Just the Start of the Conversation: Digital Science Publisher Day

Digital Science held its annual Publisher Day event in Washington DC in late April. The purpose of Publisher Day is to invite our customers to come and speak about how one or more of the Digital Science portfolio companies has helped them as a publisher, usually through a case study or project summary. We also heard from the teams at ReadCube, figshare, Overleaf, ÜberResearch, Altmetric, and the Digital Science Consultancy. Each of these were able to present their strategy, roadmap, and new capabilities.

One of the goals of Publisher Day is to foster the involvement of early career employees in publishing. Digital Science extended special invitations to a number of these folks who may not normally get to attend industry events and contribute to the greater research publishing community. These attendees also were able to have their own session at the end of the day where they had a chance to offer thoughts on what they had learned, and what they had been able to add to the shared knowledge during the day.

A prominent highlight came from the portion of the agenda that focused on ÜberResearch’s Dimensions platform. Dimensions is, at its core, a database of research grant information. It is a comprehensive dataset of more than 3 million awarded grants representing in excess of $1.1 trillion of research funding. More than that, the data is optimized and enhanced so that it can be used in many functions for a publisher. From highlighting trends that help inform editorial and acquisition strategy to showing sales teams which areas target institutions are investing in, the Dimensions platform provides unique insight through actionable data across all facets of publishing.

The Dimensions case study at Publisher Day showed how a need could be addressed by this data, and deployed in a way that was specifically meaningful to a publisher, in this case IOS Press. IOS Press has integrated Dimensions data into their websites as a Funding Analyzer tool for a number of journals, including the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease, Bladder Cancer, and the Journal of Parkinson’s Disease.

These Funding Analyzers are available so that members of the research community can access the data and visualization tool for that specific category of research, helping them gather insights and inform their understanding of the funding landscape in those disciplines.

The feedback from IOS Press, clearly articulated as part of this case study presentation, was that the deployment of the Funding Analyzer has been instrumental in adding tangible value to the organization’s web initiatives and driving traffic.

In addition to the Funding Analyzers, IOS Press journals have received highly-favorable feedback from their readership for various bibliometric analyses conducted by Aaron Sorensen of the Digital Science consulting group including Alzheimer’s Disease Research: Scientific Productivity and Impact of the Top 100 Investigators in the Field, The top 100 cited cholesterol papers, and Top Altmetric Scores in the Parkinson’s Disease Literature.

At the end of the day, Digital Science customers across the portfolio gathered to learn, provide feedback, and join together in helping research publishing grow and innovate together. We closed the session with a cocktail reception and all of the presentations from the day were just the start of the conversation between Digital Science and the publishing community.