The London Book Fair 2022: Scholarly publishing innovation in the digital age
The London Book Fair hosted a grand return to face-to-face events for the publishing community at London Olympia earlier this month. F1000’s Strategic Partnership Manager, Becky Hill, joined Nicola Parkin, Taylor & Francis’ Director of Book Editorial Services, to examine how we are working together to transition to open scholarship in the world of books and monographs. In this blog we spoke to Becky Hill about the collaborative partnership between F1000 and Taylor & Francis, and how this has led to digital innovation and the development of the unique book publishing concept, Open Plus Books.
Driving the future of scholarly publishing
Our partnership with Taylor & Francis is one which connects heritage with innovation; we both share the goal of transforming research communication workflows across all disciplines, to speed up research and to provide mechanisms that enable (and indeed encourage) researchers to rapidly communicate and debate all types of discoveries, regardless of format or perceived impact. Alongside this, there is a shared aim to champion openness and transparency to deliver knowledge to the benefit of all.
When F1000 launched its first open research publishing platform, F1000Research, in 2013, it presented a completely new model of publication, combining ‘pre-printing’ with the quality assurance of rigorous editorial checks, FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable) data and invited open peer review. This model provides authors with autonomy throughout the publishing process and provides readers with direct access to the peer review reports and comments from the scholarly community. F1000Research also uniquely offered researchers the option to publish a wide range of peer reviewed and non-peer reviewed article types beyond the traditional Research Article, such as Data Notes and Method Articles, to further support the reproducibility and discoverability of research outputs.
The vision behind F1000 has been to develop approaches to scholarly publishing that better support the needs of today’s researchers in communicating their findings, regardless of output format. When we launched F1000Research, it presented a fantastic opportunity to re-think article-based formats, but our long-held ambition has been to apply similar thinking to other formats, including books and monographs. Our collaboration with Taylor & Francis has now made it possible to partner with experts in scholarly book publishing; Routledge and CRC Press provided an excellent opportunity to apply our open research expertise and technology to re-think the benefits books can provide to authors, funders and the research community.
Open Plus Books: Evolving knowledge for research communities
In a world where knowledge is constantly evolving and applied to disciplines where policy, codes, or standards frequently change, the ability to re-version, update, and publish iteratively using F1000’s open research publishing model has afforded an exciting opportunity to re-evaluate and shift the boundaries of what is considered to be a book, from something that is static and rarely updated to a model that is rapid and dynamic.
As a result, a new book publishing initiative has been born, which fuses Taylor & Francis’ traditional print and open access books publishing model with F1000’s trailblazing open research publishing model. This new concept, known as Open Plus Books, enables authors – or book editors – to publish a book or a single chapter open access first, on the open research platform within just a few days of submission, where it can be amended, updated, and extended before the book is published in print.
The features and benefits of Open Plus Books:
Open first: Each chapter is a standalone piece, enabling chapters to be published as soon as they are accepted. There is no need to wait for all chapters in a book to be delivered, which is perfect for edited books where some chapters are delivered before others.
Rapid route to publication: Chapters have the same features and benefits as research articles and other content currently published on F1000’s own open research publishing platforms.
Interactive figures: Where applicable, chapters should include underlying data and interactive figures, enabling visualization, interaction, reanalysis, replication, and reuse. This reduces barriers to collaborative research and supports authors receiving credit for their contributions.
Dynamic and updateable: The book is no longer a static publication; instead, it is iterated and evolving. Authors and book editors can include additional chapters at any time to reflect developments in research, thinking, and knowledge.
Flexible: Authors, not publishers, decide when they want to make updates or amendments, and when they want the book published in print. Further updates can be included in later editions of the print and open access book.
When the author or book editor has finished updating or amending their chapters and is happy to proceed, a copy of the chapters are passed to our Books Production team, who prepare the book for publication in print format and as an open access e-book, either under the Routledge or CRC Press imprints.
Digital innovation in scholarly publishing: Routledge Open Research
Open Plus Books are published on F1000 open research publishing Platforms, such as F1000Research and Gates Open Research, and will soon form a key feature of our latest open research publishing Platform, Routledge Open Research. This new publishing venue is the world’s first open research publishing Platform specifically for the arts, humanities and social sciences (HSS) community that combines books, articles, and other research outputs in one interdisciplinary venue.
Routledge Open Research utilizes the publishing model, technology and knowledge pioneered by F1000 to provide HSS scholars with a rapid and transparent publishing venue, whilst also giving authors the opportunity to increase the discoverability, accessibility and reach of their research. The launch of Routledge Open Research and Open Plus Books is a considered leap taken within the digital landscape of today, towards a more progressive and open future for scholarly publishing where researchers are empowered, and the scientific community are engaged in scientific innovation.
A key development in this area is a set of tailored Open Data and Accessible Source Material guidelines, which are the first dedicated HSS open data guidelines developed by any publisher thus far These guidelines relate to the Routledge Open Research policy on data availability, which requires all authors to share the underlying data which relates to their article. These go hand in hand with the addition of interactive data and reporting of underlying figures within Open Plus Books, coming to Routledge Open Research by the end of 2022.
With such exciting initiatives, and the fantastic partnerships we have, we want to continue to set standards and processes that maximize the interoperability of research outputs and support researchers and those beyond academia to better make use of the knowledge to help solve the challenges faced by humanity. Find out more about our publishing services.