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This paper is based upon a lightening talk that was given on February 14, 2023 at the 2023 NISO Plus conference. The presentation described the research for the creation of a white paper on the use of blockchain technology along the scientific research workflow that will be released in early 2024 by the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC). What the three-year study found is that the technology is indeed being used in almost all the steps in the scientific research workflow - from hypothesis development through to publication - by commercial organizations as well as by non-profits and across all market sectors, even governments. For example, the U.S Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) uses blockchain technology in a pilot program, the Grant-recipient Digital Dossier (GDD), to manage their grant program more efficiently. As of July 2021, GDD had reduced the time required to complete grant assessment tasks from four-plus-hours to a fifteen-minute process. This paper briefly summarizes the findings, discusses the pros/cons of the technology, and provides a glimpse of how the technology is impacting the future of scientific research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper offers an overview of some of the highlights of the 2023 NISO Plus Annual Conference that was held virtually from February 14–February 16, 2023. This was the fourth such conference and the third to be held in a completely virtual format due to the global impact of COVID-19. These conferences have resulted from the merger of NISO and the National Federation of Abstracting and Information Services (NFAIS) in June 2019, replacing the NFAIS Annual Conferences and offering a new, more interactive format. As with prior years, there was no general topical theme (although the importance of metadata was a common thread throughout), but there were topics of interest for everyone working in the information ecosystem - from the practical subjects of standards, archiving, digital preservation, Open Science, and Open Access. With speakers and attendees from around the world and across multiple time zones and continents, it truly was a global conversation! [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper offers an overview of some of the highlights of the 2024 NISO Plus Baltimore Conference that was held February 13–February 14, 2024. While this was the fifth such conference, it was the first to be held in-person since 2020 as the following three were held in a completely virtual format due to the global impact of COVID-19. These conferences have emerged from the merger of NISO and the National Federation of Abstracting and Information Services (NFAIS) in June 2019, replacing the NFAIS Annual Conferences and offering a new, more interactive format. The ultimate goal of the NISO Plus conferences is to have a discussion, identify information industry problems and, with the collective wisdom of the speakers and audience who are representative of the information industry stakeholders, generate potential solutions that NISO or others can develop. As with prior years, there was no general topical theme (although the impact of Artificial Intelligence was a common thread throughout), but there were topics of interest for everyone working in the information ecosystem—from the practical subjects of persistent identifiers, standards, metadata, data sharing, Open Science, and Open Access to the potential future impact of Artificial Intelligence and Machine learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper offers an overview of some of the highlights of the 2022 NISO Plus Annual Conference that was held virtually from February 15 - February 18, 2022. This was the third such conference and the second to be held in a completely virtual format due to the Pandemic. These conferences have resulted from the merger of NISO and the National Federation of Abstracting and Information Services (NFAIS) in June 2019, replacing the NFAIS Annual Conferences and offering a new, more interactive format. As with last year, there was no general topical theme, but there were topics of interest for everyone working in the information ecosystem - from the practical subjects of standards and metadata quality to preprints, Wikidata, archiving and digital preservation, Open Science and Open Access, and ultimately Globalization of the Information Infrastructure, the Metaverse, and Visions of the Future. With speakers and attendees from around the world and across multiple time zones and continents, it truly was a global conversation! [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is based upon the closing keynote presentation that was given by danah boyd at the inaugural NISO Plus conference held from February 23–25, 2020 in Baltimore, MD (USA). It focuses on how data are used, and how they can be manipulated to meet specific objectives – both good and bad. The paper reinforces the importance of understanding the biases and limitations of any data set. Topics covered include data quality, data voids, data infrastructures, alternative facts, and agnotology. The paper stresses that data become legitimate because we collectively believe that those data are sound, valid, and fit for use. This not only means that there is power in collecting and disseminating data, but also that there is power in interpreting and manipulating the data. The struggle over data's legitimacy says more about our society – and our values – than it says about the data itself. