Member News & Announcements, January IO 2022
Partnerships & Collaborations
Wiley and Carnegie Mellon University Sign Agreement to Make Research More Widely Accessible
John Wiley & Sons, Voting Member, and Carnegie Mellon University, L.S.A. Consortium Member, News Announcement, December 16, 2021
Global research and education leader Wiley today announced a three-year open access agreement with Carnegie Mellon University, a renowned research university in the United States.
The agreement will enable Carnegie Mellon’s researchers the ability to publish all accepted articles open access in Wiley's journals, meaning that they are freely available to read and share upon publication. This agreement marks a critical step in the university’s open access journey, expanding the reach of the research published by its distinguished faculty, most notably including forward-looking fields of study such as artificial intelligence, machine learning, and automation.
PLOS expands footprint in the European Union with a publishing agreement in Germany
Public Library of Science (PLOS), Voting Member, News Announcement, December 15, 2021
The Public Library of Science (PLOS) is pleased to announce an agreement with Sachsen Consortia to facilitate unlimited publishing across all 12 PLOS titles with no fees for researchers. This agreement encompasses PLOS’ three innovative publishing models, ensuring researchers from 11 Saxon institutions benefit from frictionless, fee-free publishing with PLOS. This agreement represents PLOS’ second major consortia deal in the European Union.
“We are excited to expand our consortia footprint to Germany with these new publishing models, which enable more researchers to participate in advancing Open Science,” said Sara Rouhi, Director of Strategic Partnerships for PLOS. “Sachsen Consortia share our commitment to make scholarly publishing and research open and equitable for the benefit of all.”
Springer Nature and the Egyptian Government agree landmark deal to drive forward open research
Springer Nature, Voting Member, Press Release, December 14, 2021
Springer Nature, The Science, Technology and Innovation Funding Authority (STDF) and the Egyptian Knowledge Bank (EKB) have today agreed a landmark Transformative Agreement (TA), increasing the momentum across global economies of all sizes for open access (OA) publishing and the wider move to open science and research.
This agreement, the first TA for Egypt and the first deal of its type for the region[1] , is expected to see over 3000 OA articles a year published by Egyptian researchers with Springer Nature, increasing the reach and impact[2] of Egyptian research across all disciplines. The deal provides researchers with read access to research in over 2,400 Springer Nature journals and the option to publish in Springer Nature’s hybrid and fully OA journal portfolio. Accelerating the transition to OA in Egypt in this way will ensure the country’s high quality research is reusable, shareable and discoverable to the world's scholars immediately upon publication
Open Access, Open Science
Oxford Scholarship Online reaches a milestone 20,000 titles
Oxford University Press, Voting Member, Press Release, December 8, 2021
Oxford Scholarship Online, the digital library of research books published by Oxford University Press (OUP), has reached an impressive milestone with more than 20,000 titles now available.
Launched in 2003 with 700 titles in four subject areas: Economics and Finance, Philosophy, Political Science, and Religion, Oxford Scholarship Online now spans 27 subject disciplines and includes works from Nobel prize winning authors in Economics, Chemistry, Neuroscience, and Physics. It is also home to over 100 open access books.
AIP Publishing to Launch Two Fully Open Access Journals in 2022
AIP Publishing, LLC, Voting Member, News Announcement, December 7, 2021
AIP Publishing (AIPP) is pleased to announce the addition of two new titles to the growing family of Open Access (OA) journals. APL Energy and APL Machine Learning will join a portfolio that also includes APL Materials, APL Photonics, and APL Bioengineering – three high-impact Gold OA journals that advance open science while preserving the diversity, quality, and financial sustainability of the peer-reviewed publishing upon which our research community depends. The journals will open for submissions in mid-2022 and start publishing by the end of 2022.
“The introduction of APL Energy and APL Machine Learning to the growing family of Gold OA journals is a commitment from AIP Publishing to making open science in physics research a reality. Our expanding portfolio of publications delivers the benefits of openness while championing author priorities, global impact, and research sustainability,” said AIPP CEO Alix Vance.
