weldon, Library Patron Consultant at Technology from Sage, underscore that AI services have not replaced any of their own tasks, adding that the human element still serves as an essential function of library work.

Further, Marcy Simons, Director of Hesburgh Libraries Organizational and Personnel Development at the University of Notre Dame, explains that she encourages colleagues at her institution to see artificial intelligence as an opportunity to reassess workloads and let go of monotonous tasks. Tony Zanders, Founder & CEO of Skilltype, highlights two key issues he’s observed in relation to automated tools: an ongoing global shortage of library professionals and remote roles that lack interpersonal connections becoming automated or reduced. To close, our guests emphasize recognition, opportunities for career advancement, communication, and community-building as necessary building blocks for aiding library skill-building and professional development.

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