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is based upon presentations given at the inaugural 2020 NISO Plus Conference that was held February 23–25, 2020 in Baltimore, MD, USA. It provides an overview of the National Information Standards Organization (NISO) - who it is, how it is structured, what it does, how it does it, and who it serves. It also provides information on how NISO Members and non-Members alike can participate in NISO's many global activities – activities that fill a major role in ensuring that the information community runs as smoothly and efficiently as possible. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides a general introduction to the SeamlessAccess (SA) initiative, covering the following four topics: Why are we here? A recap of why was SA created and the history of this initiative to date; How does it work? A walk through how Federated Authentication and SA work, so you are familiar with some of the technical terms and we can build on that knowledge when we address privacy and security; What is the current status? An update on the status of this initiative; How do I participate? Information on how you can participate to deliver more seamless access to your users. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is in part about digital humanities projects and the metadata that supports them. It is also a call for project creators, publishers, aggregators, and professionals working on metadata and standards to start a conversation about how to incorporate digital humanities projects into the scholarly communications lifecycle in spaces where books and journal articles have dominated for decades. It begins this conversation by analyzing benefits and challenges of the metadata contributed to two projects - Preserve the Baltimore Uprising and The Six Degrees of Francis Bacon - and two platforms - Zooniverse and Mukurtu Content Management System. It proposes a couple of key pieces of metadata around which to build a standard for integrating digital humanities projects into publication. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is based upon the 2020 Miles Conrad Award Lecture that was given by James G. Neal at the inaugural NISO Plus conference held from February 23–25, 2020 in Baltimore, MD (USA). The lecture provided a brief look back at some of the key information industry challenges of the past four decades, but more importantly it highlighted the challenges facing the community today such as the democratization of creativity; the born-digital explosion; policy chaos including privacy, market monopoly, global intellectual property, and intellectual freedom; the challenges of diversity, equity, and inclusion; and human-machine symbiosis and blended reality. The lecture lists five commandments to which all stakeholders in the Information Community need to adhere in order to be successful moving forward together: (1) Thou shall preserve the cultural and scientific record; (2) Thou shall fight the information policy wars; (3) Thou shall be supportive of the needs of your users and your readers; (4)Thou shall cooperate in new and more rigorous ways; and (5) Thou shall work together to improve knowledge creation, evaluation, distribution, use, and preservation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is based upon a session on privacy that was held during the inaugural NISO+ conference that was held February 23–25, 2020 in Baltimore, MD. It briefly describes the six types of privacy put forth by Daniel Solove in his book, Understanding Privacy, and the professional standards held by librarians to ensure that their patrons can access and consume information with little or no observation. It also offers some helpful suggestions for librarians to consider as they work to secure privacy and confidentiality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

At its most basic, digital preservation comprises a series of risks, and strategies to mitigate them. And no matter the scale or type of collections, whether born-digital, digitized, or both, the same challenges and risks apply and similar strategies can be employed. This paper identifies a series of common challenges and potential strategies that can be put in place no matter the type or size of collection or collecting organization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides a brief history of the Vanderbilt Television News Archive that was established in 1968 with the goal of recording and preserving national news programming on the three major networks at the time (ABC, NBC, and CBS). The archive has faced several challenges as it evolved (it now covers representative news from the Fox and CNN cable networks) - most notably financial and legal issues – who really "owns" the news? Even today archiving digital news remains financially and legally challenged as the number of news networks increase and privacy laws emerge, resulting in the creation of "piracy archives". The author also touches on the many ongoing issues that need to be addressed; e.g. the number of copies to be created, the importance of metadata, the technical requirements, what qualifies for preservation, and the ever-present issue of sustainability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As open access to research information grows and publisher business models adapt accordingly, knowledge infrastructure has become the new frontier for advocates of open science. This paper argues that the time has come for universities and other knowledge institutions to assume a larger role in mitigating the risks that arise from ongoing consolidation in research infrastructure, including the privatization of community platforms, commercial control of analytics solutions, and other market-driven trends in scientific and scholarly publishing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The inaugural NISO Plus conference took place in Baltimore, MD on February 23-25, 2020. This report summarizes the outputs from NISO Plus 2020 and provides a clear set of actions for NISO as well as recommendations for other organizations and the wider information community. As a community-led organization, anyone is welcome to submit ideas for new NISO standards and recommended practices, typically using the NISO "Work Item Template" (included here as Appendix C). Appendix C. NISO work item template B NISO Proposed Work Item Template b This document will help you to organize information about a proposed project and to get feedback from the NISO Topic Committee, NISO membership and the community. [Extracted from the article]

