Five industry leaders on the future of publishing platforms | Research Information

"Penev, Pensoft: It must be a difficult exercise for publishing platforms and their developers to switch from technologies initially designed for subscription journals. Luckily for us at ARPHA, we don’t have to face this challenge, as it has been designed as a fully open-access platform from the very start. Instead, we are simply continuing our work towards the much anticipated evolution from open access to open science.  One way for platforms to embrace open science – apart from prompting free and easy access to research publications from day one – is opening up ‘non-conventional’ research work, including early research and small, yet integral bits and pieces that comprise scientific breakthroughs. Favourite examples are grant proposals, datasets, data management plans, workshop reports, software descriptions, conference abstracts and posters.  Bailey, 67 Bricks: We’ve seen some recognition of the fact that publishers’ primary customers are shifting, from libraries, consortia and institutions to researchers, thanks to the open-access movement. Publishers whose customer data is in great shape and can therefore respond quickly to changing needs and trends will be at an advantage in this new market, since customers at an individual level are much less likely to suffer from inertia than B2B subscription contracts. This B2B to B2C movement is still nascent and requires a new mindset from both publishers and platforms. In terms of the platforms themselves, open and digital-first platforms, such as F1000 and PLOS, have taken steps including facilitating preprint deposits, promoting open peer review and requiring open data – all of which challenge some of the traditional publishing processes and take advantage of the available technology.  Eckert, Frontiers: I believe platforms, which were developed with the sole aim to enable open access, provide the most powerful solutions for our move towards open science as they do not suffer from compromises in workflows or being adopted as an afterthought in the publishing process. Open-science platforms benefit from fully leveraging the widespread dissemination of research advances without barriers to access and therefore drive visibility and impact for scientists. The myth that open science is of lower quality has also set the standards high for open-science platforms to perform better than legacy solutions in quality control, assurance and efficiency, while allowing for an expansion of innovation and promoting collaboration. Bazargan, RVT: Open access has simplified and streamlined the requirements of publishing platforms, in that no subscription or authentication of the reader is needed. On the other hand, the submission systems have more to do, mainly to work out article processing charges (APCs) using complex formulae. In addition, the submission system, directly or indirectly, needs to collect the funds from the author. The proliferation of Plan S transition models have added further complications to APC calculation and management. The move to open science has meant that data relating to publications needs to be openly available and in as widely readable formats as possible. This requires publishing platforms to partner with third parties that specialise in hosting different types of data. Ideally, the data should be viewable directly via the platforms and should be linked closely with the relevant section of the publication. Hargitt, Literatum: Open access has opened the industry’s eyes to new business models that rely on enriched content offerings. Publishers are considering branching into new content types so they can better identify, develop and monetise their audiences and high-value content spaces. Open science has also sparked a conversation about embracing technologies that enable publishers to take new strides. Research that incorporates media and data assets requires new services to be integrated, or natively supported on platforms, requiring an overall modernisation of supporting content management systems...."