Editor’s Note: Today’s post is by Chhavi Chauhan and Chirag Jay Patel. Chhavi is is Director of Scientific Outreach at the American Society for Investigative Pathology. Chirag is Head of Sales and Business Development, Americas at Cactus Communications.
With the mainstream adoption of large language models (LLMs) like Chat-GPT in the last year, there has been tremendous chatter about the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in the scholarly publishing industry. Discussions have ranged from basic introductions to innovation showcases demoing how to leverage AI in your publishing workflows to concerns surrounding publication ethics, research integrity, copyright infringement, and job displacement.
The Scholarly Kitchen (TSK) itself has featured topics on the future of AI in scholarly communications, the potential impacts of law and AI on copyright and related issues, the impact of generative AI in scholarly publishing, the direction to take while understanding the intricacies, potential opportunities, accessibility concerns, apprehensions, and ethical concerns regarding trust and transparency. In the past month itself, TSK has featured posts on the need for “deleting the garbage” from the increasing amount of content, the impact of two disrupters — open research and artificial intelligence, and responses from Copyright Clearance Center to US copyright office notice of inquiry on AI. In fact, the last session of the Society for Scholarly Publishing (SSP) Annual Meeting in Portland, OR, concluded with a full fledged debate on this topic, which was eloquently covered in this TSK post.
The range of topics already covered in TSK on the use of AI in scholarly publishing, as well as the plethora of discussions that have been happening in all public forums using different platforms, clearly highlight the need for a unified public forum or community to discuss this emerging field to understand its impact on all stakeholders in the scholarly publishing industry.
SSP realizes that it is impossible for any one individual or organization to stay on top of all the developments that are happening in our industry relating to the use of AI in scholarly publishing. SSP is proud to provide a safe, open, and welcoming home for all its members to indulge in an objective discussion to stay abreast with the latest developments, emerging guidelines and regulations, cutting-edge tools and offerings to improve efficiencies, emerging job descriptions, and general publishing trends as they shift with the use of AI. The AI in Scholarly Publishing Community of Interest (CoIN) is SSP’s latest offering to all its members to explore and engage in all matters AI as they relate to scholarly publishing that will impact the workforce, business decision-making, marketing and outreach, all aspects of publication, research, etc. This group is currently facilitated by long-term SSP members, Chirag Jay Patel and Dr. Chhavi Chauhan. They encourage active participation from every SSP member to contribute towards bridging the knowledge gap and connecting individuals with innovative ideas to those with specific needs.
Interest is already building up in this CoIN with folks already joining without any outreach. You can also join this CoIn by using this link, and exchange timely information on the evolving impact of AI in scholarly publishing. We plan to host monthly Zoom meetings with the CoIN members to exchange dialogue; however, all CoIN members can communicate with the entire group by signing up for the SSP’s C3 community, which is free to join. In addition to our regular Zoom meetings, we’re aiming to create specific working groups. These groups will focus on important AI and publishing topics, like upskilling of the workforce, responsible AI, real-world applications of AI in publishing, AI tools for the community, regulating AI, and the ethical aspects of AI in publishing.
Jay and Chhavi have explored opportunities to collaborate before on SSP’s Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility (DEIA) committee and partnered up on many occasions, including their most recent panel discussion on the use of generative AI in scholarly publishing at the International Society for Managing and Technical Editors (ISMTE) Global Event and further shared their insights from this session and beyond in this recent EON blogpost they composed with Caitlyn Trautwein, the moderator for this session. In addition, Jay and Chhavi publish a weekly newsletter “Augmenting Scholarly Publishing: Intelligent Emerging Tools & Trends,” which has been fast gaining subscribers.
We look forward to you joining the community and engaging in lively discussions with your fellow SSP members, your candid opinions are welcomed. Please sign up using the CoIN Application.
