AI in Academic Publishing: Why a survey?
You can access the survey here.
How is AI being used by academic publishers? Is this technology now accepted as a supplement to or a replacement for human decision-making? Can AI reduce the time to publication for articles, without reducing quality? Questions such as these are of interest to everyone in the academic community – in fact they form the theme of this year’s ISMTE Conferences in Washington DC and Oxford; UNSILO is speaking at both events. That’s why we decided to carry out a survey of academic publishers, academics, and librarians. The survey (closing date: 30 September 2019) explores attitudes to the use of AI, and the extent of take-up of AI tools in the academic publishing workflow. Respondents include authors, publishers, librarians, and others involved in academic publishing. We hope to indicate some demographics on take-up and attitudes through the results, which will be presented at this year’s Frankfurt Book Fair, in the Academic Publishing theatre in Hall 4.2 (15:00 – 17:00). David Worlock will chair two panel sessions to present the results and to discuss some aspects of them. The panellists will be representatives from across the publishing spectrum.
Among the questions the survey raises are:
- Where is AI currently being used in the publishing workflow?
- Which types of AI are in being used?
- Which factors are holding back the adoption of AI?
- What level of expertise in AI and machine learning do users need to have?
- How to deal with problems of bias and ethical issues
- Does AI require taxonomies or can it reduce the need for them?
- Will we all lose our jobs as AI is adopted?
These issues, and others, will be discussed at the panel session. There is no need to book – just come along. The sessions are for everybody involved in academic publishing, whatever their technical knowledge (or lack of it).
