Mr. Qiu Xiaochun, Director of Library of School of Medicine, Shanghai Jiaotong University (Please find the Chinese version below)
How have developments in Open Access, such as transformative agreements and institutional mandates in 2024, impacted your approach to providing access to resources?
Transformative agreements and institutional mandates play a crucial role in facilitating the shift from a subscription-based model to an Open Access model in scholarly publishing. This transition helps promote fairness in scholarly publishing, reduces the costs of scholarly communication to some extent, and makes it more convenient and efficient for libraries to provide access to resources. Additionally, the focus of libraries’ work in resource acquisition is gradually shifting toward the organization and discovery of resources.
With the rise of AI tools and technologies in scholarly publishing this year, how do you see these advancements shaping library services and researcher support?
AI is transforming industries across the board, and its impact on the services provided by traditional libraries is unprecedented. Libraries must actively embrace AI and leverage its technologies to drive a new wave of innovation in library services and support for researchers.
If you could add one futuristic feature to your library, inspired by 2024’s tech trends (like AI or augmented reality), what would it be and why?
According to current technology, AI plays a significant role in assisting researchers with organizing large volumes of scientific and technological literature. However, due to copyright restrictions imposed by publishers, AI has yet to achieve the ability to conduct comprehensive and systematic literature reviews on specific questions – a futuristic feature I would envision adding to the library.
What’s the most surprising or unusual resource someone has asked you to find this year—and how did you tackle the request?
We haven’t yet identified an effective search tool to address queries like “Which clinical practice guidelines have incorporated the results of a specific clinical study?”.
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From a funders perspective on Open Access to the potential of AI in science communication – Dr. Beth Montague-Hellen, Head of Library & Information Services at The Francis Crick Institute, and Dr. Sarah Wettstadt, a science communication expert and Co-Founder of the SciComm Society, shared their thoughts on the accessibility of science. As a continuation of the Karger in Conversation (KIC) discussion, the answers provide an overview of the trends and innovations that are redefining scientific communication.
Funders played a pivotal role in the KIC conversation as key players in financing research and setting mandates that researchers must adhere to. With recent developments, such as the Gates Foundation’s green policy, which appears to be influencing the trajectory of Open Access in the U.S., it was only natural that one of the questions would focus on their perception of open access.
When addressing how funders view the quality of open access versus paywalled journals and the ethical concerns in translating research for public consumption, especially in health sciences, Dr. Beth Montague-Hellen provided some insightful responses.
She highlighted the shifting landscape of open access and its reception among funders, noting that from her experience, funders typically do not discriminate between open access and paywalled journals based on quality, recognizing excellence in both. Instead, their focus is on content accessibility: “funders want research to have a wide reach”. They are keen on ensuring that research reaches not only academic circles but also allied professionals and the interested public. Whether through Gold or Diamond OA models or traditional subscription journals that offer public repository access, the goal is to broaden the reach of research.
Maintaining Quality Standards in Research
She also addressed concerns about ethics and integrity in research translation and dissemination, particularly in open access contexts. She emphasized the collective responsibility of researchers, institutions, and publishers in maintaining quality standards: “Researchers need to be aware of issues and of best practices and institutions should be providing training, but also hiring experts who can investigate any breaches. Publishers also need to step up here, it is their reputation as well as the researchers on the line when something goes wrong, so it is in their best interests.”
Discussing the integration of Open Sciencefeatures like data and protocols, Dr. Montague-Hellen, a self-proclaimed “big advocate for ensuring that the whole research landscape is as open as we can make it,” admits that making data open is important, however depending on the subject area, the data might or might not be of interest to stakeholders outside of the research circle. On the subject of who should be in charge of this cumbersome task, she is in favor of a holistic approach, however difficult it may be, noting that “Funders often put policies in place asking for a holistically open environment, but unless publishers and institutions are helping to facilitate this it can be a really hard task for researchers” who very often are not aware of services put in place by their own institutions and librarians.
AI and Evolving Research Communication
Dr. Sarah Wettstadt offered her vision on how research communication might evolve with the integration of digital natives into the field. She sees social media as a vital tool for educational purposes, suggesting that researchers, universities, and publishers should leverage formats like “media, videos, and short clips to distribute research in short bite-sized formats”.
She also highlighted the need for training in creative science communication, helping researchers to comfortably engage with broader audiences through interviews, podcasts, and other media. Dr. Wettstadt believes that AI has a significant role to play in making scientific content more accessible by breaking down complex jargon and explaining concepts to non-specialist audiences.
Adding to this perspective, Dr. Montague-Hellen shared her enthusiasm for the potential of AI in science communication, noting that people are already using generative AI tools like ChatGPT to find and synthesize information in a way that is similar to using Google Scholar or Wikipedia. These are all “tools that many in the information sector will fight against, but which will be used by students, researchers and the public anyway.” Dr. Montague-Hellen is particularly excited about using AI to create user-friendly abstracts, collate resources, and translate research, thus democratizing access to scientific knowledge: “I think translation is a big area where we could be using AI to level the playing field – in the future rather than publishing being dominated by English we could create a landscape where people could both read and write in their native language”. This aligns well with Dr. Wettstadt’s vision of using AI to simplify scientific communication and make it more universally accessible.