During the inaugural 2020 NISO Plus Conference that was held from February 23–25, 2020 in Baltimore, MD, several "Ask the Expert" sessions were scheduled so that attendees could have access to experienced information industry executives who could address questions on a variety of topics. This brief paper is based upon the session on the topic of the preservation of scholarly information featuring Stephanie Orphan, Director of Publisher Relations at Portico and Craig Van Dyck, Executive Director of the CLOCKSS Archive. The experts first fielded questions from the moderator, Wendy Queen, Director of Project Muse, who asked about preservation challenges, the role that scholars should play in having their works preserved, the preservation of outputs from thought-leadership conferences such as NISO Plus, standards across publishing that create a burden for preservation, etc. In the remaining time they answered questions from the audience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Large-scale pandemic events have sent scientific communities scrambling to gather and analyze data to provide governments and policy makers with information to inform decisions and policies needed when imperfect information is all that may be available. Historical records from the 1918 influenza pandemic reflect how little improvement has been made in how government and policy responses are formed when large scale threats occur, such as the COVID-19 pandemic. This commentary discusses three examples of how metadata improvements are being, or may be made, to facilitate gathering and assessment of data to better understand complex and dynamic situations. In particular, metadata strategies can be applied in advance, on the fly or even after events to integrate and enrich perspectives that aid in creating balanced actions to minimize impacts with lowered risk of unintended consequences. Metadata can enhance scope, speed and clarity with which scholarly communities can curate their outputs for optimal discovery and reuse. Conclusions are framed within the Metadata 2020 working group activities that lay a foundation for advancement of scholarly communications to better serve all communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is based upon a panel discussion that took place after James G. Neal gave his 2020 Miles Conrad Award address during the inaugural NISO Plus conference that was held in Baltimore, MD (USA) from February 23–25, 2020. The discussion was a thoughtful conversation among three information industry leaders - Neal, Deanna Marcum, and Todd Carpenter - that touched upon many of the issues that continue to swirl within the information community today, such as information literacy, information access, policy awareness and advocacy, digital preservation, collaborative initiatives, diversity, information access and control, etc. There were no clear solutions to the issues, but there was general agreement that the future success of all stakeholders requires that we identify those things where we have common interests and common concerns and build the capacity for legal, legislative, and policy advocacy that will allow all stakeholders to be players not only in their communities, but also, and perhaps even more importantly, in Washington, D.C. and in international venues where global information policies are being set. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

3D representations are a new form of information that when coupled with new technology tools, like VR, AR, MR, 3D scanning/printing, and more, offer new support and opportunities for research and pedagogy, often with dramatic leaps in capabilities and results. When combined with a pandemic, the results can be even more dramatic and valued in a variety of collaborative and higher education applications. However, as with any new technology and tools, there also can be sizable challenges that result and will need to be addressed. These include accessibility, 3D object creation, hardware capabilities, storage, and organizing tools. All represent areas where the community of users and their standards organizations, like NISO, need to move aggressively to develop best practices, guidelines, and standards to ensure these new forms of data and technology tools are widely-accessible. This paper provides a high-level overview to introduce people to the new information form, associated technologies, and their challenges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper offers an overview of the highlights of the NFAIS Conference, Artificial Intelligence: Finding Its Place in Research, Discovery, and Scholarly Publishing, that was held in Alexandria, VA from May 15–16, 2019. The goal of this conference was to explore the application and implication of Artificial Intelligence (AI) across all sectors of scholarship. Topics covered were, among others: the amount of data, computing power, and the technical infrastructure required for AI and Machine Learning (ML) processes; the challenges to building effective AI and ML models; how publishers are using AI and ML in order to improve discovery and the overall user search experience; what libraries and universities are doing to foster an awareness of AI in higher education; and an actual case study of using AI and ML in the development of a recommendation engine. There was something for everyone. