Weekly digest: ISMPP annual meeting, open access crowdfunding and library–publisher agreements

Luke Bratton

This week, medical communications professionals flocked to Washington, DC for the 18th Annual Meeting of ISMPP. We read about the latest round of open access publication crowdfunding from Knowledge Unlatched, and perspectives on the transition to open publishing from a university library. Finally, we hear about the shift to an open access publishing economy for Ohio State University libraries, and we share an infographic illustrating future publishing trends.

To read:

The 18th annual meeting of ISMPP via ISMPP

Medical communications professionals from around the world convened in Washington, DC this week for the 18th Annual Meeting of ISMPP. Abstracts from the event are published open access in Current Medical Research and Opinion. Take a look at the Open Pharma posters on ORCID uptake in pharma-sponsored research and measuring open access to pharmaceutical company-supported articles.

Knowledge Unlatched targets open access for global health and climate change publications via STM Publishing News | 3-minute read

Knowledge Unlatched launched its ninth round of funding this week, whereby paywalled publications are made open access through crowdfunding. To date, over 670 libraries have made pledges to enable over 3000 books and 50 journals to become open access. The current pledging round will include a focus on global health and climate change publications to increase the number of books made open access in these areas.

The early stages of transition to open publishing: perspectives from university librarians via ZBW Media Talk | 10-minute read

In this article, Lynnee Argabright and Allison Kittinger from the William Madison Randall Library at the University of North Carolina Wilmington (UNCW) describe their roles in the first year of UNCW’s open science journey. They describe how to launch and promote open science principles on campus, and highlight how researchers are typically not aware of the support that libraries can provide with open access publications and open data.

To watch:

Transitioning the scholarly publishing economy via Coalition for Networked Information | 13-minute watch

As the number of universities transitioning to open access publishing models grows, there are lessons to be learned from institutions that have already made significant progress. Maureen Walsh and Gene Springs from the Ohio State University libraries provide insights from the first 3 years of implementing transformational and transitional agreements to shift away from paywalled publishing models at their university. They describe the benefits of read access and open access publishing on campus, and outline the decision-making process when considering the renewal of agreements.

To engage with:

Future trends in open access publication: an infographic  via STM Publishing

The STM Trends Forecast identifies the key technology-driven trends that are likely to impact the publishing industry in the coming years. Each year, the output of the Delphi-based exercise is translated into an infographic. This year, the future is depicted as a field of sunflowers (representing open access platforms), where bees are the authors, editors and peer reviewers (the most active in creating research output), and the farmer is the research funder (fertilizing the soil to facilitate fruitful production in the field).

Have you seen our recent commentary about user perspectives on plain language summaries? Read it here in Current Medical Research and Opinion.