Over the past few years, technology has revolutionized the publishing industry. Scholarly publishing is no exception. The industry is experiencing a gradual but drastic change pushed by digital publishing initiatives. These have also influenced the way researchers collect and process data.
1. Open Access Publishing
Years ago, published academic pieces remained hidden behind platforms that special or paid access. This has drastically changed to make published journals more openly accessible. Professionals in the industry believe that open access publishing will become more popular in academia over time. One survey found that 91% of librarians believe open access is the future of scientific and scholarly publishing. Making fact-checked knowledge available to the public might help to reduce the growth of widespread misinformation.
Researchers of even a decade ago remember the process of helping respondents complete surveys by filling out physical copies. Researchers sometimes had to connect with them a second time to collect the completed surveys. From there, entering the data was a long, tedious task. Today, respondents can complete surveys online or via distributed tablets. Similarly, researchers conducting experiments can make notes electronically that are easier to process and track.
Hootsuite estimates that almost 60% of the world has access to the internet. To complement this, 53% of the world’s population is on social media, with a projected year-over-year growth rate of 13%. These figures are even higher in North America and First World countries. While people with access to the internet do not accurately represent entire populations, they nonetheless provide researchers with easy and immediate access to research populations around the world. This reduces the costs often associated with the deployment of resources for scholarly publishing.
Automating the data collection process makes it easier for AI and machine learning to handle the data processing. Researchers no longer need to manually look for trends or seek out patterns. One-click of a button can pass this task on to bots who can comb through hundreds or thousands of entries in mere seconds. Combined with automated data gathering, researchers can go from hypothesizing to publishing much faster. It also simplifies and speeds up the paper review process.
Like most industries, scholarly publishing will continue to be revolutionized by technology and a digital world. At Amnet, we are fully equipped to help our academic clients tackle the new challenges that might arise from digital publishing and OA publishing. Contact us to learn more.
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