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The science and technology (S&T) cycle starts with Congress identifying areas that demand scientific advancements. The cycle continues with funding agencies distributing funds to researchers to investigate and advance these areas. These novel advancements are then reported in scholarly publications. Scientific advancements are ultimately expected to be converted into wealth, promoting economic activity, and benefiting society. It is not, however, guaranteed that the desired advances targeted by Congress are met. Scholarly publications encompass valuable knowledge about many aspects of the S&T cycle and may retain the key to many unanswered questions and support multiple, yet unoffered, services to users. Because of the data deluge, it has become necessary to rely on automated decision-making agents based on artificial intelligence (AI) methods to make decisions. This article introduces AI and proposes to relieve highly-specialized human experts from the position of decision makers and shift them to become managers of automated decision-making agents that can handle the data volume. This article will lay out research directions, technical challenges, and the benefits of applying AI in various steps of the S&T cycle. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is based upon a presentation given at the NFAIS conference on Artificial Intelligence that was held May 15–16, 2019 in Alexandria, VA, USA. In it, the author describes how ProQuest used AWS SageMaker to build a content recommendation system. SageMaker is a product from Amazon Web Services (AWS) that brings machine learning capabilities to a broad audience. Out-of-the-box algorithms can be deployed by users who are not career data scientists. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is based upon a presentation given at the NFAIS conference on Artificial Intelligence that was held May 15–16, 2019 in Alexandria, VA, USA. In it the author discusses real world examples of companies that are deploying machine learning and artificial intelligence technology, the goal of which is to empower the readers with information that will allow them to begin work on AI projects in their respective organizations immediately. Various open source tools and strategies for funding AI projects are also discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

TrendMD's recommendation engine uses Artificial Intelligence (AI) to connect ideas, subjects, and people. We help researchers discover new content related to their interests, within the context of their research workflow. Publishers use our service to grow their website traffic, build readership, find new users, and increase citations. With libraries reducing budgets for subscriptions amid greater availability of open access content, publishers are under greater pressure than ever to grow their audience and ensure that their content is finding its way to users who will value it the most. This paper includes research and case studies that demonstrate how TrendMD is helping publishers achieve their goals through enhanced discovery. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is an adaptation of presentation given by the author at the NFAIS Conference on Artificial Intelligence that was held in Alexandria, VA from May 15–16, 2019. It provides an overview on the need for increased Artificial Intelligence (AI) usage in scholarly communications for both information providers and the research community. It also includes an introduction to how Elsevier transitioned from print to electronic to information solutions (P – E – S) and how some of its tools employ AI. In addition, it covers two case studies showcasing how Elsevier incorporated Machine Learning (ML) and Natural Language Processing (NLP) to create two technological and data-based solutions for researchers, as well as a summary of the solutions' positive outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The world is rapidly changing driven by the rise of data and Artificial Intelligence (AI). Many industries are facing wholesale change. Customers now expect tailored, digital solutions and personalized insights delivered at the point of need - and structural transformation is simmering as a result. This paper looks at the sea change and opportunities in the academic publishing sector. Driven by technology and changes in user experience, publishers need to harness technologies such as AI to help them evolve from being traditional content providers to data-driven product companies. Data is at the heart of everything. Increasing their data maturity will fuel innovation and power the transformed products and services that customers demand going forward. As part of this feature 67 Bricks will also introduce the Product Development Data Maturity model for scholarly publishers to help plot a course from where they are now to where they need to be to survive. