Association Insight International & European Association Insights Spring 2015 | Page 23

Expert Briefing | Association Insights

Tech trends
In April, the International Association of STM Publishers
released a report, compiled from discussions with leaders
from 26 publishing organisations, on the top 2015 Tech
Trends: data, reputation management, and the “hub and
spoke” model5.
Data publishing refers to the emergence of research
data as a bona fide research output, bringing with it the
complexities of connecting data with other research
outputs, measuring the contribution that data makes to
research impact, and maintaining and preserving that data
safely as part of the research record.
Reputation management refers to the role that publishing
impact plays in research assessment, institutional funding,
and hence in the careers of researchers (and society
members). Tech solutions that impact here will deploy
features for researchers at the article level. Startups Kudos6
and Altmetric7, both working with Wiley, are developing
solutions. And industry-wide initiatives like ORCiD will be
foundational8.

While all around us in the publishing world seems to be
changing, members (and future members) continue to
place great value in their society’s publishing program.

Millennials
1980 - 2000
Represent 31% of total survey respondents.

Millennials have grown up surrounded by digital media. They
prefer to communicate by email, texting and social messaging
instead of making a phone call or sending a letter.
Millennials are most likely to not join a society because they have
never been asked.

So what’s a society to do? Four
recommendations
Maybe Joe Esposito is right when he says “Professional
societies have a tough slog ahead”12. The economics of
publishing are shifting, and demand our attention. Tech
trends repeatedly add complexity,risk exposure to falsestarts, and always require investments. Yet members
continue to most value their society’s publishing program.
While the here-and-now keeps our feet on the ground, the
future beckons.
Deni Auclair makes four recommendations that provide
leaders of societies with a way to chart their course1. Here
are the headlines.
1. F
 irst, know where you’re heading. Plan your publishing
strategy. Set aside time, find the resources, and create
the team you need to make sure your strategy, and
plan,accommodates the publishing trends that matter for
your members.

The tech trend called “hub and spoke” is a mix of both
the above, where the article-of-recordis the center of a
complex web of professional networks and data, impact
measurements, media types (like video, software, datasets),
versions, press coverage, and more. ReadCube, another
partner for Wiley, may be a solution here9.

Communities and membership trends
Leaders of societies need to be ready to act when these
trends mean something for their communities. So what
do members think? 13,929 scholars and researchers, in
the responses they shared in the 2014 Wiley Membership
Survey,told us they put journals and magazines at #1 and
#3 in their top 5 society benefits, alongside continuing
education, standards, and conferences10. What’s more,
non-members (or, perhaps, future members) told us they
rank journals and magazines similarly: #2 and #3 in the
top 5, along with continuing education, expert advice, and
leadership experience. Even through a generational lens,
journals and magazines rank well. 31% of our responses
were from people born