The Next Steps in Open Access and Science Communication
The “Karger in Conversation” Breaking Boundaries – Is Open Access Truly Open to All? panel illustrated the dynamic interplay among open access, ethical considerations, AI technology, and evolving communication strategies in the dissemination of scientific research and made clear that wider access won’t be achieved passively. It will take funding, focus and a collective effort, but it is a critical goal in the future research landscape.
If you are interested in learning more about how science communication services can enhance the impact of your personal or institutional research, whether you are a researcher or part of an open access team or library, please visit our dedicated page on Outreach Services.
Key Take Aways
Funders focus on broad research accessibility, not discriminating between open access and paywalled journals. Researchers, institutions, and publishers share a collective responsibility to maintain quality standards and ethical practices in research dissemination.
There is a need for training in creative science communication to engage with broader audiences.
AI and social media crucial for modernizing research communication and simplifying scientific content. Achieving wider access and effective communication in research needs a collaborative, technology-driven effort.
In the rapidly evolving landscape of scholarly publishing, the advent of AI and new technologies has sparked considerable discourse. While the buzz around technologies like ChatGPT may seem recent, it’s crucial to recognize AI’s longstanding presence in programs dating back to the late ’90s. The challenges and opportunities it bring have been a longstanding consideration in the scholarly publishing realm, especially as it contemplates the implications of artificial intelligence technology, potentially reshaping centuries-old processes. This consideration has reignited now that the challenges have become more pronounced, particularly in keeping up with its rapid changes.
We explored all of this in our recent Karger in Conversation panel, where experts from the scholarly publishing, librarianship, and research sector highlighted the inevitable impact of AI on the industry, presenting opportunities for efficiency, fraud prevention, and even the reduction of language barriers for researchers. Each speaker brought a unique perspective, revealing both common ground and differing viewpoints. In this brief article we will summarize a few of the key takeaways of the conversation, but to catch the in-depth conversation on one of the most critical and fascinating issues today, be sure to watch the full discussion.
AI is Here to Stay
Michelle Kraft, Library Director at Cleveland Clinic set the stage, pointing out that “there are so many AIs out there that it’s hard to keep track of” and clarifying that “if people just limit their focus to that kind of AI (ChatGPT), (they) are really limiting themselves overall.” This sentiment was echoed by Tech Consultant Phill Jones, who celebrated ChatGPT’s success over the past year, emphasizing its groundbreaking ability to produce more human-like responses, marking a significant leap in text generation. However, Phill acknowledged that this may lead to overblown concerns surrounding ChatGPT, attributing the fear to its convincing mimicry of human language. This sparked anticipation for a deeper exploration of AI implications, balancing the excitement with a cautionary note. The underlying message was clear- AI’s journey has been and will continue to be a long one, and its trajectory is one of perpetual advancement.
Working in Tandem with AI
Researcher, Clinician, and Karger Ambassador Francesco Andrea Causio joined the conversation, emphasizing the role of AI in assisting researchers like himself and underscoring its crucial importance in his everyday work life. Andrea highlighted the power of AI-generated plain language summaries, serving as valuable tools for understanding intricate subjects beyond researchers’ immediate expertise. However, like Michelle and Phill, he cautioned against blind reliance on them, advocating for cross-verification with experts to ensure accuracy.
Currently, it seems like these technologies have become integral to practical tasks such as summarizing content and synthesizing information. However, as Michelle pointed out, although one of the things that AI does well is the gathering and sorting of information or data, “we still need…people to actually analyze the data.” She also raised a red flag regarding AI-generated complicated searches and citations. Michelle stressed the necessity of human oversight to counter the inherent limitations of language models, pointing out the risks of inaccuracies, “hollow citations,” and “hallucinations”, and emphasized the indispensable role librarians play in guiding researchers through the complex information landscape.
Ethics in AI
ImageTwin CEO, Patrick Starke, rounded up the conversation by highlighting that if creating content, especially in another language, and summarizing texts is one of the main tasks we currently ask of AI, there is also another important side of the coin, which is what he focused on when he co-founded his company for image validation, namely “the application of it to actually identify whether that text (or image) was generated by an artificial intelligence in the first place”. Which brings us to the crucial question of transparency and ethics, which we will explore in a future blog post.
As we navigate the AI frontier, expert consensus points to responsible use, ethical considerations, and collaborative efforts as key pillars for ensuring the reliability and integrity of information in health sciences.
Stay tuned for future blog posts where we will explore the intricacies of our discussion in greater detail and address additional points. We’ll also be addressing questions from the audience, so be on the lookout for more insights.
Francesca Brazzorotto is the Customer Engagement Manager at Karger Publishers, leveraging over 13 years of publishing industry experience in both sales and marketing.
With a foundation as a trained librarian, when she’s not busy captivating audiences with her publishing prowess, Francesca channels her pent-up energy into conquering CrossFit workouts, and transforming into a globetrotting epicurean, dedicated to sampling every delectable dish and exquisite wine the world has to offer.
Mr. Qiu Xiaochun, Director of Library of School of Medicine, Shanghai Jiaotong University