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Neural networks can be used to fit complex models to high dimensional data. High dimensionality often obscures the fact that the model overfits the data and it often arises in the publication industry because we are usually interested in a large number of concepts; for example, a moderate thesaurus will contain thousands of concepts. In addition, the discovery of ideas, sentiments, tendencies, and context requires that our modelling algorithms be aware of many different features such as the words themselves, length of sentences (and paragraphs), word frequency counts, phrases, punctuation, number of references, and links. Overfitting can be counterbalanced by Regularization, but the latter can also cause problems. This paper attempts to clarify the concepts of "overfitting" and "regularization" using two-dimensional graphs that demonstrate over fitting and how regularization can force a smoother fit to noisy data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reports on the findings on the open science attitudes and behaviours of early career researchers (ECRs) from the Harbingers research project, which sought to determine whether they are the agents of change when it comes to scholarly communications. Nearly 120 science and social science researchers from 7 countries were questioned, longitudinally over a period of three years. The ECR findings are run against the received wisdom on open science emanating from relevant European Union institutions and funders and it was found that some confusion reigns and that there is a significant disconnect between what the institutions promulgate and what ECRs say and do, and, this, is largely because of reputational concerns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Due to the ever-increasing presence of artificial intelligence (AI), an environmental scan on academic libraries engagement with AI was conducted. The authors reviewed scholarly articles, university libraries' strategic plans, and library programming to determine if any reference to AI was being made and in what context. Top research universities in the United States and Canada were considered. The primary goal was to discover what role the librarian will play in an AI-dominant future, as well as how libraries are responding to this change. Findings indicated a lack of response or awareness to the current AI trend, though a small number of institutions were found to be participating in or creating their own AI hubs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper gives a brief timeline of the evolution of the field of Artificial Intelligence (AI), a field that is currently generating approximately sixty thousand research papers per year. This represents a 12.9% growth in output over the past five years, and is markedly higher than the growth seen across all research, which has grown at a rate of 2.3% per year in the same period. AI research is of interest around the world and this paper highlights many of the activities undertaken to stimulate this research in the USA, Canada, Mexico, Europe, and Asia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Libraries have adapted and are continuing to adapt to the rapidly changing information and data needs of the communities they support. The following paper presents the evolution of Virginia Tech University Libraries, with special attention given to program and service developments in data and information science. The author describes leadership strategies for advancing services, shares stories about developing sustainable, human-centered, and technology-enhanced service infrastructures, and paints a picture of aspirations to enable individuals' success through active campus engagement. The paper will end with an overview of challenges and opportunities for future collaboration within higher education and beyond. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scholarly communication processes, workflows, and the systems supporting this activity are continually being modified and refined by the myriad participants in this ecosystem. Whether change brings "improvement" is in the eye of the beholder, where that determination varies greatly depending on vantage point and organizational affiliation. For an industry that has evolved over decades, there is no shortage of thought leaders and innovators who have left their marks on how science and scholarship are created, communicated, shared, and distributed. Past innovators have invented technologies, built applications and systems, influenced processes, and applied new business models, all of which provide a fertile foundation from which innovators today may embark to affect meaningful and lasting change. This paper focuses on innovation happening around how blockchain technology, born of cryptocurrency fame, is emerging as a credible change agent for research information broadly and for scholarly publishing. Specifically, we address the promise of this technology for advancing the vision of one innovator in particular, Eugene Garfield, to enable researchers to receive acknowledgement, recognition and formal citation credit for all of their creative works. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Medical Informatics and Health Sciences Library communities have lost a true pioneer with the passing of Donald A.B. Lindberg, MD. Citing Dr. Marshall's success, Dr. Lindberg said in a 2007 lecture: "I tell this to my medical students, that there are still important discoveries to be made, library-based discovery". "Don was incredibly well read, in medicine and beyond", Dr. Francis S. Collins, director of the N.I.H., and Dr. Patricia F. Brennan, who succeeded Dr. Lindberg as director of the library, said in a tribute after his death. [Extracted from the article]

This paper presents the Association of Research Libraries (ARL) role as a collaborative partner to positively impact research and learning in a dynamic research enterprise within a society in flux. It highlights the Association's priorities and institutional member practices that advance open scholarship; diversity, equity, and inclusion; and the adoption of outcome and impact research and analyses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]