Springer Nature expands its eBook portfolio in Artificial Intelligence, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science with the purchase of the Synthesis Digital Library
Springer Nature, Voting Member, Press Release, December 3, 2021
With the acquisition of the Synthesis Digital Library, Springer Nature strengthens its book portfolio in Artificial Intelligence, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. The high-quality portfolio of Synthesis adds more than 1000 books with a current output of about 100 books every year to Springer Nature’s book program. With its strengths in Artificial Intelligence and roots in the American scientific communities, this acquisition is a valuable extension of Springer Nature´s leading book program in Engineering and Computer Science. Synthesis, launched in 2005, is one of the most cited book series in technology and Springer Nature will continue with the imprint as part of its book program.
Synthesis books are highly-regarded in the scientific communities and embody some unique features, which distinguish them from other publications in their area. The books are authored by experts in the field and offer tutorial presentations on cutting-edge research and development topics. The concise and revisable book format provides researchers with in-depth analysis which is broader than research journal articles. They address the increasing need for researchers and developers to bring themselves up to date on important new areas.
MEDLINE 2022 Initiative: Transition to Automated Indexing
National Library of Medicine (NLM), Voting Member, Featured Article, December 1, 2021
As part of the efforts of the National Library of Medicine (NLM) to transform and accelerate biomedical discovery and improve health and health care, we are transitioning to automated MeSH indexing of MEDLINE citations in PubMed. Automated indexing will provide users with timely access to MeSH indexed metadata and allow NLM to scale MeSH indexing for MEDLINE to the volume of published biomedical literature. Human indexers have been and will continue to be involved in the refinement of automated indexing algorithms and will play a significant role in the quality assurance approaches for automated indexing.
In 2018, NLM launched the MEDLINE 2022 initiative, a five-year development plan that aims to ensure that MEDLINE continues to evolve to meet the needs of users in an age of data-driven discovery. A key goal of this initiative involved implementing a range of indexing methods to ensure the timely assignment of MeSH to MEDLINE citations. Based on the successful pilot of automated indexing on a limited scale since 2016, it was determined that fully automated MEDLINE indexing be implemented with quality control, and that human curation and automation be specifically applied to improve the discoverability of chemical and gene information in MEDLINE
Legal Proceedings
The Association of American Publishers Files Suit Against The State of Maryland Over Unprecedented Encroachment into Federally Protected Copyrights
Association of American Publishers (AAP), Voting Member, News Announcement, December 9, 2021
The Association of American Publishers (AAP), the national trade association for the U.S. publishing industry, today filed suit against the Maryland Attorney General seeking to enjoin and overturn an unconstitutional Maryland law that directly conflicts with the federal Copyright Act by forcing any publisher, domestic and foreign, to make their literary works available to Maryland public libraries in electronic book and audiobook formats according to timing, pricing, and other terms mandated by the state under threat of penalty.
Slated to take effect on January 1st, 2022, the Maryland law gives libraries unprecedented control over basic copyright transactions that are clearly reserved to those who write, develop, invest in, distribute, and make publicly available the invaluable array of novels, biographies, historical and political works, poetry, scholarship, and course materials that are the mission of publishing, and which together fuel entertainment, human empowerment, and scientific progress on a global basis. In seeking to regulate books, Maryland disregarded the testimony of publishers and authors, established law, and market facts.
Infrastructure and Platforms
Aries Introduces Modernized Main Menu Interface for Authors and Reviewers
Aries Systems Corporation, Voting Member, Blog Post, December 7, 2021
In response to user feedback and as part of our commitment to delivering continuous product improvements and innovation, Aries Systems is embarking on a multi-year, multi-phase user interface (UI) and user experience (UX) redesign initiative of our workflow management solutions. Aries is thrilled to announce the upcoming release of enhanced Main Menus for the Author and Reviewer roles within Editorial Manager® (EM) and ProduXion Manager® (PM) as part of our UI/UX initiative.
The improved design includes only user interface enhancements, featuring a fresh look with updated colors, typefaces, and spacing – consistent with the recent main navigation bar redesign and Aries’ recent rebrand. In addition to updating the Author and Reviewer Main Menu pages, the enhancement also extends to all of the folders available from the Main Menus, with the exception of the New Reviewer Invitations folder accessed from the Reviewer Main Menu. All functions from the original Main Menus and menu folders are retained under the new design, but with a more modern style that adheres to enhanced design and accessibility standards. This simple update provides Authors and Reviewers an improved user experience, increasing overall satisfaction while engaging with publishers’ EM/PM sites.