Editorial

In her pre-holiday planning, Francesca Brazzorotto, Customer Engagement Manager at Karger Publishers, takes us on a journey of sifting through misinformation to find the truth of what you really need to pack in your beach bag.

Rob Johnson and Bev Acreman review into the impactful ways UKSG has fostered innovation within our community, highlighting its ongoing commitment to driving progress and transformation,

Beth Montague-Hellen, Head of Library & Information Services at The Francis Crick Insitute, and Katie Fraser, Associate Director for Learning and Research at the University of Nottingham Libraries, discuss why it's important to keep talking and acting on the green open access route.

How might we measure research excellence, and what are the views of researchers around this? The answer, it seems, is surprisingly complex, and intertwined with systemic issues in academia, such as the cultural burden on Indigenous researchers, the politics of contribution, individualism, and ultimately, research culture.

Alice Burns, Journal Marketing Executive at Liverpool University Press, shares an overview of Trailblazers, an initiative that sees ECRs publish their first monographs open access, and benefit from in-depth training about the publishing process.

This month marks one year since the launch of ‘Knowing me, Knowing UKSG: Scholarly Comms Journeys’, a podcast series for the scholarly communications sector. In this latest episode, Katherine Stephan speaks to Dr. Sabina Alam, Director of Publishing Ethics and Integrity at Taylor & Francis Group. Sabina discusses her route from research into publishing, the complexity and challenges of research integrity and the advantages of working together to combat fraudulent publishing.

There’s so much information (and misinformation) related to AI. How can colleagues working in the scholarly communications sector keep up to date with AI and improve their digital skills? UKSG eNews co-editor Tom Morley sat down with Andy Holgate, Digital Skills Developer at Lancaster University, to discuss AI and the future of digital skills within the sector.

Fraudulent papermill articles harm research. They erode trust in the scholarly literature, which should lay the foundation of knowledge. Nonsensical articles can be used in training data for AI models, and researchers waste resources differentiating between real and fake articles, or even worse, use fake research in their own work. One necessary solution is to identify and retract these articles.

One of the many things I love about our sector is that it’s continuously evolving. For me, keeping pace means more than staying up to date with current trends and drivers – it’s about active engagement, collaboration, and being open to different perspectives. The 2024 UKSG Conference and Exhibition, taking place in the culturally rich and vibrant city of Glasgow, promises dynamic discussions, networking, and exploration of the latest developments, challenges and opportunities facing our knowledge community.

In today's digital landscape, data reigns supreme, wielding unparalleled influence over our lives throughout our day, informing our perspectives, shaping our choices, and driving decision making. In a world awash with big data, the need for Data Literacy support has never been more critical.