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Weekly News Digest

October 19, 2023 — In addition to this week's NewsBreaks article and the monthly NewsLink Spotlight, Information Today, Inc. (ITI) offers Weekly News Digests that feature recent product news and company announcements. Watch for additional coverage to appear in the next print issue of Information Today. CLICK HERE to view more Weekly News Digest items.

Taylor & Francis Journals Now Available via ResearchGate

ResearchGate, the professional network for researchers, and Taylor & Francis, a world-renowned academic publisher, [entered into] a new partnership, with 200 Taylor & Francis journals now available for researchers to discover on ResearchGate.

All 200 titles will benefit from enhanced visibility and engagement through ResearchGate’s innovative Journal Home offering. Each journal will have a dedicated profile, accessible throughout the ResearchGate platform, and will be prominently represented on associated article pages and relevant touch points across the network.

Researchers will also be able read more than 60,000 version-of-record open access articles directly on the ResearchGate platform. Additional articles from 80 fully open access Taylor & Francis journals will continue to be added to this number as they are published in the future.

For more information, read the press release.

Kudos Starts a Study on the Sustainable Development Goals and Begins Leveraging AI

Kudos, the platform for showcasing research, is launching a new study to explore author needs and publisher opportunities around the publication and dissemination of research relating to the [United Nations (UN)] Sustainable Development Goals. … The UN is urging research funders, policy makers and institutions to accelerate the alignment of research with the Goals. The study will explore what this means for how funding is allocated, which research areas are likely to grow, and what new features or services might be required to help advance research impact. … [The study] will help guide publishers in how they can develop their programs to inform and inspire action towards achieving the goals that impact all our lives.

For more information, read the blog post/press release.

Kudos also announced that “it is leveraging Artificial Intelligence to generate plain language summaries and further boost article performance for scholarly publishers and societies. Kudos now offers AI-generation of plain language summaries for research publications. … Kudos AI Summaries are carefully engineered to conform to Kudos’ proven structure, with short titles, alongside explanations of what the research is about, and why it is important—all elements that are associated with increased readership and citations.”

For more information, read the blog post/press release.

Sage and Bodyswaps Team Up for VR-Based Negotiation Simulations

Global academic publisher Sage and virtual reality (VR) platform provider Bodyswaps have collaborated to introduce a new series of innovative VR simulations designed for business students and related fields who need to master the art of negotiation and conflict management. …

The experience includes three modules—Laying the Groundwork for Negotiation, Approach and Mindset, and Gaining Influence and Value in Negotiations—each approximately 25 minutes in length. Users are presented with life-like avatars playing the roles of VR coaches to help facilitate self-reflection or illustrate best practices. Additional characters engage in real-life negotiation scenarios to encourage knowledge and skills development via repeated practice. Unique to this experience is the incorporation of AI-powered feedback and the opportunity to review interactions from the perspective of the other party, offering valuable learning opportunities. 

For more information, read the press release.

Clarivate Continues to Work With FEDLINK and Looks at AI and IP Law

For more information, read the press release.

In addition, Clarivate released a “new report, Redefining AI: How IP practice meets the coming wave. The report explores the effects the rapid advancements in artificial intelligence (AI) will have on IP law, practice and processes, and the legal sector. It analyzes the responses of intellectual property (IP) and R&D professionals to understand their attitudes towards AI.”

For more information, read the press release.

Springer Nature Publishes an AI-Produced Book and Rolls Out an AI-Powered Writing Assistant

As part of an innovative experiment, Springer Nature has become the first publisher to create a whole new academic book by empowering authors to use GPT as part of the integrated workflow. Developed during a ‘Hack Day’ in the Spring which brought together authors, editors and experts from across Springer Nature, the German-language book Einsatzmöglichkeiten von GPT in Finance, Compliance und Audit (Applications of GPT in finance, compliance and audit) has now been published. It took less than five months from inception to publication—about half the time normally taken.

The team wanted to see whether generative AI tools can help authors save time when writing their manuscripts and make their knowledge available more quickly, while maintaining a high level of quality. The experiment also showed that the technology can lower barriers for people who, for various reasons, find it difficult to write and would not be able to author a book without assistance. However, it became clear that authors with their expertise and high-quality editing continue to play an essential role in ensuring high quality content.

For more information, read the press release.

In addition, Springer Nature launched Curie, “a new AI-powered in-house writing assistant to support researchers, particularly those whose first language is not English, in their scientific writing. … It has been specifically trained on academic literature, spanning 447+ areas of study, more than 2,000 field-specific topics and on over 1 million edits on papers published including those in leading Nature journals. … Unlike generalist AI writing apps, Curie focuses on the unique pain points of researchers in their professional writing, including translation to English and English language editing to address grammatical errors and improve phrasing and word choice.”

For more information, read the press release.

Library of Congress Shares Videos on the Historical Experiences of LGBTQ+ Americans

George Chauncey, recipient of the [Library of Congress’] 2022 John W. Kluge Prize for Achievement in the Study of Humanity, released three videos … with the Library of Congress examining the experiences of LGBTQ+ Americans. …

In “From Sexual Regulation to Antigay Discrimination,” Chauncey is interviewed by Library of Congress Chief Communications Officer Roswell Encina on the history of how LGBTQ+ people in the United States were treated throughout the 20th century; the ways that their legal, social, and political treatment changed over the years; and the lives that people created for themselves in the shadow of discrimination.

In “Why Marriage Equality Became a Goal,” Chauncey interviews civil rights attorney Mary Bonauto, who has worked on the most significant legal cases dealing with marriage equality over the past 30 years. In this interview, Chauncey and Bonauto discuss the significance of the goal of marriage and why they think both the law and public opinion changed so rapidly as equality became the law of the land.

In “AIDS: A Tragedy and a Turning Point,” Chauncey convened a panel of experts to discuss the AIDS crisis that took the lives of a generation of gay people, including many who were writers and community leaders, even as it also set the stage for changes to come by prompting a new wave of activism and leading to an outpouring of LGBTQ+ people embracing their identities. In the discussion, Chauncey, Deborah Gould, Duane Cramer and Jafari Allen revisit the early history of AIDS and discuss the fear and loss as well as the action and assertiveness that came from that dark time.

For more information, read the press release.

EBSCO Information Services Unveils a New Company Division Focused on Professional Development and Educational Skills

For more information, read the press release.

Brill and De Gruyter Merge to Form a Combined Publishing House

The transaction creates the leading academic publisher in the Humanities and presents a unique opportunity to accelerate organic growth and achieve necessary scale. … The combination will jointly publish well over 3,500 books and 800 journals per year. The enlarged scale will accelerate a transition to Open Access, finance investments in technology for end-to-end workflows and a cutting-edge market-facing (content) platform. … The combination of two centuries-old publishing houses will be branded De Gruyter Brill, signaling the importance of the strong heritage and family background of both companies.

For more information, read the news item, which has a link to the press release.